Social network analysis software

Social network analysis software is used to identify, represent, analyze, visualize or simulate nodes (e.g. agents, organizations, or knowledge) and edges (relationships) from various types of input data (relational and non-relational), including mathematical models of social networks. The output data can be saved in external files. Various input and output file formats exist.

Network analysis tools allow researchers to investigate representations of networks of different size - from small (e.g. families, project teams) to very large (e.g. the Internet, disease transmission). The various tools provide mathematical and statistical routines that can be applied to the network model.

Visual representations of social networks are important to understand network data and convey the result of the analysis [http://www.cmu.edu/joss/content/articles/volume1/Freeman.html] . Visualization is often used as an additional or standalone data analysis method. With respect to visualization, network analysis tools are used to change the layout, colors, size and other properties of the network representation.

Some of the social network tools are:
* For scholarly research tools like "UCINet" [http://www.analytictech.com/ucinet/ucinet.htm] , "Pajek" [http://vlado.fmf.uni-lj.si/pub/networks/pajek/] , "ORA" [http://www.casos.cs.cmu.edu/projects/ora/] , the "statnet" [http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/statnet/] suite of packages in "R", and "GUESS" [http://graphexploration.cond.org/] are popular.
* Examples of business oriented social network tools include "InFlow" [http://www.orgnet.com/inflow3.html] , "Keyhubs" [http://www.keyhubs.com] , "NetMiner" [http://www.netminer.com/NetMiner/home_01.jsp] ] .
* An open source package with GUI for Linux, Windows and Mac, is "Social Networks Visualizer" or "SocNetV" [http://socnetv.sourceforge.net/] , developed in Qt/C++.
* Another generic open source package for Windows, Linux and OS X with interfaces to Python and R is "igraph" [http://cneurocvs.rmki.kfki.hu/igraph]
* For Mac OS X a related package installer of "SocNetV" [http://naranja.umh.es/~atg] is available.
* For integrated egocentric data collection and visualization [http://www.mdlogix.com/solutions/additional.html#row1 SocioMetrica]

A systematic overview and comparison of a selection of software packages for social network analysis was provided by Huisman and Van Duijn (see references or [http://stat.gamma.rug.nl/snijders/Software%20for%20Social%20Network%20Analysis%20CUP_ch13_Oct2003.pdf Draft(PDF)] ). A large list of software packages and libraries can be found under [http://www.insna.org/INSNA/soft_inf.html Computer Programs for Social Network Analysis] , maintained by the International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA).

Collection of Social Network Analysis Tools and Libraries

References

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