Gephi Workshop

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Network Layout Explanation

The next workshop will be held at Stanford in Meyer Library 220 (the Flex classroom) on November 11th at 11AM.

PDF of the Lecture Portion of the Workshop

Overview of Network Analysis and Representation

Sample Data for the Workshop

I’ll occasionally be able to provide two-hour workshops on the basics of using Gephi, the network analysis package with which I’ve made the images and videos below.  The workshops will focus on:

  • getting graph data into Gephi using .gexf, .csv and database connections
  • running Filters, Analytics and Layouts on the data
  • optimization of Gephi for large datasets
  • overview of layout algorithms and strategies for their use
  • creating dynamic (time-enabled) networks
  • general Q&A

The last bit is probably the most valuable and hardest to quantify.  Gephi is an incredibly powerful visualization package but its documentation still reflects its beta nature.  Many of the most basic functions have unintuitive or opaque mechanisms for their use and I’ll be happy to point them out.

You will need to bring your own laptop with Gephi already installed.  I’ll provide a variety of datasets to work with.  If you already have a dataset that you’d like to examine and need some help getting it into the proper format, please contact me before the workshop and I may be able to get it into .gexf in time for the workshop.

Gephi Tutorials

Public Datasets

CommunityTopic 17, Series 2Top Contributors to the Catalogue of Life

5 Responses to Gephi Workshop

  1. James Neal says:

    I’ve been using NodeXL to examine digital humanities networks between the Maryland Institute of Technology in the Humanities, the Center for History and New Media at George Mason, and the Scholars Lab at UVA. My research is cursory but you’ve been an inspiration. I heard about Gephi last night from my professor, Derek Hansen at the iSchool at Maryland. How is Gephi for working with Twitter data?

    • Elijah Meeks says:

      Glad to hear you’re doing this, James. I’ve heard from a few folks now that they’re looking mapping the DH networks at and around their universities–and not just the official connections but the sub-layers.

      I haven’t used the various streaming APIs that Gephi has, though I’m going to get into them a bit because I expect to be asked about them during the workshop, but you can see the work one researcher did with Gephi and Twitter here:
      http://gephi.org/2011/the-egyptian-revolution-on-twitter/

      • James Neal says:

        Thanks. I am really worried about the future of Twitter data given the recent news about restrictions of use even for academic research. I’ll continue to follow your work and look to use Gephi in the future. One of the main reasons I’m attracted to Gephi is for Mac OS X options. NodeXL is unable to operate on Mac OS X. Thanks again.

  2. Bill anders says:

    Any chance you can put your Gephi seminar on Youtube or another video site for those of us aren’t near Standford? Thanks

    Bill

    • Elijah Meeks says:

      I don’t think I’ll be filming this workshop, though I’m trying to get something together to film a few typical demos. I’ll try to film the next one.