Network Analysis Software

Information Resources for Analysis Software

Various repositories and reviews provide descriptions of subsets of network analysis software products that were selected and detailed along a small number of more or less explicitly stated criteria and dimensions.

The International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA) offers a publicly available listing of network analysis tools (23 as of 2010) provided by its members. INSNA also kept the predecessor of the current tools page online, which provides a brief description and a link to over 60 tools.

In 2005, Mark Huisman and Marijtje van Duijn provided a review of 23 stand-alone packages and five software libraries. They delivered a detailed description and comparison of the functionalities, documentation, and user-friendliness of six widely used network analysis tools, namely MultiNet, NetMiner, Pajek, StOCNET, STRUCTURE, and UCINET.

Given the large and growing number of network analysis software, no single person or small group of people would want to carry the burden of building and maintaining a systematic and comprehensive overview of these tools. However, if carried out collectively, this goal might be achievable with very little individual effort. Leveraging on the idea of the wisdom of crowds, a few network researchers started a Wikipedia page for social network analysis software in early 2008 to serve as a neutral point of access outside specific research fields and professional organizations. This page specifies the name, URL, main functionality, supported data formats and platforms, license type, cost, and additional notes for over 40 tools. Since this page can be edited by anyone, some tools may not be strictly related to network analysis. However, the page provides an up-to-date overview that is consistently improved by the community.

Software for the Analytical Research Process

Ultimately, any network analysis software serves to facilitate one or more of the steps involved in the overall network analysis process, which is less standardized than research methodologies in other fields. This fact can be partially attributed to the wide diffusion of network analysis across fields as diverse as anthropology, physics, and economics. As methodological variations [Page 596]keep being added and dropped, a patchwork landscape of steps and subroutines has emerged. The confinement of steps has recuperations on a review of social network analysis software. For example, some researchers and practitioners alike might only consider the actual relational data analysis step as the network analysis method. Synthesizing various descriptions of formal network analysis methodology leads to a more comprehensive approach. At a minimum, a network analysis project should include the following

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