Calculating characteristic path length?

[Sarah Gordon]

Hi there,

I'm trying to run a report to generate information on characteristic path length. I've read through the ORA user manuals for 2020 and 2022, but I haven't been able to get the output I'm looking for through All Measures report. I would like the characteristic path length information at the network-level (i.e., the average characteristic path length for the network). Is there a way to do this in ORA?

Thanks so much!

Sarah

[Mihovil Bartulović]

Dear Sarah,

you can most definitely do that in ORA! 

Characteristic path length is a network level measurement for unimodal networks, so when you run your All measures report you have to select network level measures as your measure category (see attached). Then, once you finish running your report it will be under Analysis of network --> Network-Level Measures.

Hope this helps!

Mihovil

[Sarah Gordon]

Mihovil - thanks so much! My network is not unimodal; could that be causing the issue? I've got two sets of nodes (agentA and agentB) and the network is of the links between them. They are all the same agent type (students). ORA has classified it as bimodal (though I'm not sure it really is...). Is there a way for me to get characteristic path length on a bimodal network? Or do I need to translate it into unimodal somehow?

Thank you!

Sarah

[Mihovil Bartulović]

Dear Sarah,

unfortunately ORA only calculates CPL for unimodal networks - but from your data description, it sounds to me that you should be able to import your data as an unimodal network. 

How are you importing your data and what does your data look like?

Mihovil