| Member Profile : Marc A Smith |
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 | Contact Information | Address: -Map Me-
Marc A Smith
Social Media Research Foundation, Social Science Research
2617 Hallmark Drive
Belmont, CA, United States 94002
Phone : 425.241.9105
E-mail : marc@smrfoundation.org
Website : http://www.connectedaction.net/marc-smith
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| Bibliographic Information |
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| | | Software & Data | | Active Calendar Listings |
| NodeXL - Network overview, discovery and exploration add-in for Microsoft Excel 2007 | (Software) |
NodeXL is a pair of applications for viewing network graphs, along with a set of .NET Framework 2.0 class libraries that can be used to add network graphs to custom applications.
NodeXL was created by Marc Smith's team at while at Microsoft Research. Smith is now at Telligent Systems.
NodeXL Template
The easiest way to use NodeXL is to install the NodeXL Excel 2007 Template. With the template installed, you can enter network data into a template-based Excel 2007 workbook, then view the network graph within the workbook's window:
A simple two-column edge list is all that is required by the template, but a variety of optional columns can be used to customize the graph's appearance. These include edge color, width, and opacity; and vertex color, shape, radius, opacity, label, tooltip, and location.
Because you enter graph data in a familiar Excel workbook format, there is no need to learn a complex, arcane file format to display your graph. And because Excel 2007 is used as an application platform, the full power of Excel is available for filtering and computing vertex and edge data.
Layout Algorithms
By default, the Fruchterman-Reingold layout algorithm is used to lay out the graph's vertices, but a variety of additional layout algorithms are provided as well. You can repeatedly lay out either all of the graph's vertices or just a selected subset.
Graph Metrics
A number of graph metrics can be computed and inserted into the Excel 2007 workbook on demand, including vertex degree, betweenness centrality, and clustering coefficient. The graph metric framework is extensible and other metrics will likely be added in future releases.
Email Analysis
If you use Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, or a similar email client, and if you have Windows Desktop Search installed on your computer (it comes with Vista and can be installed separately on Windows XP), you can use the Excel 2007 template's \\"Analyze Email Network\\" Ribbon command to graph the network of people you communicate with via email.
Standalone Desktop Application
In addition to the Excel 2007 template, the source code includes a standalone desktop application for viewing network graphs. The application reads graph data from either a Pajek file or a simple edge-list text file. The degree of graph customization is much more limited in the desktop application than with the Excel 2007 template.
Class Libraries
The Excel 2007 template and the desktop application display graphs using a custom Windows Forms control that can also be used in other applications. In fact, the template is just a Visual Studio Tools for Office 3.0 wrapper around a stack of reusable, prebuilt class libraries.
The Windows Forms control is one of several graph \\"visualizers\\" that are packaged in a Microsoft.NodeXL.Visualization assembly. There is also a Microsoft.NodeXL.Adapters assembly for reading and writing graph data in various formats, a Microsoft.SocialNetworkLib assembly for analyzing social networks, and a Microsoft.NodeXL.Core assembly that implements the low-level vertex, edge, and graph classes. The framework for a Microsoft.NodeXL.Algorithms assembly is also provided, although most of the graph algorithms are still work items as of May 2008.
The class libraries are documented in a help file created with NDoc. Search for the NodeXLApi.chm file in the class libraries. |
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| Sunbelt XXIX - March 10 to March 15, 2009 - Bahia Hotel | | Abstract : NodeXL: A network overview, discovery and exploration add-in for Excel 2007 |
| This paper describes a network analysis toolkit that leverages the widely available Microsoft Excel 2007 spreadsheet application as a platform. By adding network graph as a chart type, the spreadsheet becomes an easy to use environment for exploring network structures. The component provides a wide range of controls for converting an edge list into a useful node link chart. The component also supports multiple data providers; for example, it can extract social network data from a users desktop e-mail as well as query Twitter without leaving the Excel environment. It creates a range of network visualization options and automatically calculates several network analysis metrics for nodes, edges, and the full network. By leveraging the popular and flexible data structure of the spreadsheet, this add-in provides an accessible, powerful, and easy to use network visualization and analysis tool. |
| Workshop : Using (Excel) .NetMap for Social Network Analysis (Excel) |
| .NetMap is an add-in for Office 2007 that provides social network diagram and analysis tools in the context of a spreadsheet. Adding the directed graph chart type to Excel opens up many possibilities for easily manipulating networks and controlling their display properties. In this tutorial the steps needed to install and operate (Excel) .NetMap are reviewed. The (Excel) .NetMap add-in provides directed graph charting features within Excel, allowing users to create node-link diagrams with control over each node and edge color, size, transparency and shape. Since .NetMap builds within Excel, all of the controls and programmatic features of Office are available. Additional features of (Excel) .NetMap generate social networks from data sources like personal e-mail (drawing data from the Windows Desktop Search engine). Arbitrary edge lists (anything that can be pasted into Excel) can be visualized and analyzed in .NetMap. This session will provide a walk through the basic operation of .NetMap. Attendees are encouraged to bring an edge list of interest. Sample data sets will be provided. To download the Excel .NetMap Add-in and slides, go to the following Web site: http://www.codeplex.com/netmap. |
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