Roanoke College EPIIC Initiative Network

Network at a Glance

Hub Organizations

Five organizations emerge as structural hubs in the Roanoke College partnership network, each maintaining the highest number of direct connections to other partners. These are the organizations through which information, resources, and collaborative opportunities most readily flow in and out of the Roanoke College ecosystem.

Thematic Clusters

The Roanoke College network naturally organizes into several thematic clusters. These are groups of organizations more densely connected to each other than to the rest of the network, representing overlapping domains of partnership activity.

Structural Insights

Bridge Organizations

Carilion Clinic and VWCC serve as the primary bridge organizations, connecting clusters that would otherwise be more isolated. If either were removed, the health/human services cluster would become significantly more disconnected from the education/cultural clusters. This makes these two organizations structurally critical to the network's overall cohesion.

Isolated & Peripheral Nodes

Several organizations occupy peripheral positions with only 1–2 connections to other Roanoke College partners: Casa Latina (1), The Birth Nurse LLC (1), Virginia Department of Health (1), Physicians to Children (1), Greater Roanoke Workforce Development Board (1), and Roanoke Valley Sister Cities (2). Additionally, CareForward and Reserva Araponga have zero connections to other core Roanoke College network partners. These peripheral positions don't indicate lesser importance. They may reflect untapped potential for deeper integration across the Roanoke College ecosystem.

The Extended Network Effect

The 42 extended partners dramatically expand the Roanoke College network's reach: national health workforce organizations (through ASPPH), environmental stewardship (through Roanoke City Parks), cultural arts (through Taubmann Museum), and food security (through Radford University's connections to LEAP and Feeding SW Virginia). This penumbra network represents the Roanoke College partnership ecosystem's latent capacity: organizations that could be activated for new collaborative initiatives.

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 acknowledged partnership connections between organizations.

Data structure: the sociomatrix

The underlying data for this sociogram comes from two complementary structures captured in the original spreadsheet, both standard in Social Network Analysis:

Visualization method: force-directed layout

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. This is distinct from an ego network analysis, which would focus on a single organization and examine only its direct partners. The whole network approach reveals emergent structural properties - clusters, bridges, isolates - that are invisible from any single organization's perspective.

The fact that this network was generated from a Celebration event placemat activity - where partners themselves identified their connections - makes this a form of participant-generated network mapping. This is methodologically significant because it captures emic (insider) perceptions of network structure rather than imposing external definitions of what constitutes a tie.

Limitations and considerations

Self-reported ties. The connection data was generated by partner organizations during a single event, reflecting perceived connections at one point in time. Organizations absent from the event could not report their connections.

Binary ties only. The sociomatrix records only whether a connection exists or not - it does not capture tie strength, tie type (funding, referral, co-programming, etc.), 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. Partnership networks are dynamic - new ties form, existing ties strengthen or dissolve. Repeated measurement would enable analysis of network evolution.

Roanoke College not shown as a node. All 25 organizations were invited based on their connection to Roanoke College. The college is coordinated and connected to all 25 core partners but is not depicted as a node. Including it would add 25 edges from one point, making it harder to see how partners connect to each other.

Suggested references

• Moreno, J. L. (1934). Who Shall Survive? - The origin of the sociogram concept. This is where the idea of visualizing social connections as a network map began, and the term "sociogram" was coined. Still cited in contemporary network research nearly a century later.
• Freeman, L. C. (1979). Centrality in social networks. Social Networks, 1(3), 215-239. - Defined the centrality measures (like the connection counts used in this tool) that are now standard across all network analysis.
• Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (1994). Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge University Press. - The foundational methods textbook for social network analysis. The go-to reference for understanding how network data is structured and analyzed.
• Provan, K. G., & Kenis, P. (2008). Modes of network governance. JPART, 18(2), 229-252. - Explains how different governance structures (shared, lead organization, administrative) show up in network maps like this one. Directly relevant to interpreting partnership ecosystems.
• Borgatti, S. P., Everett, M. G., & Johnson, J. C. (2018). Analyzing Social Networks (2nd ed.). SAGE. - A practical, accessible guide to conducting your own network analysis. Covers the full workflow from data collection through visualization.
• Scott, J. (2017). Social Network Analysis: A Handbook (4th ed.). SAGE. - Widely regarded as the most accessible introduction to SNA for non-specialists. Clear explanations of concepts without heavy mathematics.

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. The Roanoke College team gathered this data through a creative participatory activity at their Celebration of Partnerships event, and STEMsaic transformed it into the interactive tool you see here.

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.

The data for this visualization was collected through a participant-generated sociomatrix, where partners themselves identified their connections. This is a form of community-based participatory research (CBPR) that captures insider perceptions of network structure rather than imposing external definitions. The result reflects how organizations see their own relationships.

