social network analysis - mapping growth of a network

Social Network Analysis StrategiesTutor/Mentor Connection Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC

Mina Song, 2012 IIT Intern

Property of Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, 2012. http://www.tutormentorexchange.net [email protected]

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Contents

� The role of Social Networks

� Impact of Poverty

� Purpose of building Network Map

� Network Growth Ideas

� Network Growth Process

� Using the Internet to network and learn

� Network Growth of T/MC Ning Site

� Review of T/MC Ning Site Network

� Future opportunities to help


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The role of Social Networks

A traditional education is not enough to students

2002 report produced by global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney and Joint

Venture: Silicon Valley Network, the “2002 Workforce Study: Connecting Today’s

Youth with Tomorrow’s Technology Careers” shows that a “significant correlation

exists between a student’s social network and their motivation to pursue education

and careers in the technology industry”

“Social networks that can bridge across geography, race and class are key to

success in the new economy”, says Professor Manuel Pastor, Jr., University of

California, Santa Cruz, who has studied social networks in Los Angeles among

Latinos. ‘Hard’ skills are essential, but it’s the connections and mentoring that

provide information about what skills are necessary and a vision of how acquiring them can lead to new opportunities for all our residents”.

Education + Skills (Hard + Soft) + Social Networks

Student Success

http://www.bobpearlman.org/Articles/Student_Success.htm

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Youth in high poverty neighborhoods need expanded networks

All young people grow up with “networks composed of parents, family, friends,

neighbors, and other social connections through school and community. A social network is a student’s human connections to the real world of work and civic

life.” (1) However, young people growing up in neighborhoods of concentrated,

segregated, inner city poverty have fewer positive learning influences than do youth

in more economically diverse communities.

Along with fewer positive

influences, there are far

more negative influences in

communities with high

concentrations of people in

poverty.

(1) From http://www.bobpearlman.org/Articles/Student_Success.htm

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Economic inequality: The real cause of the urban school problem

Schools Struggle. The Prison system grows.

With too few people modeling college and learning as a path to opportunity and too

many modeling negative choices, young people living in highly segregated, high

poverty neighborhoods come to school less prepared to learn and with fewer adult

models helping them build career aspirations, learning habits and resilience needed

to overcome the challenges of poverty.

In high poverty zip codes with

high concentrations of ex-

offenders, prison and the

juvenile justice system are

acceptable career paths! High

drop out rates and high levels of

incarceration are the result.

http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2011/10/economic-inequality-real-cause-of-urban.html


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Maps showing demographics, boundaries and services are needed in planning comprehensive strategies.

Using Geographic Information

Systems (GIS) maps can be

created showing where poverty

is concentrated. Overlays

showing poorly performing

schools, health and violence

patterns, crime, re-location of ex-

offenders, etc. can show how

poverty neighborhoods have

more of these indicators than do

more affluent and more diverse

neighborhoods.

These are the places where

mentor-rich tutor/mentor and a

wide range of learning programs

are most needed.


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Building networks of people who provide time, talent and dollars to help inner city kids through school and keeping them

involved for decades is a huge task.

Organizations “in the middle” like the Tutor/Mentor Connection are “community organizers” and “network

builders”. Finding new ways to demonstrate the impact of such groups can lead to more consistent financial support.


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A good idea is only valuable when more people learn about it and begin to apply the ideas in their own efforts.

Tutor/Mentor Connection has been operating informally since 1975 and formally since 1993. It’s the vision of Daniel F. Bassill, who began leading a Chicago volunteer-based tutor/mentor

program in 1975 while holding retail advertising jobs with the giant Montgomery Ward retail store company. Bassill shares his ideas with maps and visualizations published in on-line essays -

http://tinyurl.com/TMI-Network-growth


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Network Growth Process that Repeats Annually

Each year since 1995 the T/MC helps programs in the Chicago region recruit volunteers in Aug/Sept.

and helps programs train those volunteers and convert them into leaders as each program moves through the School year. This strategy seeks to help each program ends the year with more people helping it build capacity and quality for the following year.

By repeating this call to involvement each year for the past 18 years, T/MC has created greater public awareness of tutoring/mentoring in the Chicago region, and greater traffic to web sites of the Tutor/Mentor Learning Network. View video showing year-round strategy. http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/cabrinivideos/191-year

This strategy could be duplicated in every urban area resulting in greater visibility and a greater flow of volunteers and dollars to poverty neighborhoods in each city.


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Using the Internet to network and learn

• Blogs – like http://tutormentor.blogspot.com

• Forums – like http://www.socialedge.org,

• http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com

• Conferences –

http://www.tutormentorconference.org

• Online collaboration spaces like

http://debategraph.org/mentoring_kids_to_care

ers

• Social media such as LinkedIn and

http://www.facebook.com/TutorMentorInstitute

• At http://www.tutormentorconnection.org we’re

hosting a links library, with links to

organizations that we want to connect with

• At www.Google.com you can search for “tutor

mentor” and find the T/MC and numerous other

organizations who could be invited to come

together for networking, learning, collaboration

Using visualizations we can create

better understanding and navigation

of T/MC’s social media net –

http://tinyurl.com/TMC-DanNetwork


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Network Growth of T/MC Ning Site

Change of social network since 2007~May. 2012

� Dan Bassill, President of the Tutor/Mentor Connection established a

group page at http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com in July 2007.

