Editing Communication and Social Networks (Spring 2024)/Final project (section)

== Network Analysis ==

Either alone or in groups of up to 4, you will design and carry out a research project based on existing network data. Group projects are expected to be more ambitious than individual projects.

Basically, you will identify a network and a set of hypotheses/research questions that you would like to answer using data from that network. You will use network analysis and network visualization tools to answer those questions, and then you will report on and discuss your findings.

=== Finding Networks ===

There are a number of repositories of network datasets. Probably the simplest to use are those found in the [https://github.com/schochastics/networkdata networkdata] package, which we have already been using. If you look at the [https://github.com/schochastics/networkdata homepage of the package], you can see descriptions of the datasets that are included.

Another repository I really like is the [https://icon.colorado.edu/#!/networks Index of Complex Networks]. You can filter by type of network, size, etc. One thing to note about these networks is that you will need to load them into R (unlike <code>networkdata</code>). They are in different formats, and you will likely need to do some work to get them to be <code>igraph/tablegraph</code> networks.

Fortunately, there are a number of tools in <code>igraph</code> designed to help you to import different file types. [https://igraph.org/c/doc/igraph-Foreign.html This page] gives a great overview.

=== Presentation ===

As with the intervention assignment, I would like you to present a short (5 minute) presentation about your project toward the end of class.

=== Executive Report ===

You will prepare a ~5 page report, with the following sections:

* Introduction
** Give a compelling introduction to the project: why is this something worth studying? You may also want to preview some of the results of your research.
* Network Theory
** In your introduction, you will likely mention some network theories that helped to motivate your research. In this section, you will provide more detail about the theories, leading up to the development of 2-5 hypotheses or research questions. You should include at least three references to support your arguments.
* Method and Data
** You will explain how you are going to answer your research questions / hypotheses. Explain what data you will be using, and describe what analyses you will do, and why those are appropriate for answering your questions.
* Analysis
** For each hypothesis / research question, you will perform some sort of analysis. For some questions, this will be an analysis of network measures. For others, this might be a network visualization. Your analysis can include other types of analyses (e.g., statistical analyses) but it should include at least one network analysis and at least one visualization.
* Discussion and Conclusion
** Finally, write a few paragraphs 1) summarizing the findings from your analyses and 2) reflecting on how your findings fit in (or don't) with existing network theories.