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 Celebration of Partnerships

In Spring 2025, Roanoke College hosted a Celebration of Partnerships event, bringing together 25 organizations that collaborate with the college through the NSF EPIIC (Expanding Partnerships for Innovation, Impact, and Capacity) Initiative (NSF #2432715). The goal was both to celebrate existing partnerships and to make the invisible web of connections between organizations visible for the first time.

The EPIIC team at Roanoke College designed a participatory activity that would turn an evening celebration into a genuine data collection moment. The team was led by Leonard Pysh, Ph.D. (PI, Professor of Biology and Director of the Center for Health Careers), Shannon Anderson, Ph.D. (Co-PI, Professor of Sociology and Public Health Studies), Taylor Rowley, Ph.D. (Faculty Fellow), and Andreea Mihalache-O'Keef, Ph.D. (Faculty Fellow and international relations scholar focused on local capacity building). Brian Cobb, Ph.D., Kimberly Garza, Ph.D., and Melanie Trexler, Ph.D. are the 2025-2026 faculty fellows who will participate in the 2026 Celebration of Partnerships.

The yarn connection activity

Here is how it worked: each of the 25 partner organizations had their logo printed on paper, attached to bamboo sticks inserted into foam inside weighted buckets. White yarn connected every organization to Roanoke College (the implicit center). Then participants were invited to add colored yarn connections between their organization and every other organization they partnered with.

The result was a physical, three-dimensional network visualization that grew in complexity as more connections were added. Participants watched from the balcony as the web of yarn connections grew denser, and many commented that they had never seen the full scope of the regional partnership ecosystem laid out this way.

The placemat activity: where this data comes from

The Celebration of Partnerships featured several participatory activities designed to help participants understand and articulate their partnership connections. The placemat activity was the primary data collection tool and the direct source of the network map you see on the first tab.

At each table, organizations completed large placemat worksheets that asked them to identify every other organization in the room they had a partnership connection with. The placemats bridged conversations across topics and tables, turning dinner discussion into structured data. People in the same organization worked on their placemat together, which produced richer and more accurate data than individual survey responses would have. The team collected about 20 completed placemats, and the majority of participants completed the exercise exactly as the team intended.

The Roanoke team then compiled the placemat data into a sociomatrix, a structured spreadsheet where organizations appear on both axes and marked cells indicate a partnership connection. This is the standard data format for Social Network Analysis, and it is the foundation of everything you see in this interactive tool.

A note on Roanoke College in the map: You will notice that Roanoke College itself does not appear as a node in the sociogram. Roanoke College is coordinated and connected to all 25 core partner organizations shown here. Including it would add 25 edges radiating from one central point and obscure the more interesting story: how these partner organizations connect to each other, independent of their shared connection to Roanoke.

STEMsaic's role

STEMsaic Research Impacts provided external evaluation design expertise for the NSF EPIIC Initiative, including participatory data collection design, network analysis, and the transformation of the raw placemat data into this interactive visualization.

During the planning phase, STEMsaic contributed place-making design principles rooted in participatory evaluation methodology, suggesting a two-phase approach (building and finished product) so participants could see their contribution and take photos of their own creation. STEMsaic also recommended early materials testing, which proved wise when the yarn weight issue surfaced during setup.

After the event, STEMsaic applied social network analysis methods to convert the sociomatrix data into the interactive visualization you see on the first tab, complete with network metrics, ego network highlighting, and the regional partner pool.

What participants said

The response was overwhelmingly positive. Participants described it as a great visualization of the connectivity in their region. Several organizations expressed interest in running a version of the activity for their own purposes. People who were upstairs during setup found themselves drawn to the balcony to watch the network grow below.

Perhaps most importantly, the event created new connections. Several participants told the team that they appreciated the opportunity to meet people they had known of but had never had the chance to meet in person.

Coming soon

STEMsaic is currently developing a full guide to this participatory network mapping activity, making it available for other institutions and organizations to use at networking events, celebration events, workshops, and other gatherings. Whether you are a university celebrating community partnerships, a grant project visualizing its collaborative ecosystem, or an organization wanting to see its regional connections, this activity can be adapted for your context.

The forthcoming guide will include facilitation instructions, materials lists, data collection templates, and guidance on converting the physical activity into a digital network analysis. Stay tuned at stemsaic.com, or contact us at partner@stemsaic.com.

The Roanoke College NSF EPIIC team

This sociogram exists because of the creativity and commitment of the Roanoke College NSF EPIIC Initiative team. Dr. Pysh and Dr. Anderson, together with the first cohort of faculty fellows, Dr. Rowley and Dr. Mihalache-O'Keef, took a conceptual idea and turned it into a memorable, data-rich experience that participants are still talking about. Brian Cobb, Ph.D., Kimberly Garza, Ph.D., and Melanie Trexler, Ph.D. join as the 2025-2026 faculty fellows, continuing to build on that foundation as the program grows. The STEMsaic Research Impacts team, providing external evaluation design and partnership network visualization expertise, was proud to support their vision.