Time: September 30th, 10:00-16:00
Place: Scandic Hotel Rosendahl, Tampere, FINLAND
Fee: 100 € (+ VAT 22%) registration has ended.

Working with Social Networks

Social Network Analysis (SNA) focuses on patterns of relations between and among people, organisations, states and other actors. The main target of analysis is to describe network actor relations as fully as possible and, moreover, find the prominent patterns in such networks. Modelling social networks in terms of SNA theory can be used to discover the effects of network structure and relations on actors. The quantitative methods of SNA are utilised to support  qualitative research methods e.g. when tracing the information flows between network actors and analysing the transferred information itself.

SNA is gaining popularity in analysing human-human interactions in online communities (discussion boards, newsgroups, virtual organisations, social network services and sites). In this workshop, an overview of this analysis technique is provided as well as demonstrations on how it can be used in Web community research and development. The main concern of the workshop is the study of individual Web based social networking sites, but the methods presented can also be adapted for a research of large open socio-ecosystems, networking websites and virtual worlds. Case studies for using SNA are presented during the workshop.

Moreover, an overview of mixed methods approach as a research strategy is given. Combining both qualitative and quantitative methods of research can produce a much more enriched understanding of the Web community. For example, the quantitative methods like SNA can be used to confirm or disconfirm relationships between actors (people) in the network under study. The qualitative methods, for one, may assist the researcher in providing explanations for existing relationships. Also, SNA can be used to identify interesting informants within a community. After this, qualitative approaches such as interviews of informants or analysis of attribute data (individual qualities of informants) can be used to develop a broader understanding of a community organising.  In the workshop, a specific tutorial of SNA method and related tools is offered for the attendees.

The tutorial covers the following themes:

• Introduction to the processing of SNA data on basis of the network action and log data.
• Review of the most common SNA data input formats.
• Presentation of useful quantitative SNA figures and visualisations for more advanced network analysis and research.
• Basic network analysis done with the popular freeware SNA software Pajek.

 After the workshop attendees:

• are able to understand the basics of social network analysis,  its terminology and background
• know how to transform log data representing user activity in a community to network data (sociomatrix, graph)
• know practically how SNA can be applied to Web community analysis
• are familiar with the use of standard SNA tools and software
• are able to derive practical and useful information through SNA analysis that would help to design an innovative and successful online community.

    Program

    Wed 30.9.2009, 10-16

Organized by

Hypermedia Laboratory,Tampere University of Technology (TUT)

&

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Finland office

About W3C

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies
(specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its
full potential. W3C is a forum for information, commerce, communication,
and collective understanding.

W3C standards build the enabling foundation for many kinds of existing and
new Webised applications. Also several emerging application areas are
being investigated for further standardisation. In particular, the mission
of the W3C (Social Web Incubator Group) is to understand the systems and
technologies that permit the description and identification of people,
groups, organizations, and user-generated content in extensible and
privacy-respecting ways.