We describe a method for the automatic identification of communities of practice from email logs within an organization. We use a betweenness centrality algorithm that can rapidly find communities within a graph representing information flows. We apply this algorithm to an email corpus of nearly one million messages collected over a two-month span, and show that the method is effective at identifying true communities, both formal and informal, within these scale-free graphs. This approach also enables the identification of leadership roles within the communities. These studies are complemented by a qualitative evaluation of the results in the field.
%0 Journal Article
%1 966268
%A Tyler, Joshua R.
%A Wilkinson, Dennis M.
%A Huberman, Bernardo A.
%C Deventer, The Netherlands, The Netherlands
%D 2003
%I Kluwer, B.V.
%K Hewlett Packard email network social
%P 81--96
%T Email as spectroscopy: automated discovery of community structure within organizations
%U http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=966268
%X We describe a method for the automatic identification of communities of practice from email logs within an organization. We use a betweenness centrality algorithm that can rapidly find communities within a graph representing information flows. We apply this algorithm to an email corpus of nearly one million messages collected over a two-month span, and show that the method is effective at identifying true communities, both formal and informal, within these scale-free graphs. This approach also enables the identification of leadership roles within the communities. These studies are complemented by a qualitative evaluation of the results in the field.
%@ 1-4020-1611-5
@article{966268,
abstract = {We describe a method for the automatic identification of communities of practice from email logs within an organization. We use a betweenness centrality algorithm that can rapidly find communities within a graph representing information flows. We apply this algorithm to an email corpus of nearly one million messages collected over a two-month span, and show that the method is effective at identifying true communities, both formal and informal, within these scale-free graphs. This approach also enables the identification of leadership roles within the communities. These studies are complemented by a qualitative evaluation of the results in the field.},
added-at = {2008-02-03T13:43:16.000+0100},
address = {Deventer, The Netherlands, The Netherlands},
author = {Tyler, Joshua R. and Wilkinson, Dennis M. and Huberman, Bernardo A.},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/240acf2a42bbbee975c602a21780ceef1/mk1298},
book = {Communities and technologies},
interhash = {c712e59ff99f12c42a5d3c3b0bf4c48f},
intrahash = {40acf2a42bbbee975c602a21780ceef1},
isbn = {1-4020-1611-5},
keywords = {Hewlett Packard email network social},
pages = {81--96},
publisher = {Kluwer, B.V.},
timestamp = {2008-02-03T13:43:16.000+0100},
title = {Email as spectroscopy: automated discovery of community structure within organizations},
url = {http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=966268},
year = 2003
}