� In 1999 a group was established on the Ning site to use Social Network Analysis software to create maps showing the growth of the Tutor/Mentor Connection network since 1993

� Chul Wan Park, a 2012 intern from IIT, applied the Gephi.com free SNA application to create the following maps showing the growth of the Tutor/Mentor Connection.ning.com community from 2007-2012

� Visit the workspace on Ning and join in this project -http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com/group/technologyinternswithtutormentorconnection


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Following graphics show the network growth of http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com since 2007.

The network between members of T/MC Ning site in 2007

This image is created using Gephi.com social network analysis tool. It shows Daniel

Bassill who is founder of T/MC, plus two others who joined in 2007.

Bassill created http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com site in July 2007.

The information shown in this analysis shows membership as of May 2012. Thus,

other people may have joined in 2007 who are no longer in the group.

D BassillChicago, ILT/MC CEO

Kent, OH

Boston, MA


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While everyone in the Ning.com site is there because Daniel Bassill of the T/MC created the site, the Red dots are people connected as “friends” with Dan. The Yellow dots are people who are “friends”

with people who are “friends” with Dan. Light Green dots are people who joined in 2008 and connected with each other. Light Blue dots are individual members.

D Bassill

58 members

new in 2008

Ning.com is a social networking site. Members can set up personal profiles. They can become “friends”with others. For this analysis, we looked at connections of “friends”.


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The Red dots are people connected as “friends” with Dan. The Yellow dots are people who are “friends” with people who are “friends” with Dan. Light Green dots are people who joined in 2009 and connected with each other.

Light Blue dots are individual members.

D Bassill

148 joined in

2009.

Total was 209

by 12/31/2009


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More ways to look at the SNA graphics

Names can be added making it easier to see who has larger networks within the community.

2009 mapw/names


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More ways to look at the SNA graphics

A large number of members come from

Africa and one of the sub-groups on the

Ning site seeks to help the Tutor/Mentor

Connection process duplicate in Africa.

This map show three other members

who have built connections with many

others.

By the end of 2009 more than a dozen

members were interns from IIT, Loyola,

Michigan and Northwestern who worked

with T/MC for a week up to a full year.

2009


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The Red dots are people connected as “friends” with Dan. The Yellow dots are people who are “friends” with people who are “friends” with Dan. Light Green dots are people who joined in 2010 and connected with each other. Light Blue dots are individual members. This map shows that several other members have multiple friends by the end of 2010.

D Bassill

112 joined in

2010.

Total was 321

by 12/31/2010


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Map of T/MC Ning Site at end of 2011

The Red dots are people connected as “friends” with Dan. The Yellow dots are people who are “friends” with people who are “friends” with Dan. Light Green dots are people who joined in 2011 and connected with each other. Light Blue dots are individual members.

D Bassill

72 joined in

2011.

Total was 393

by 12/31/2011


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Map of T/MC Ning Site at end of 2011

Within the larger network map we can create maps showing networks formed around individual people.

D Bassill

Abdule Kude

Deana Wilkerson

Bradley Troast


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417 Members in Network on May 31, 2012

D Bassill

Melenie

PSI Tutor

Abdule


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Review of T/MC Ning Site Network

What can we know from those maps?

Those are maps about who connected with whom.

From those, we can see T/MC Ning Site Network is growing since 2007.

We also see the number of individual members who do not have anyconnection with other members is also growing.

So, we need to build network between individual members and other members for helping each other, or finding someone who can help.

Also, we can create the other networking map with same data file.

Next interns will be need to create maps about Group members of Ning Site, or Place that Ning Site members live.


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Mapping other parts of T/MC

Tutor/Mentor Leadership & Networking ConferenceVisit http://kalyanimisra.blogspot.com/2010/10/social-network-analysis-of-may-09.html to see maps created to map 2008 and 2009 conferences. T/MC has hosted conferences since May 1994 and would like to map all of these.

Mapping OHATSMore than 1500 actions have been documented in the Organizational History and Tracking System (OHATS) since 2000. A network analysis would provide a richer understanding of who T/MC connects with and why. http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/

ohats

Tutor/Mentor Program Networks – a network analysis of the 180 tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago program links library could show which are connected to each other, who the donors are and what donors support multiple programs.


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Mapping other parts of T/MC

Youth Networks as result of tutoring program at Montgomery Ward and Cabrini Connections

Using yearbooks and attendance records we seek to map

the network of Cabrini Green youth and workplace

volunteers from 1973 to 2011 and show the multi year

connections made possible by these organizations.

Network Growth Since 1993More than 13000 people were added to the T/MC database between 1993 and 2012. A network analysis can show who they are, where they are from, what businesses they represent, etc.

Why do this?We want to demonstrate how networks grow as a result of the actions of a few people. We also want to create tools that automate this network analysis and enable more organizations to use the tools and process.


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Thank you!Become a volunteer, intern, researcher, partner and/or investor and help us build the capacity of mapping networks using GIS and SNA tools. Email [email protected] or join http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com

Connect on Twitter @tutormentorteam and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TutorMentorInstitute


social network analysis - mapping growth of a network

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