Network Science Briefs

Try searching for a topic related to network leadership, social connectedness, or network science, or pick a category below to start exploring!

Our Network Science Briefs are short overviews of a network science, leadership or evaluation topic. They’re more focused than many of our other resources and easy to download, print or share with others. Use the filter and search feature on the right to find exactly what you’re looking for. If you can’t find what you need, send us a message – we’d be happy to put something together.

Network Member Attributes: Brief

Network Member Attributes: Brief

A Network Science Brief from Visible Network Labs When conducting a social network analysis or using PARTNER CPRM, you have the opportunity to collect more useful descriptive data about your partners with network member attributes. These are characteristics or demographics of the organizations that make

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Network Survey Timing: Brief

A Network Science Brief from Visible Network Labs Our clients often ask us, ‘how often should we be surveying our network and conducting follow-up evaluations?’ While we wish there was a simple answer to this question, in reality, it depends on your unique context and

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raising your response rate

Raising Your Response Rate: A Brief

A Network Science Brief from Visible Network Labs A high response rate is ideal for any survey, but it’s a critically important necessity when it comes to a network survey. This is because network data is not representative, as with most surveys. Each individual in

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partner trust and value metrics

PARTNER Trust and Value Metrics: A Brief

A Network Science Brief from Visible Network Labs As the old saying goes, ‘garbage in, garbage out.’ If you aren’t asking the right questions during a social network analysis, you aren’t going to have reliable data to analyze later on. For this reason, we spent

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partner method for network strategy

PARTNER Method for Network Strategy: A Brief

A Network Science Brief from Visible Network Labs Once you make the decision to take a network approach to solving a problem, you need to design a specific strategy – the way you will build, manage and evaluate your network – in order to reach

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Network Evaluation Framework Brief

Network Evaluation Framework

A Network Science Brief from Visible Network Labs Here at Visible Network Labs, we use our own framework for conducting network evaluations. We created it iteratively through dozens of surveys, interviews and evaluations with networks and collaboratives in a variety of sectors. The result is

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Social Network Analysis brief

Social Network Analysis Brief

A Network Science Brief from Visible Network Labs Social Network Analysis (SNA) is the study of the structural relationships among interacting actors and the resulting effect on the network (how those relationships produce varying effects).  A network is any interconnected group or system. The power

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Bounding Your Network Brief

Bounding Your Network Brief

A Network Science Brief from Visible Network Labs Many of our users report that deciding who to include in their network survey is the most difficult step in the entire process. The list you send your survey to dictates the partner options respondents will have.

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Looking for more information and resources about network science? If our network science briefs aren’t enough, visit our Network Science Research Library for complete access to our archive of research studies we’ve completed, free to use for non-commercial purposes. You can also visit our PARTNER Research page to see a few examples of how our clients and users are conducting research using our tools and software. Get in touch with our team to learn more about partnering with Visible Network Labs.

We also recommend Northeastern University, which has a great page with Network Science and Analysis resources here. There are also great links and tools available here

If you have a specific network science topic you want to learn more about, send us a message and let us know – we’d be happy to do some research on the issue and create a new brief on the topic. Thanks again for stopping by our Resources Page!

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