Roanoke College EPIIC Initiative Network

Network at a glance

Hub organizations

EPIIC attribution breakdown

Every edge in this network carries one or more EPIIC attribution tags, documenting how the EPIIC program shaped the connection. This is the evidence base for EPIIC's catalytic impact.

Thematic clusters

Degree centrality rankings

What is a sociogram?

The interactive network visualization on the first tab is a sociogram, a graphical representation of social relationships and connections within a defined group. The term was coined by Jacob Moreno in the 1930s as part of his development of sociometry, the quantitative study of social relationships. In its simplest form, a sociogram depicts individuals or organizations as points (nodes) and their relationships as lines (edges or ties) connecting them.

This particular sociogram depicts an inter-organizational network: the unit of analysis is the organization rather than the individual, and the ties represent partnership connections between organizations in Roanoke College's EPIIC ecosystem.

Data structure

This sociogram was built by bringing together regional knowledge from the evaluation team with systematic evidence from primary sources. The result is a multi-layered dataset with confidence indicators that make data quality visible at every level.

STEMsaic Research Impacts developed and designed the methods to bring together the different assets of the partnership infrastructure developing at Roanoke College, tag them, interconnect them, and build this interactive visualization based on research-informed practices of network diagrams and sociograms that reveal insights into partnership ecosystems moving well beyond hub-and-spoke representations. Beyond the mapping itself, tagging the EPIIC connections in terms of development pathways matters: these processes and programmatic structures are often more important than the partnership entities themselves. They help to illuminate how things came to be, not just that they are, and that understanding points toward the support needed to sustain them.

Visualization method: force-directed layout

The interactive sociogram uses a force-directed graph layout algorithm to position nodes. This is one of the most widely used layout algorithms in network visualization and works by simulating physical forces:

Visual encoding

Key SNA metrics

Whole network vs. ego network analysis

This visualization represents a whole network analysis (Provan & Kenis, 2008): the analytic focus is on the structure of the entire partnership ecosystem, including all ties among all organizations. The whole network approach reveals emergent structural properties (clusters, bridges, isolates) that are invisible from any single organization's perspective.

The network combines evaluation team analysis of sources with participant-reported connections from the Spring 2025 Celebration of Partnerships, creating a hybrid that draws on both insider-verified event data and systematically analyzed program documentation.

Limitations and considerations

In-progress network. This sociogram is still under active development. Node counts, connection counts, and confidence ratings will shift as additional sources are reviewed and the Roanoke EPIIC team completes its validation review.

Binary ties only. The network records only whether a connection exists or not. It does not capture tie strength, tie type (funding, referral, co-programming), or directionality. A weighted or multiplex network analysis would reveal richer structural dynamics.

Snapshot, not longitudinal. This represents the network at one point in time. The Year 1 & Year 2 framing reflects source document coverage, not a temporal change analysis. Longitudinal tracking would require time-stamped edge data.

Roanoke College not shown as a separate node. Roanoke College is the central institution connected to all partners shown here. Rather than a single node, it is represented through the Roanoke College Internal node (node 100), which opens into the internal network view showing 15 departments and select external connections.

Two sociograms, one ecosystem

Suggested references

• Moreno, J. L. (1934). Who Shall Survive? The origin of the sociogram concept.
• Freeman, L. C. (1979). Centrality in social networks. Social Networks, 1(3), 215-239.
• Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (1994). Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge University Press.
• Provan, K. G., & Kenis, P. (2008). Modes of network governance. JPART, 18(2), 229-252.
• Borgatti, S. P., Everett, M. G., & Johnson, J. C. (2018). Analyzing Social Networks (2nd ed.). SAGE.

Why map your network?

Most institutions know they have partnerships, but few can see the full picture. A network map transforms scattered knowledge into a shared, interactive view of who connects to whom, where the clusters form, and where the gaps live. It becomes a strategic tool, not just a visualization.

This sociogram you are viewing is one example of what becomes possible when partnership data is collected thoughtfully and visualized well. STEMsaic works with institutions to design data collection activities and transform the results into interactive tools like this one.

Beyond connection counts

The number of connections is where most network analysis starts, but it is far from where it ends. STEMsaic can help your organization map networks across multiple dimensions:

Research-informed approaches

STEMsaic's network analysis work draws on established Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology, adapted for partnership contexts. Key measures include degree centrality, network density, clustering coefficients, and bridging analysis. We make these accessible to practitioners, not just researchers.

What this looks like in practice

Get in touch

Interested in mapping your own partnership network? STEMsaic works with higher education institutions, research centers, community organizations, and grant-funded projects. Visit stemsaic.com to learn more, or reach out directly at partner@stemsaic.com to discuss what a network analysis engagement might look like for your organization.

The NSF EPIIC Program cohort

Roanoke College is one of four institutions supported in a collaborative NSF EPIIC Program (Enabling Partnerships to Increase Innovation Capacity) cohort. The cohort also includes Northwest Arkansas Community College (NWACC), Canisius University in Buffalo, NY, and Albion College in rural Michigan. Each institution carries its own individual NSF award, working in parallel to build partnership capacity in ways shaped by their regional contexts. Roanoke's award is #2432715.

Roanoke College is a private liberal arts college in Salem, Virginia, situated within the broader Roanoke metropolitan region. The college's EPIIC work reflects a faculty-driven partnership model with strong connections to healthcare (notably Carilion Clinic), regional higher education institutions (Virginia Western Community College, Virginia Tech, Radford University), and community organizations throughout the Roanoke Valley. The STEM-humanities integration focus distinguishes Roanoke's approach, bringing together faculty fellows from diverse disciplines to build interdisciplinary partnership infrastructure.

