title: CollaborationViz: interactive visual exploration of biomedical research collaboration networks.
abstract: Social network analysis (SNA) helps us understand patterns of interaction between social entities. A number of SNA studies have shed light on the characteristics of research collaboration networks (RCNs). Especially, in the Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) community, SNA provides us a set of effective tools to quantitatively assess research collaborations and the impact of CTSA. However, descriptive network statistics are difficult for non-experts to understand. In this article, we present our experiences of building meaningful network visualizations to facilitate a series of visual analysis tasks. The basis of our design is multidimensional, visual aggregation of network dynamics. The resulting visualizations can help uncover hidden structures in the networks, elicit new observations of the network dynamics, compare different investigators and investigator groups, determine critical factors to the network evolution, and help direct further analyses. We applied our visualization techniques to explore the biomedical RCNs at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences--a CTSA institution. And, we created CollaborationViz, an open-source visual analytical tool to help network researchers and administration apprehend the network dynamics of research collaborations through interactive visualization.
authors.affiliation: Division of Biomedical Informatics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR 72205, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jiang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bian
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR 72204, United States of America.
authors.forename: Mengjun
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterans Affairs HSR&D Center for Mental Healthcare and Outcomes Research, Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System, Little Rock, AR 722205, United States of America; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR 72205, United States of America.
authors.forename: Teresa J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Hudson
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology Research, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR 72205, United States of America; Division of Biomedical Informatics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR 72205, United States of America.
authors.forename: Hari
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Eswaran
authors.affiliation: Division of Biomedical Informatics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR 72205, United States of America.
authors.forename: Mathias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brochhausen
authors.affiliation: Clinical and Translational Science Informatics and Technology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610, United States of America.
authors.forename: Josh
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hanna
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Outcomes & Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610, United States of America; Clinical and Translational Science Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610, United States of America.
authors.forename: William R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Hogan
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D012577:Schools, Medical / Q000458:organization & administration; D012944:Social Support; D012984:Software