Social Network Analysis in Community-Built Databases - Community-Built Databases: Research and Development - page 51

Chapter 3
Social Network Analysis in Community-Built
Databases

V ´ clav Sn ´ˇ el, Zden ˇ k Hor ´ k, and Milo ˇ Kud ˇ lka

Abstract In this chapter, we see community-built databases (CBD) as a direct
product of social interaction among different users and apply social network
analysis techniques to understand and uncover hidden relations that explain various
aspects of CBD quality and success. We consider several types of CBD data,
discuss their visualization, and provide a short survey of related work. Finally,
we present two experiments applying a social perspective to the CBD data.

3.1 Introduction

When working in the field of community-built databases (CBD), we are dealing
with several kinds of data which can be divided according to their nature into the
following categories (see Fig. 3.1 ):

l Database-specific data (e.g., movie information in movie databases)
l User-specific data (information about user accounts)
l Mixed data combining users with database-specific data (user/movie rating, user
discussion, etc.)

From this point of view, one may consider CBD as direct products of social
network formed around this database. Technically speaking, the database should be
considered in a broader sense, such as a set of Web pages containing knowledge or
information, not only as the technological base for saving data. It is natural to
employ techniques of social network analysis (also referred to as SNA) in the field
of CBD.
SNA has proven to be useful in understanding complex relations among subjects
with hidden implications. Uncovering these relations and implications can give us
further insight into information contained in the database, the quantity and quality