Digital Project 4: Network and concept mapping

Complete Kumu network by T 11/5

Complete essay by T 11/12

Mind Map of the History of Science Fiction by Ward Shelley Source: Mind Map of the History of Science Fiction by Ward Shelley

This digital project involves creating concept and network maps to help visualize patterns in our science fiction readings, beginning with Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. We will work with Google Sheets again, but in a new way, to organize information about related concepts and map it with Kumu’s free visualization platform. We will get started by setting up free accounts, and we will be exploring how to structure and import data from a published Google Sheet following Kumu’s documentation. The first challenge for us will be determining what kinds of patterns we are interested in visualizing. Each student records and visualizes pattern individually, choosing options, such as:

Phase 1:

In class we will start with some planning exercises to set up the columns in Google Sheets and experiment with visualizations.

The Google Sheet will have two tabs, one for Elements and one for Connections. Elements provide basic information on each node you want to map, such as, for Aunt Ester, that she is a person seen on stage, that she is a spiritual leader, and (if you wish) has an image. The Connections sheet records connections Aunt Ester has with others. The visualization can indicate whether she made or received those connections (to give the association a direction from agent to recipient), or whether the connection is simply mutual or shared.

Begin setting it up following my starter template file.

To help give you an idea of how you can build “maps” or networks with the date you are collecting, here are some sample files:

Please record links to your Google Sheets and visualization files here. This page (below the directory) also contains detailed advice and codeblocks for customizing your network visualization in Kumu.

Phase 2: Building your first network

Once you have worked out how to organize data into columns and customize displays of of your network, work on designing a network analysis for The Handmaid’s Tale. (In our first week, create a network that establishes 10 connections. This is a short homework exercise and designed to orient you to creating a network.)

Your network should be developed from Elements with a coherently organized set of Types and Tags, and you should provide images and descriptions for at least the most important nodes. Elements can be anything you find significant: characters (on or offstage), objects on stage, events, locations, shared identities, etc.

You do not have to plot out every kind of relationship imaginable. Instead, choose to follow specific patterns and try to do so completely by finding everything of a kind. (If you are going to comment on character’s connected to stage objects, look at all the stage directions as well as dialogue and make sure you are capturing every object as it changes hands.)

Choose the words you use for the Type and Tags columns with care to help you make an easily readable visualization. It’s best if the categorical words you apply for Types and Tags are reusable at least once. Run the Social Network Analysis function in Kumu to generate metrics to use in sizing your nodes and weighting your connections.

Phase 3:

Begin developing more networks as you are reading, creating more Google Sheets and visualizing them in Kumu. Your networks may visualize any kinds of relationships you note are important, and you may create multiple networks as you are reading. For example, one network may track physical interactions between individual Human and Oankali characters in Lilith’s Brood. Another might concentrate on representations of species difference and similarity: what traits do humans and Oankali share in common? How many distinct kinds of Oankali forms are there? What traits are confined distinctly to one group or another?

For Digital Project 4, construct a detailed network (based on either The Handmaid’s Tale or Lilith’s Brood). Your network should include

You may establish connections in any way you wish. Connections can be made according to shared tags and/or roles (using the Tag or Role column), and/or using the Connections tab, which permits you to form particular connections between elements. Use the network analyzer to supply network statistics to give you different sizes of nodes and to help organize your plot. Experiment with the Social Network Analysis function to give you metrics that help size your nodes, give weight to your connections, and organize the final graphs you choose to submit and write about for this assignment. This part of the assignment is due before class on T 11/5.

Phase 4: Analysis and Reflection: Essay

Begin the writing process by thinking about the decisions you made in graphing. Remember that any visualization is going to filter the readings based on what you decided to plot, but you have been in control of the filtering process.

Carefully inspect the networks you have made, and note patterns that look significant in the relationships you have graphed. Now, survey your visualization. (In the process of doing this, you may want to add some nodes and connections to make sure you have been as complete as you can be in what you decided to show about the text. You may also want to revise the way you are displaying your graph based on network statistics and the advanced editing options, to change the size and shape of your nodes and edge connections.) If you have updated or changed your links to your Google Sheets or your Kumu graphs, be sure to update your links on our Google Sheet directory.

When you are happy with your data and your visualizations, think about what aspects of the novel stand out to you from reviewing your visualizations. Make these aspects serve as the foundation of your essay. In the opening paragraph of your essay, explain what you chose to represent in your graph and try to assess how completely you have represented what you wanted to show. Explain how you decided to present connections.

Describe at the end of your first paragraph or the beginning of your second paragraph what clusters or patterns stand out to you in your networks. Develop the following paragraphs of your essay by reflecting on how these relate to the the contents of the novel, working with passages that help to higlight examples of the connections you are observing.

Choose to concentrate this in any way that seems interesting, and write your essay to guide me through your graph to show me what I need to notice. Use your graphs to direct me back to passages of interest in the book (which you should quote or describe in detail with your book open and cite by page). These passages should help to highlight something important about the network you developed. Take your paper beyond the graphs you’ve created to help you discuss interesting patterns in the contents of the novel. Your paper should probably be 3 to 5 double-spaced pages long, or between 800 and 1500 words.

Write a heading to your paper on the top left corner of page 1, but not appearing on later pages, giving the following information:

Upload your paper with your list of links for Digital Project 4 on the Assignments tab in Courseweb by the deadline, Tuesday November 12 by 11:59pm.