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
