Studying Group Dynamics through Social Networks Analysis in a Medical Community

Ruben P. Albuquerque, Jonice Oliveira, Fabrício F. Faria, Rafael Monclar, Jano M. de Souza

Graduate School in Computing Science (PPGI), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
Systems and Computing Engineering Graduate School (COPPE), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
Systems and Computing Engineering Graduate School (COPPE), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ),Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.

DOI: 10.4236/sn.2014.32017                

Abstract

In 2008, the Brazilian Department of Science and Technology created the INCTs (Brazilian Science and Technology Institutes). One of them was the Cancer Control INCT. Due to its importance and considering that there are different groups working together in the same area, it is important that they collaborate intensely. Envisioning an empowerment of scientific collaboration, the BRINCA project was created to support a set of analyses of the social networks from this particular INCT. These analyses were created by mining curricular and publications bases, and identifying different types of scientific relationships and areas. We were able to observe, for instance, how the interaction is amongst researchers from related areas, which researchers were more collaborative and which ones were isolated from the network. These analyzes were used by the INCT coordination to understand and act to improve scientific collaboration.

Keywords

Social Networks; Scientific Collaborations; Data Mining

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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