Term paper: GRA 4143 GRA 4143 Visualisations and Network Theory

Examination end date: 30.04.2021 12:00 Total no. of pages: 15

Responsible department:
Communication and Culture

ASSIGNMENT

Your task will be to apply the social network and visualization methods taught in this course to a data-
driven project of your choice. The assignment has three parts: (1) a poster presentation as an asynchro-
nous video (30% of final grade), (2) a research report to be handed in by the exam deadline (50% of
final grade), and (3) two short essays to be submitted during the semester. You should work in groups
of 2-3 students for the poster presentation and research report (parts (1) and (2) of the assignment) and
individually for the two short essays (part (3) of the assignment).

1. Poster Presentation (30%)

As part of the assignment, you are expected to prepare a poster of one application of social network
and visualization methods. You will present your initial idea for your poster in a short video pitch due
in the middle of the course (March 3rd) and receive feedback the week after.

The final posters have to be uploaded to itslearning until March 31st as a pdf and a separate short video
of 5-10 minutes should explain the poster. Each poster presentation will receive short feedback by an-
other group and by the instructors.

The discussant pairings will be organized by the instructors. Discussant groups should make sure to
give nuanced and constructive feedback. Specifically, the feedback should be: balanced, specific, help-
ful, and fair. The final grade will consist of the group’s performance both as a presenter of their own
poster and as a discussant of another group’s poster.

2. Research Report (50%)

After the poster presentation, the groups will have time to write a research report to be handed in by
April 30th. The research report should not exceed 15 pages, excluding the appendices. The BI template
paper for take home examinations should be used for formatting the report (https://at.bi.no/EN/atbi/ex-
amination/template-term-paper).

The final paper has to handed in through DigiEx before April 30th, 12:00 (noon).

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3. Individual Essays (20%)

As the third component of the assignment, you are expected to write two short essays in the course of
the semester. The two essays have to be written independently and count each for 10% of the overall
grade. Each essay is about a core reading from the course and should be maximum 2 pages long, fol-
lowing BI’s standard formatting guidelines. The goal is to reflect on the articles and provide your own
reflection rather than to summarize them in depth. You can start with a very short summary and then
reflect on the article, based on the question/task for each article below. The texts to be summarized
are:

a) Bruns, A. (2019). After the ‘APIcalypse’: social media platforms and their fight against critical
scholarly research. Information, Communication & Society, 22(11), 1544-1566.

Question/Task: Based on your reading and interpretation of Bruns’ article on the “APIca-
lypse”, what do you think are feasible ways for critical social science research to collect Inter-
net-based data going forward? Particularly, which of the four strategies or pathways de-
scribed in “The path ahead: four options for scholarly researchers in a hostile environment”
would you embrace and why?

Deadline: 17.02.2021, 12:00, submission via DigiEx

 Tufte, E. R. (2001). The visual display of quantitative information (Vol. 2). Cheshire, CT: Graphics
Press. Chapter 9, Aesthetics and Technique in Graphical Design (pp.

Question/Task: Please take Tufte’s suggestions for attractive statistical display’s and try to
adapt it to a visualization of a social network. It could be yours, or a generic one of your
choice. How could the principles be enacted, what could be a good practice / example that
would come to your mind?

Deadline: 10.03.2021, 12:00, submission via DigiEx

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Appendix 1: Guidelines for your Poster

Your poster contains a short heading giving a background on what is presented on it. It also includes
some short implications. Mainly, your poster is supposed to showcase your data and analysis, these
are:

Descriptive Findings in the form overall descriptive statistics and network statistics: number of
nodes and ties, density, average path length, diameter, number of connected components and iso-
lates, potentially also information on clustering and grouping (modularity classes)

The Social Network in an insightful visual form, where key structural elements (e.g., centralization,
clustering, central actors) are visually recognizable and presented in an appealing and insightful fash-
ion.

Deep Dives, where you focus on interesting individual nodes and/or communities of interest. These
can be described visually, with a separate graph or figure from the overall social network, or verbally
within a few keywords or sentences. You may also present additional analyses, as long as they are
visually supported.

Student example 2019:

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Appendix 2: Guidelines for your Research Paper

PART 1: Introduction (about 500 words, 1-2 pages)

Write a concise introduction: What is the background of the project you are pursuing? Why do you
think it is interesting? To whom is this research relevant for which reason?

PART 2: Theory (about 1000 words, 3 pages)

Briefly summarize the key literature from the course and additional literature relevant to your topic
of interest: What are the key concepts of network theory and visual communication you learned in the
course? How can they inform data science and lead to novel insights, including learnings from the
guest lecture? How can the concepts and theories inform knowledge in the area of your topic? How
has previous research on your topic used visual insights and social network analysis to investigate the
topic?

PART 3: Data Set and Method (about 1500 words, 4 pages)

Document and describe your process of data choice and handling in as much detail as possible: What
data set did you use, for which reason? If you opted to collect data yourself, what approach did you
use to collect the data (accessing data through an API vs. scraping)?

