1. About
The Affinity Map is a visualization method conceived to show the hidden dynamics that exist within large organizations. The present case study shows the effective collaboration practices and the potential affinities between the laboratories of the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) at EPFL.
Graphical grammar
The Affinity Map is a tool to investigate interactions within ENAC in terms of joint teaching activities, co-supervision responsibilities, and co-authored publications. These affinities are arranged on two visual levels, showing collaborations between both laboratories and scholars of the same group.
Private and public versions
Two versions of the Affinity Map are available online. The public version is for the general public, while there exists a private version accessible only to ENAC members. The public version is simplified and does not offer all the features of the private version to guarantee the privacy of ENAC scholars.
The private version indeed features the name of scholars, collaborations with laboratory external to the ENAC school, and collaborations with academic and non-academic institutions outside of the EPFL, shown around each laboratory.
The project
The Affinity Map was launched and promoted by the former Dean of ENAC, Prof. Marilyne Andersen. The current design was at the core of a PhD thesis conducted by Dario Rodighiero within the domain of Digital Humanities under the supervision of Prof. Frédéric Kaplan (DHLAB at EPFL) and Prof. Boris Beaude (ISS at UNIL).
Credits
- Design and front-end development: Dario Rodighiero
- Architecture and back-end development: Ogier Maitre
- Server and data maintenance: Jean-Daniel Bonjour, Samuel Bancal, and Nicolas Dubois
- Project management: Marie-Christine Buluschek and Antoine Guillemin
- Supervision: Prof. Marilyne Andersen, Prof. Frédéric Kaplan, and Prof. Boris Beaude
- Many thanks to colleagues who differently contributed to this project, listed here in alphabetical order: Consuelo Antille, Lauren Bolli, Vincent Buntinx, Pierpaolo Follia, Melany Gilis, Alexandre Gonzalez, Jean-Robert Gros, Claudio Leonardi, Cristina Perez, Orlin Topalov, and Cyril Veillon.
Scientific publications
For further information or comments, please contact Marie Buluschek (ENAC-DO), Nicolas Dubois or Samuel Bancal (ENAC-IT).
2. User Guide
Moving in the map space
Interface is zoomable in and out by using the mouse wheel or the trackpad. This allows users to explore the map at different scales. Holding down the mouse or trackpad button allows for moving within the map. Clicking on a lab or on a satellite, trigger a jump to the corresponding laboratory.
Control panel
At the bottom of the page, there is a control panel accessible by clicking on the icon on the right. Using the orange toggle buttons on the left, you can select and deselect the affinities and change the network arrangement. Using the orange toggle buttons on the right, you can show or hide the visual elements to focus on specific information.
Search bar
It allows you either to search for a specific laboratory by zooming into the map, or filter the whole network creating a smaller Affinity Map, more adapted to your needs. To filter, you have just to select the items you want from the list and validate them by pressing the relative button. Once selected, you can refine further the map by adding more filters. To restore the original configuration, just press reset at any moment.
The search bar allows for:
- Search for a laboratory by acronym or name and zoom on it.
- Filter by institutes (IA, IIC, or IIE).
- Filter by thematic clusters.
- Filter by keywords: you can start typing a specific English word (e.g. “urban”), and then select a corresponding term from the proposals on the list.
In the private version, the search bar also allows for:
- Filter for the external collaborations, that is laboratories who are interacting with specific institutions outside of EPFL. Typing a string allows you to filter laboratories by an institution (for example "MIT"), institution classification (for example "European governments"), or country (for example "France").
3. Reading the map
Visualizing affinities
Interactions between labs
The Affinity Map reveals the cohesion within ENAC in terms of joint teaching activities, co-supervision responsibilities, and co-authored publications. These relations that we call “affinities” are shown as lines between the laboratories. Their thickness relates to the number of collaborations. Yet affinities are also displayed as “satellites,” which spin around the laboratories. The size of the satellite reflects the strength of the affinities, while the distance of the orbit is a visual parameter to evaluate the laboratory position according to the network.
Unlike links, the satellite rings reveal which types of affinity exist between two laboratories. When those rings appear colored, it exists an effective affinity: outer ring shows joint teaching activities, middle ring represents joint publications, and inner ring depicts co-advising activities – a legend at the top right of the screen helps to recall the affinity types.
Interactions within a laboratory
The Affinity Map also reveals interactions between scholars. Chord diagrams show the affinities between laboratory members. The curved segments associated to individuals show their academic activities with respect to teaching, publications and supervision – data are always normalized within each group so as to avoid any kind of evaluation between different laboratories.
Shared keywords
The visualization employs the language in use within ENAC by displaying shared keywords between laboratories. These keywords are determined via word frequency analysis of publication abstracts, available in EPFL’s Infoscience repository. The result is a semantic background that describes the research landscape by revealing terms that are investigated by laboratories. In the absence of existing “formal” affinities (i.e. co-publications, co-supervision or co-teaching) between neighboring laboratories, the shared keywords indicate potential affinities for future collaborations.
Laboratory-specific activities
Teaching, supervision, and publication practice
The width of the outer laboratory rings displays the academic activity through affinities according to the laboratory average. A thicker width of the outer ring (teaching), compared to the middle ring (publications), indicates that a specific laboratory is more involved in educational activities than in publishing. This information is calculated in respect to a theoretical ENAC laboratory with equal shares of the three academic activities, namely teaching, publications, and advising.
External collaborations
The private version shows the collaborations that are external to the ENAC in two different ways. On the one hand, institutions external to the EPFL are arranged in a circle around the laboratories. They do not include only universities, but also governmental units, companies, and partners from the non-profit sector. On the other hand, the EPFL laboratories that are not part of the ENAC are represented as gray nodes in the Affinity Map. This extended network situates the ENAC in a larger context where collaborations are not limited to the only school. This feature can be activated/deactivated from the control panel.