Attributes

An attribute is a property – either of an actor or of a relation. Attributes are the foundation of everything that follows: they determine what you can record, what you can filter by, and what can be shown on the network map as colour, shape, size or sector.

The example project of this manual uses nine attributes of its own:

Attribute	Type	Values
Name	actor, free text	– (created by MyNetworkmap)
Geschlecht (gender)	actor, predefined	weiblich, männlich, divers
Alter (age)	actor, free text	–
Wohnort (place)	actor, free text	–
Soziale Rolle (social role)	actor, predefined	Familie, Freundin/Freund, Kollegin/Kollege, Nachbarin/Nachbar, Vereinsmitglied, Bekannte/Bekannter
Freundschaft (friendship)	relation, predefined	enge Freundschaft, Freundschaft, Bekanntschaft
Finanzielle Hilfe (financial help)	relation, predefined	ja, nein
Konflikt (conflict)	relation, predefined	ja, nein
Stärke (strength)	relation, predefined	1, 2, 3, 4, 5

A note on language: this module is labelled entirely in English, even with the interface set to German.

Note: attributes belong to the active project. Creating, changing and deleting them needs at least the role Editor.

The four kinds of attribute

Attributes differ along two dimensions, giving four kinds – exactly the four filters at the top of the list:

	Free text (free)	Predefined
Actor	name, age, place, e-mail	gender, department, class
Relation	a note about the relation	friendship, conflict, strength

Free text means any value can be written into the field. Predefined means there is a fixed list of allowed values to choose from.

The most important decision when creating an attribute is the one between free text and predefined values – because it cannot be changed afterwards. And it decides what will be possible later:

	Free text	Predefined
Symbol colour on the map	no	yes
Actor sector	no	yes
Symbol shape	no	yes
Filtering by equality	yes	yes
Free input when recording	yes	no
Typos possible	yes	no

Rule of thumb: anything you later want to distinguish by colour or to count needs predefined values. Age as free text is fine – nobody wants to colour 40 birth years. Gender or Department as free text is a mistake you pay for later.

A practical example

In use case 2 the place of residence is to appear as a coloured sector on the symbol. For that, Wohnort had to be created as a predefined attribute with four districts in the school projects – while in the manual's example project the same attribute is free text, because arbitrary towns occur there. Both are right; what is right is whichever fits the planned analysis.

The attribute list

Column	Content
Checkbox	Multiple selection for deletion
Attribute	Name of the attribute
Type	Actor, free, Actor, predefined, Relation, free or Relation, predefined
Group rights	Read and write group
Timestamp	Time of the last change
Actions	... edit, copy icon duplicate, ✕ delete

Rows are colour-coded by kind, so actor and relation attributes can be told apart at a glance. Clicking Attribute, Type or Timestamp sorts; a second click reverses the direction.

Searching and filtering

Search by name… filters the list as you type. The four checkboxes beside it – Actor free, Actor predefined, Relation free, Relation predefined – hide whole kinds. Both can be combined.

Tip: after a centrality computation on the network map, the list fills with technical attributes such as betweenness_nwk_Klasse 7a_3345. A search term like nwk_ shows exactly those – or, through the filters, hides them.

Creating an attribute

The two buttons at the top decide what the attribute applies to:

• Add actor attribute – a property of actors
• Add relation attribute – a property of relations

Both open the same dialog.

1. Enter the name under Attribute name: (up to 200 characters).
2. Choose the answer type: free answer is the default, predefined answer switches to a fixed list of values.
3. Click Save.

Close closes the dialog without saving.

Defining predefined values

Choosing predefined answer reveals the Attribute value(s): area.

• Add value adds another empty input field – once per value.
• Type a possible value into each field.
• The X next to a field removes that value again.
• Save stores the attribute together with its values.

Order matters. The values appear everywhere in the order you created them – in the questionnaire, in the dropdowns of the actor table and in the styling dialogs of the network map. For ordinal scales (1 to 5, “never” to “daily”) it pays to sort them properly right away.

Note: a newly created attribute automatically gets the read and write group of your project. That can be changed afterwards in the edit dialog.

Creating attributes elsewhere

You do not always have to come to this module for a new attribute. The same function also sits

• in the actor table under Add column → Create new attribute,
• on the network map in the Add relation dialog under Create new relation attribute…,
• in the online questionnaire when configuring an element.

All of these create the same thing and write into the same list.

Editing an attribute

The ... icon opens the Edit attribute dialog.

Here you change

• the name of the attribute,
• under Read and write group: the read group (upper select) and the write group (lower select) – the asterisk * marks the current group,
• for predefined attributes the value list: rename values, add with Add value, remove with X.

Update completes the change. The number after id: beside each value is its internal identifier.

Caution: the answer type cannot be changed afterwards – which is why the choice is absent from the edit dialog. If you need the other kind, create a new attribute, transfer the values through export and import, and delete the old one.

Caution: removing a predefined value also removes it from every actor and relation that carries it. Renaming a value is harmless – the assignments survive, because internally the value id is used.

Duplicating an attribute

The copy icon creates a copy with the same kind and the same values, without asking. The name gets an underscore appended (Geschlecht_); if that is taken as well, a number is added (Geschlecht_1).

Tip: duplicating saves typing when you need a long value list a second time – Friendship (T1) and Friendship (T2) for two waves, say. For the same purpose there are also periods; which route fits better is described there.

Deleting an attribute

The ✕ icon opens a confirmation; Delete deletes, Close cancels.

The checkboxes let you mark several attributes – the box in the header selects all displayed ones. The red button Delete selected (n) then appears.

Caution: an attribute used by a network map cannot be deleted. MyNetworkmap aborts and reports Cannot delete attribute. Attribute is used by networkmap …. Remove it there first. When deleting several attributes the remaining ones are still processed.

Caution – leave the technical attributes alone. Every network map creates three attributes when it is set up: nwk_<map name> (who lies on the map) and nwk_x__<map name> / nwk_y__<map name> (the positions). Delete them and the map loses its content. The same goes for the survey_… and questionnaireLink_… attributes of a questionnaire.

Periods

A period is a named point or span of time to which values and relations can be assigned. It lets you record the same network at several points in time and keep the waves apart.

Periods are defined here and selected elsewhere: during import and when saving values on the network map.

Edit periods opens the Periods dialog.

The table lists all periods with Label, Start and End. A dash — means no date is set. Each row offers ... to edit and ✕ to delete. With no periods defined you see No periods defined.

Creating or changing a period

+ Add new period opens Add period; the ... icon opens the same form as Edit period.

Field	Meaning
Label *	Required: name, up to 200 characters
Start (optional)	Beginning as date and time
End (optional)	End as date and time

• End is disabled while no Start is entered.
• The end must be after the beginning, otherwise MyNetworkmap reports End must be after start.
• Both dates are optional. A period with only a label is enough if you merely want to tell waves apart.

Save stores, Cancel discards, Close closes the dialog.

Periods or a second project?

For a second wave there are two routes, and both are defensible:

	Periods in the same project	A second project
Actors	created once, keep their identity	created anew
Comparison over time	possible directly	only through export
Measures per wave	one map per wave needed	separated automatically
Clarity	suffers with many waves	preserved

Recommendation: periods when it is the same people over time (a panel). Separate projects when it is different groups – as in use case 2, where every class has its own project.