From a developing scaffold to the current network

The Spring 2025 Celebration of Partnerships produced an artifact: a participant-generated sociomatrix capturing 25 core partners and 49 connections from a single event. That file remains separate and continues to receive annual spring updates.

Development of this Year 1 & Year 2 Sociogram began in July/August 2025 as a developing scaffold, assembling an initial node set from regional knowledge, program context, and early EPIIC engagement. Individual nodes and connections were brought in and refined across successive iterations. What you see now represents at least the eighth version of this network, reflecting continuous refinement alongside Roanoke College's evolving partnership infrastructure.

The current version was built from over 70 sources including design and strategy session notes and meeting notes, Faculty Fellows sessions, Cohort 2 meetings, Connect Four cross-institutional workshops, synthesis briefs, and annual review summaries spanning November 2024 through April 2026. This network is still developing, with ongoing validation and refinement as EPIIC activities continue.

Categories of evidence

The expanded network draws on multiple evidence types, each contributing different kinds of partnership information:

Design and strategy session notes and meeting notes (primary source). These sessions between the PI (Len Pysh, Ph.D.) and the STEMsaic evaluation team from November 2024 through April 2026 provided the richest evidence: specific partner names, contact persons, activities, outcomes, and relationship progression over time. These materials captured the real texture of how partnership development unfolds at an institution.

Faculty Fellows sessions and reflections. Documentation from Faculty Fellows activities, including session notes and reflection documents, named specific partners, described their roles, and illustrated how faculty-driven partnerships translate to institutional connections.

Synthesis briefs. Four audience-specific synthesis briefs (industry, community, faculty, leadership) and faculty fellow reflection documents provided pre-analyzed partnership context and helped identify cross-cutting themes.

Celebration of Partnerships sociomatrix. Participant-generated data from the Spring 2025 Celebration of Partnerships event provided 25 core partners and 49 confirmed connections, forming the validated foundation of the network.

Cohort meetings and cross-institutional workshops. Connect Four cohort calls, annual review summaries, and cross-institutional workshops provided the cohort-level and programmatic context for categorizing partnerships.

The EPIIC attribution framework

Every edge in this network carries an attribution tag describing how the connection relates to EPIIC activities. This is not just a map of who Roanoke College knows. It is a map of partnerships that the NSF EPIIC Program has created, strengthened, or catalyzed. The color of each connection line tells you the mechanism:

EPIIC amplification (mint): Connections that existed before EPIIC but the program elevated, formalized, or deepened them. Examples include Carilion Clinic Partnership, Fralin Biomedical lecture series, Blue Ridge Literacy, and CCI Cyber.

EPIIC facilitation (teal): EPIIC coordination time, faculty fellows infrastructure, and capacity building directly enabled these connections. Examples include the Virginia Western 2+2 program, UVA MS in Commerce outreach, Franklin County middle school visits, and IRB streamlining efforts.

EPIIC events and structures (gold): Connections formed or strengthened through EPIIC-funded events: the Celebration of Partnerships, Community of Practice meetings, and Connect Four Faculty Fellows Workshop.

EPIIC cohort (cyan): Connections through the Connect Four network itself, including shared NSF infrastructure, cross-institutional learning, IRB templates, and advisory board models shared across cohort institutions.

Ongoing review and validation

Partnership development is ongoing and dynamic. A partnership classification taxonomy guided the identification process, using controlled vocabulary for organization identification signals ("working with," "meeting with," "partnered with," "MOU," "articulation agreement") and classifying every finding along multiple dimensions: confidence level (confirmed/inferred), partnership status (active/coordinating), and EPIIC attribution type. The Roanoke College EPIIC team coordinates full review to verify and continuously improve the network data. We welcome corrections and additions as this work continues to develop.

Separate from the Celebration sociogram

The Spring 2025 Celebration of Partnerships sociogram remains a separate artifact, capturing participant-generated sociomatrix data from a single event and continuing to receive annual spring updates. This sociogram synthesizes all available sources across the full EPIIC period. Celebration event data maps one-way into this version; this version never writes back to the Celebration data.

Version history

STEMsaic Research Impacts

STEMsaic Research Impacts provides external evaluation and design expertise for the NSF EPIIC Program. As a higher education and industry thought leader in partnerships coordination, science and society bridges, and research and evaluation of science and society interfaces, STEMsaic developed and designed the methods to bring together the different assets of the partnership infrastructure developing at Roanoke College, tag them, interconnect them, and program this interactive visualization based on research-informed practices of network diagrams and sociograms. This work goes beyond simply mapping who Roanoke College knows. Tagging the EPIIC connections in terms of development pathways helps illuminate how things came to be, not just that they are, and that understanding points toward the support needed to sustain them.

The Roanoke College EPIIC team

Leonard Pysh, Ph.D. (PI) and Shannon Anderson, Ph.D. (Co-PI) lead the Roanoke College EPIIC program. The first cohort of faculty fellows, Taylor Rowley, Ph.D. and Andreea Mihalache-O'Keef, Ph.D., helped establish the program's partnership infrastructure across Year 1. Brian Cobb, Ph.D., Kimberly Garza, Ph.D., and Melanie Trexler, Ph.D. joined as the 2025-2026 faculty fellows, advancing the partnership work into Year 2 across faculty development, community partnership building, healthcare collaboration through the Carilion Clinic relationship, and regional higher education articulation. NSF Award #2432715. External evaluation and partnership network design by STEMsaic Research Impacts.