If applicable, which software was used to analyse and visualise the data? How was the data originally
collected, which choices did either the original collectors or you encounter along the way? When was
the data collected? How many data points does the data set have? What information could be col-
lected – and what data could not be gathered for various reasons? For the social network analysis,
what do the nodes and ties represent? How was the data cleaned and made ready for data analysis?
How was the cleaned data analysed and visualized? Your data collection and method section should
be about 1500 words long (around 4 pages).

PART 4: Results based on the Poster and Feedback Implemented (about 1500 words 4-6 pages)

After your poster presentation (details on the poster structure below), integrate the poster into the re-
port. You can include it in the main text, in the appendix or link to it and host it on the web, depend-
ing on the resolution and detail of the visualization. The poster will form the central part of the results
section. Verbalize the findings that are evident in your poster, and beyond. This is similar to your oral
presentation, but in written and more elaborate form: What is on the poster? What are the descriptive
network statistics and what do they tell us, that is, what can we say about the overall structure of the
network? Who are central actors and how are they embedded in the community? Which communities
emerge and why? What are some sub-aspects that merit specific attention (deep dives)? In case there
were feedbacks from your presentation, extend the findings from your poster and go in depth were
requested, or were you find additional interesting points not covered in the poster. Use visualisations
in support wherever feasible.

PART 5: Conclusion (about 500 words, 1-2 pages)

Summarize the key findings and learnings from your analyses and contextualize them in a concise
manner: What are the implications of your research project? What does it tell us for instance about
social reality, the way we do business, or how we organize? What practical recommendations, if any,
can be derived from your analysis, for example in terms of interventions? Use visualizations if feasi-
ble to bring possible implications to live.

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Appendix 3: Grading Criteria

The grading criteria apply to both posters and the final report

Overall grasp of Subject (40%)

How well is your research motivated? Why is it relevant and how does it apply to real-world phe-
nomena, either in business or social life? Do you have a coherent narrative? How well does the re-
view of theories and concepts reflect the source material? Are the implications of the social network
analysis properly recognized and reflected, especially in practical terms?

Handling and processing of Data (40%)

Is the data collection and handling process described step-by-step and in an understandable, trans-
parent manner? Are choices and reflections present? Are the overview and descriptive findings rele-
vant? How many are there and do they make sense (based on our theoretical concepts)? Are interest-
ing phenomena in the social network made apparent through the deep dives? How deep and careful
is your description of the topic and context of the data? Are interesting phenomena within the net-
work brought up? Are key metrics in the later write-up mentioned and reflected?

Presentation of Results (20%)

Is the actual social network, in visual form, nicely pulled apart, clusters, holes, etc. made visible? A
good graphic and visual design of the poster is a bonus.

Below adequate Satisfactory Good Exceptional

Major improvement Some improvement minor improvement
no improvement needed
needed needed needed

Overall grasp of Unclear relevance, Relevance, motivation for Clear relevance, Very clear relevance of
research subject motivation for and key and key questions of motivation for and key and motivation for
(40%) questions of research research project are questions of research research project. Key
project. Lacking a mostly clear. Somewhat project. Coherent questions are original
coherent narrative. coherent narrative. narrative. and well thought out.
Very compelling and
flawlessly exectued
narrative.
20 30 40 54 55 58 60 64 65 68 70 74 75 80 90 100

Collection and Significant and frequent Some mistakes in Data handled and Data handled and
handling of data mistakes in handling handling (collecting, processed accurately and processed accurately and
(40%) (collecting, compiling and compiling and adequately addequately in an
processing) data processing) data original and meaningful
way.

20 30 40 54 55 58 60 64 65 68 70 74 75 80 90 100

Presentation of Significant issues with the Most technical Most technical Flawless and highly
results (20%) results presentation requirements of results requirements of results original presentation of
presentation have been presentation have been results.
met. met. Some original ideas
in the results
presentation.
20 30 40 54 55 58 60 64 65 68 70 74 75 80 90 100

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Appendix 4: Important deadlines

1. Please build groups of 2-3 people and send us the names of your group no later than February
3rd via a Google Docs link that will be provided in the first week of the semester, together with
instructions for forming the groups.

2. Upload your first essay on DigiEx by February 17th.

3. Prepare a first pitch of your poster idea in the form of a recorded video (maximum 5 minute)
until March 3rd. A link to upload the video will be provided on itslearning. You don’t have to
present your ideas in poster form yet. We would expect you to talk about a) what your idea is,
and b) which kind of data you want to use, and possibly c) open question. One discussant
group will be assigned to your presentation. This group shall provide feedback in writing to
you no later than March 7th, no shorter than 1/2 page, to be submitted via itslearning.

4. Upload your second essay on DigiEx by March 10th.

5. Upload your final posters to itslearning no later than March 31st. The poster is accompanied by
a short video of 5-10 minutes that explains the poster. Furthermore, prepare to act as a con-
structive and fair discussant for one other group. Discussant/group pairings will be defined by
the instructors and the feedback should be provided no later than April 4th, no shorter than 1/2
page, to be submitted via itslearning.

6. Hand in your final papers until April 30th 12:00 (noon), via DigiEx. Don’t forget to address and
incorporate relevant feedback received during on the poster presentation in the final paper as
well.

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Important deadlines: