NodeXL

Network overview, discovery and exploration for

Microsoft Excel 2007

http://www.codeplex.com/nodexl
Dan Fay (MSR Redmond) Cody Dunne (U Maryland) Marc Smith (Telligent) Vladimir Barash (MSR Silicon Valley/Cornell) Tony Capone (MSR Redmond) Natasa Milic-Frayling (MSR Cambridge) Eduarda Mendes Rodrigues (MSR Cambridge) Eric Gleave (U Washington) Adam Perer (U Maryland) Ben Shneiderman (U Maryland)

Problem: No network chart in Excel

NodeXL: Network analysis and visualization tool

Cyclic Graph data structures have limited support in existing Office tools Network analysis is of growing importance in academic, commercial, and Internet social media contexts Existing network analysis tools have command line interfaces or demand steep learning curves Many network data sets already live in Excel!

NodeXL: Goal: Make SNA easier

Existing Social Network Tools are challenging for many novice users Tools like Excel are widely used Leveraging a spreadsheet as a host for SNA lowers barriers to network data analysis and display

Social Network Analysis Toolkit

Tools to support the study of the social network structure social media and other network structures

Sociologist What are the structures of communication in scientific discussions?

User Experience
Information Visualization
What are the best UI/UX workflows for network analysis tools?

Computer Scientist
Algorithmicist for Social Network Measures
What are the measures and algorithms needed for understanding networks?

NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel Leverage spreadsheet for storage of edge and vertex data

NodeXL: Import data from multiple sources:

Multiple network spigots provide edge lists from several common sources and data formats.

NodeXL: Import edges from other spreadsheets

Map data columns from existing spreadsheets

NodeXL: Merge Duplicate Edges (if any)

Aggregate duplicate edges and add a Tie Strength Column to store the count of duplicates (edges could be from multiple time slices).

NodeXL: Calculate Network Analytics and Metrics

Starter library of basic network measures Users may unselect resource intensive measures

NodeXL: Insert network sub-graph images

Create egocentric networks for each node in the network Select number of degrees out to include

NodeXL: Display nodes sorted by network attributes using Excel

Data|Sort

NodeXL: Get reports of global network metrics

Metric Graph Type Unique Edges Edges With Duplicates Total Edges Self-Loops Vertices Graph Density

Value Directed 7,852 0 7,852 10 174 0.260514259

NodeXL: Display whole graph

Toggle display of whole graph display pane with Show/Hide Graph Pane

NodeXL: Create a new whole graph display

Select Read Workbook to load the graph into the Display Pane. The title Document Actions is imposed by Excel

NodeXL: Viewing the whole graph

NodeXL: Using Dynamic Filters to simplify the graph

Each data column (including dates) associated with an edge or vertex is exposed with a slider filter. Filtered nodes and edges turn gray or become invisible

NodeXL: Apply dynamic filters to the data

NodeXL: Map data to display attributes

Map Edge and Vertex attributes to size, width, color, opacity, and shape

NodeXL: Decorated Network Graphs

NodeXL: filtered, decorated, labeled networks

NodeXL: Clustered networks

NodeXL: Filtered clusters

NodeXL: Add URLS to Right-click menu of Nodes

NodeXL: Import social networks from email

NodeXL: Import social networks from email

NodeXL Next Steps

Enhanced layout controls
Smart selection of nodes

Clustering and composite nodes

Add/remove a node to/from a cluster Add/remove a node to/from a composite

Zoom and scale networks (in WPF) Add social network data sources:
Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Outlook, Messenger, etc.

NodeXL Partnerships and community

University of Maryland Northwestern University Ohio University Stanford University University of Pennsylvania

4,000 + downloads on Codeplex

NodeXL
Network overview, discovery and exploration for

Microsoft Excel 2007

http://www.codeplex.com/nodexl
Dan Fay (MSR Redmond) Cody Dunne (U Maryland) Marc Smith (Telligent) Vladimir Barash (MSR Silicon Valley/Cornell) Tony Capone (MSR Redmond) Natasa Milic-Frayling (MSR Cambridge) Eduarda Mendes Rodrigues (MSR Cambridge) Eric Gleave (U Washington) Adam Perer (U Maryland) Ben Shneiderman (U Maryland)

NodeXL: Project Network