Visualizing structures of knowledge networks in virtual communities

Social network analysis is an effective method to visualizing structures of knowledge network in virtual communities. This paper introduces our researches in which a Web-based system visualizing structures in virtual communities was developed. Firstly, the function model, user interface and architecture of the system are presented. Then, three key steps and technologies in the implementation of the system are described. Lastly, we presented the case study in which the system is used to visualize the structures of social network in the virtual communities. The case study showed that the socio-gram of the social network can be visualized in different views, and a few of key indexes of the structure can be calculated.