Abstract
Social network is a set of people (or organizations or other social entities) connected by a set of social relationships, such as friendship, co-working or information exchange. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is becoming an important tool for investigators, but all the necessary information is often available in a distributed environment. Currently there is no information system that helps managers and team leaders monitor the status of a social network. This chapter presents an overview of the basic concepts of social networks in data analysis including social network analysis metrics and performances. Different problems in social networks are discussed such as uncertainty, missing data and finding the shortest path in a social network. Community structure, detection and visualization in social network analysis is also illustrated. This chapter bridges the gap among the users by combining social network analysis methods and information visualization technology to help a user visually identify the occurrence of a possible relationship amongst the members in a social network. Social network analysis focuses on the analysis of patterns of relationships among people, organizations, states and such social entities. Social network analysis provides both a visual and a mathematical analysis of human relationships The main goal is to provide a road map for researchers working on different aspects of Social Network Analysis.The resulting social networks have high value to business intelligence, sociological studies, organizational studies, epidemical studies, etc.