CMU-ISRI-05-106
Institute for Software Research International
School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University



CMU-ISRI-05-106

An Automated Methodology for Conducting
a Social Network Study of a University Faculty

Terrill L. Frantz, Kathleen M. Carley, Jana Diesner

February 2005

Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems
CASOS Technical Report

CMU-ISRI-05-106.pdf

Keywords: Social network analysis, data collection, automation, collaboration network, knowledge network, metamatrix, metanetwork


This technical report describes the data-collection and analysis methodology used in a social network study of computer science faculty recently conducted at a top U.S. university. The study involved the construction of a social metanetwork that combines multiple dimensions of the faculty's knowledge, task, and collaborative networks. The process of collecting the source-data, then messaging the data for analysis was completely automated using custom computer software. This allowed for an entirely nonobtrusive data collection process and simplified and repeatable analytic tasks. In this report: we first introduce the metamatrix framework and discuss its utility as a tool for complex network-analysis; next, we describe the data collection methodology; then, we explain metamatrix construction process; and finally we present some closing remarks. This report does not discuss specific analysis or findings of the underlying research, which are regarded as being confidential.

16 pages


Return to: SCS Technical Report Collection
School of Computer Science homepage

This page maintained by reports@cs.cmu.edu