NodeXL is a

network analysis Network analysis can refer to: * Network theory, the analysis of relations through mathematical graphs ** Social network analysis, network theory applied to social relations * Network analysis (electrical circuits) See also *Network planning and ...

and

visualization Visualization or visualisation may refer to: * Visualization (graphics), the physical or imagining creation of images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message * Data visualization, the graphic representation of data * Information visuali ...

software package for Microsoft Excel 2007/2010/2013/2016. The package is similar to other network visualization tools such as Pajek, UCINet, and

Gephi Gephi ( ) is an open-source network analysis and visualization software package written in Java on the NetBeans platform. History Initially developed by students of the University of Technology of Compiègne (UTC) in France, Gephi has been select ...

. It is widely applied in ring, mapping of vertex and edge, and customizable visual attributes and tags. NodeXL enables researchers to undertake social network analysis work metrics such as centrality, degree, and clustering, as well as monitor relational data and describe the overall relational network structure. When applied to Twitter data analysis, it showed the total network of all users participating in public discussion and its internal structure through data mining. It allows social Network analysis (SNA) to emphasize the relationships rather than the isolated individuals or organizations, allowing interested parties to investigate the two-way dialogue between organizations and the public. SNA also provides a flexible measurement system and parameter selection to confirm the influential nodes in the network, such as in-degree and out-degree centrality. The software contains network visualization, social network analysis features, access to social media network data importers, advanced network metrics, and automation.

Codebase

NodeXL is a set of prebuilt class libraries using a custom

Windows Presentation Foundation Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a free and open-source graphical subsystem (similar to WinForms) originally developed by Microsoft for rendering user interfaces in Windows-based applications. WPF, previously known as "Avalon", was initia ...

control. Additional .NET assemblies can be developed as "plug-ins" to import data from outside data providers. Currently-implemented data providers for NodeXL include

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

(the MediaWiki understructure), web hyperlinks,

Microsoft Exchange Server Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems. The first version was called Exchange Server 4.0, to position it as the successor to the related ...

Contributors

NodeXL is a collaborative effort of a number of individuals from different universities and other organizations forming the NodeXL Team. Notable contributors include: Microsoft Research established a NodeXL research project on November 20, 2008.

Features

NodeXL is intended for users with little or no programming experience to allow them to collect, analyze, and visualize a variety of networks. NodeXL integrates into Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019 and 365 and opens as a workbook with a variety of worksheets containing the elements of a graph structure such as edges and nodes. NodeXL can also import a variety of graph formats such as edgelists, adjacency matrices,

GraphML GraphML is an XML-based file format for graphs. The GraphML file format results from the joint effort of the graph drawing community to define a common format for exchanging graph structure data. It uses an XML-based syntax and supports the enti ...

, UCINet .dl, and Pajek .net.

Data import

NodeXL Pro imports UCINet and GraphML files, as well as Excel spreadsheets containing edge lists or adjacency matrices, into NodeXL workbooks. NodeXL Pro also allows for the quick collection of social media data via a set of import tools which can collect network data from e-mail, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. NodeXL asks for the user's permission before collecting any personal data and focuses on the collection of publicly available data, such as Twitter statuses and follows relationships for users who have made their accounts public. These features allow NodeXL users to instantly get working on relevant social media data and integrate aspects of social media data collection and analysis into a single tool.

Data representation

NodeXL workbooks contain four worksheets: Edges, Vertices, Groups, and Overall Metrics. The relevant data about entities in the graph and relationships between them are located in the appropriate worksheet in row format. For example, the edges worksheet contains a minimum of two columns, and each row has a minimum of two elements corresponding to the two vertices that make up an edge in the graph. Graph metrics and edge and vertex visual properties appear as additional columns in the respective worksheets. This representation allows the user to leverage the Excel spreadsheet to quickly edit existing node properties and to generate new ones, for instance by applying Excel formulas to existing columns.

Graph analysis

NodeXL Pro contains a library of commonly used graph metrics:

centrality In graph theory and network analysis, indicators of centrality assign numbers or rankings to nodes within a graph corresponding to their network position. Applications include identifying the most influential person(s) in a social network, key ...

clustering coefficient In graph theory, a clustering coefficient is a measure of the degree to which nodes in a graph tend to cluster together. Evidence suggests that in most real-world networks, and in particular social networks, nodes tend to create tightly knit groups ...

, and diameter. NodeXL differentiates between directed and undirected networks. NodeXL Pro implements a variety of community detection algorithms to allow the user to automatically discover clusters in their social networks.

Graph visualization

NodeXL generates an interactive canvas for visualizing graphs. The project allows users to pick from several well-known

Force-directed graph drawing Force-directed graph drawing algorithms are a class of algorithms for drawing graphs in an aesthetically-pleasing way. Their purpose is to position the nodes of a graph in two-dimensional or three-dimensional space so that all the edges are of m ...

layout algorithms such as Fruchterman-Reingold and Harel-Koren. NodeXL allows the user to multi-select, drag and drop nodes on the canvas and to manually edit their visual properties (size, color, and opacity). In addition, NodeXL enables users to map the visual properties of nodes and edges to metrics it calculates, and in general to any column in the edges and vertices worksheet.

Research

NodeXL has been used by news outlets such as Foreign Policy to visualize the structure of conversations about political topics as well as by organizations like the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

to analyze voting data. NodeXL has been used as an analytical tool in dozens of research papers in the social, information, and computer sciences, as well as the focus of research in humancomputer interaction, data mining, and data visualization.

Notes

References

External links

*
NodeXL project on Twitter

Resources

Video overview

Introductory slides

List of research papers using NodeXL
{{Microsoft Research 2000 software Network theory Free application software Graph drawing software Microsoft free software Microsoft Research Software using the MS-PL license Windows-only free software