Network Data Management in R

Abstract

A major advantage of using R for network analysis is the power and flexibility of the tools for accessing and manipulating the actual network data. One of the things that I often tell my quantitative methods students is that they will typically spend the majority of their time dealing with data management tasks and challenges. In fact, the time spent analyzing and modeling data is dwarfed by the time spent getting data ready for analyses. This is no different for network analysis. In fact, given the specialized nature of network data, the data management tasks loom even larger. In this chapter we cover three main topics. First, the general nature of network data is explored and defined. Second, we learn how network data objects can be created and managed in R. Finally, a number of typical network data management tasks are illustrated through a set of examples.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. (Samuel Johnson)