This week you’ll use two tools to explore the same network data from different perspectives. You’ll use Palladio, which we already looked at a bit, to visualize a network, and you’ll use Network Navigator to measure a network.

The workshop consists of three general steps:

  1. Download crisis_edges.csv from Melanie Walsh’s sample social network datasets. Be sure to read her description of the dataset, the Modernist Journals Project, and The Crisis journal.

  2. Load the data into Palladio. Go to the “Graph” tab, and select your Source and Target columns to visualize the network. Experiment with sizing the nodes and clicking-and-dragging to explore the network. What can you discover about co-publication in The Crisis using this visual representation? What else would you like to change about this network visualization that Palladio won’t let you change (e.g. node color, edge thickness, node placement, etc.)? Refer back to Weingart’s introduction to networks for a sense of what you’re seeing.

  3. Load the same data into Network Navigator. You’ll need to delete the header row before you click “Calculate.” What can you discover from these metrics that you couldn’t see in the visualization? Experiment with sorting the rows, and pay attention to the network-wide “Global” metrics as well as the node-specific metrics. You can refer to my network glossary for definitions of the various terms used here (and some terms are defined in the glossary in the Ahnerts’ article too).

If you’re curious about more advanced network approaches, you can take a look at this Programming Historian piece I wrote with my Six Degrees colleagues a few years ago. You might also look into the popular visualization software Gephi.

[n.b. I made Network Navigator in 2017 as a response to the lack of DH tools that allowed easy access to common network metrics. Zoe LeBlanc and I are currently redesigning it with more visualization options and a better layout. If you have ideas of how it could be better, let me know! Also, some of the features of Network Navigator may eventually appear in Palladio—I did some work with their team last year. DH is a small world.]