Section 3: Social Network Analyses Using R and Visualization Tools

• In Event: Social Network Analysis Workshop: A Complex Systems Approach to Examining Collaboration

Abstract

In the workshop, we will demonstrate some examples using the statnet package (Handcock, et al., 2008) and the bibliometrix package (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017) in R. We will demonstrate three examples: a large network of scientists working in a laboratory, a system of student mobility with in a school district, and a shared coauthorship network. Taken together, the findings will be oriented toward how individual behavior shapes collaborative, self-organizing group processes. The workshop will demonstrate how social network analysis metrics can be mapped onto collaborative forms of engagement, as well as how complex systems approaches to research can make valuable contributions to the engagement literature.

Participants will be actively involved in a short collaborative problem solving task at the beginning of the session. Then, complex systems and social network concepts will be introduced. Then will we showcase our three examples, with virtual demonstrations of each including data structure, R code, and visualizations of results. We have a clear plan for how to accomplish this in a 90 minute session. Participants will leave with a basic understanding of the theoretical, methodological, and analytic underpinnings of social network analysis. Participants will also discuss how to communicate the findings from social network results and discuss the meaning of results in conjunction with other commonly used analytic techniques in education.

Author

• Jonathan C. Hilpert, University of Nevada Las Vegas