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arXiv · 2002.09485

The Four Dimensions of Social Network Analysis: An Overview of Research Methods, Applications, and Software Tools

David Camacho·Àngel Panizo-LLedot·Gema Bello-Orgaz·Antonio Gonzalez-Pardo·Erik Cambria
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Abstract

Social network based applications have experienced exponential growth in recent years. One of the reasons for this rise is that this application domain offers a particularly fertile place to test and develop the most advanced computational techniques to extract valuable information from the Web. The main contribution of this work is three-fold: (1) we provide an up-to-date literature review of the state of the art on social network analysis (SNA);(2) we propose a set of new metrics based on four essential features (or dimensions) in SNA; (3) finally, we provide a quantitative analysis of a set of popular SNA tools and frameworks. We have also performed a scientometric study to detect the most active research areas and application domains in this area. This work proposes the definition of four different dimensions, namely Pattern & Knowledge discovery, Information Fusion & Integration, Scalability, and Visualization, which are used to define a set of new metrics (termed degrees) in order to evaluate the different software tools and frameworks of SNA (a set of 20 SNA-software tools are analyzed and ranked following previous metrics). These dimensions, together with the defined degrees, allow evaluating and measure the maturity of social network technologies, looking for both a quantitative assessment of them, as to shed light to the challenges and future trends in this active area.

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David Camacho, Àngel Panizo-LLedot, Gema Bello-Orgaz, Antonio Gonzalez-Pardo, Erik Cambria. 2020-02-21. The Four Dimensions of Social Network Analysis: An Overview of Research Methods, Applications, and Software Tools. https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.09485

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