Identifying Uptake, Sessions, and Key Actors in a Socio-technical Network

This paper outlines an implementation of an analytic framework that addresses the need to understand socio-technical networks as intertwined processes at local and network levels of agency distributed across various media. We integrate data sources in a single abstract transcript of events, and identify empirical relationships between these events to build a graph of uptake relations -- how one act builds on another. We then use cohesive sub graph detection to identify "sessions" in the space-time dimensions represented by these graphs. Analysis can then focus on individual sessions and identify key actors within these sessions using sociometrics, or find relationships between sessions that might be vectors for the transmission of ideas or practices. An example is provided using data from the Tapped In educator professional network.