COMM 202 Discussion Assignment This short assignment will have you use a network visualization software, Gephi,

, in conjunction with a Facebook app, NameGenDev, to visualize your Facebook network. PART 0: Accessing Gephi: Go to http://gephi.org and download the software (it is available for both Mac and PC computers for free). ! PART I: Importing network dataset from Facebook 1. If you do not have a Facebook account, use a friends account who is not a student in this class. If you cannot find a friends account to use or have other problems or concerns about using Facebook data, contact your TA ASAP. 2. Log in to your Facebook account, and go to https://apps.facebook.com/namegendev/. You may need to use another browser to get the app to load or work. Grant permission for the application to access your account and continue. 3. Under Selecting Attributes, click First Name, Last Name, and Gender. Click DOWNLOAD at the bottom. 4. On the next page, click Download. 5. On the next page, choose File Type: GraphML. Then click Download. 6. Once you have downloaded your file, you can unlink the app from your Facebook account.

PART II: Using Gephi to Visualize your Facebook Network 7. Open Gephi and open the downloaded .gdf file by clicking on Open Graph File under New Project. A pop-up will appear; it should say No issue found during import. 8. A Facebook network should be an undirected network (which means that if John is Friends with Jane, Jane must be Friends with John. Think, for example, about how Facebook Friends differ from Twitter followers). In the pop-up box, choose Graph Type: Undirected in the drop-down box. 9. Make a note of the # of Nodes and the # of Edges. 10. Without changing any other options, click OK. 11. The network should load (on the Overview page) and you should see a dense, gray jumble of edges (connections) and nodes (dots). If you mouse over a node, it will highlight the connections and connected nodes. If you click on a node and drag it, you can move it. 12. To zoom in and out (you cant drag the entire network image), use the scroll wheel of your mouse (if youre on a Mac laptop, use the two-finger motion on your trackpad). You can also use the Magnifying Glass icon (Center on Graph) on the bottom-left to move the image. 13. Lets make your graph pretty! In the top-left box, click the Ranking Tab. In the Choose a rank parameter drop-down, click Degree. A little color box will appear on the right of the Color spectrum: click it, choose Default, and choose a set of colors. Click Apply. 14. Still in the Ranking tab, click the Ruby (Size/Weight). Set Min Size to 10 and set Max Size to 50. Click Apply. The nodes should be bigger (according to number of connections). Youll see it more clearly later, but some dots float there with no connections. 15. The image is still confusing at the moment, right? Click on the T on the bottom Show Node Labels. Names will appear! Change the font to Arial (Regular) and

the font size to 40. Click on the black A (Size mode) and choose Node Size. People with bigger nodes will have bigger names. 16. The graph is still a mess though. In the Layout tab, click the Choose a layout drop-down and select Fruchterman Reingold (you dont need to know what this means). Change Speed to 5.0. Click Run. Your graph your reassemble into a circular shape. Youll also see groupings of people emerge. 17. Take a screenshot (see Part III #1). 18. Now choose another layout, this time Force Atlas. It will realign your network graph into a different shape, but it will distinguish the node groups a little bit better (while keeping the unconnected nodes in a cool globular shape). Click Run, but click Stop quickly so the nodes dont become too dense! 19. Take another screenshot. 20. Here are some other options to try: a. Go to Tools > Plug-ins. Download the OpenOrd and Noverlap layout plugins. Redraw the layout using those options (first OpenOrd, then Noverlap). This will make the clusters more distinct overall. b. Click on the Partition tab (next to the Ranking tab). Click the circular arrows button (Refresh). In the Choose a partition parameter dropdown, choose sex. c. Male, female, and null (the user didnt choose an option) will be automatically colored. In your graph, are there any groups that are mixedsex? What about groups that are all-male or all-female? d. Try playing around with various algorithms, colors, edge shapes, etc. Try dragging around nodes. Explore! Use this tutorial -http://blog.ouseful.info/2010/04/16/getting-started-with-gephi-networkvisualisation-app-my-facebook-network-part-i/ (and its Part II, linked at the bottom of the page) to get ideas.

PART III: Questions Things about these questions: 1. Save the visualizations. On the bottom of Gephi, click the Camera icon (Take screenshot). Paste the image into your Word document. Save two different visualizations of your Facebook network: one for the Fruchterman-Reingold shape and then one for the Fruchterman-Reingold/Force Atlas combo. (Feel free to include zoomed-in versions if you wish to talk about them in particular for the below quesitons.) 2. How many nodes (also known as vertices) are there in your network? What do these nodes/vertices correspond to? 3. How many edges are there in your network? What does this mean? How might you go about calculating the maximum number of possible edges your network could have given the number of nodes you have (you dont have to actually calculate this number, but answer the question). 4. Describe the macro-level structure of your friend graph using the FruchtermanReingold/Force Atlas visualization. Is it a giant, connected component, are there distinct sub-components, or are there isolated components? What is the common feature of each component or subcomponent? 5. Identify some of the brokers between your subcomponents. Brokers are individuals who connect different subcomponents. Do these surprise you? Are there any unexpected linked between subcomponents? How might these people have met or what interests could they possibly share? 6. How many isolates are in your network? Choose a few isolates (individuals that are not connected to anybody else) and pendants (individuals who are connected with only one other person). How often do you talk or interact with these people? Did you expect them to have more links in your network? What stops you from cutting your tie to this person? !