NodeXL Pro Tutorial: Flickr related tag networks
By Dr. Verónica Espinoza-González (Twitter @Verukita1) February 2023
This tutorial describes the steps needed to generate a network composed of Tags on Flickr photos and their connections to Tags that co-occur on photos using NodeXL Pro’s Flickr Related Tags Network importer.
Flickr is a website that allows you to store, sort, search and share photos or videos over the Internet.
It has a community of users who share photographs and videos created by themselves. This community is governed by rules of behavior and conditions of use that favor the good management of the contents.
The popularity of Flickr is mainly due to the ability to manage images using tools that allow authors to tag their photographs, explore and comment on other users’ images. Flickr is a tool that can be used to enhance photography classes [1].
Follow the steps below to generate a Flickr related tag network with NodeXL.
Tutorial requirements
Basic knowledge about Task Automation is required. The NodeXL Pro data recipes used in this tutorial can be found in the official recipe bundle on the page Automate NodeXL Pro. You can easily learn how to automate NodeXL Pro by reading this page, looking at this tutorial and/or watching the video on the right.
Step 1: Open the flickr data importer
Open the Flickr Related Tags Network Importer via NodeXL Pro > Data > Import > From Flickr Related Tags Network.
Step 2: Importer setup
In order to be able to download data via the flickr API, you first need to apply for an API key.
Enter the API key into the importer and add your search query. Choose the network size 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0 and select Add sample image files to the Vertex worksheet, then click OK.
Network level options
The above example is based on a 1.5 network. This means the importer will look for all tags that are related to the query – in this case “sociology” – which represents the 1.0 network. After that the importer will collect new lists of tags around each related tag and add network edges between these tags if they are connected to each other which is the 1.5 network. The 2.0 network contains all related tags that are related to the tags of the 1.0 network. Each network nevel will show different shapes as seen below:
Step 3: Import the data recipe
When the data download is finished, open the Options Import menu via Options > Import and select the Flickr Tag Network options file and click open (see Tutorial requirements above).
Step 4: Automate
To open the Automate window and run automation, click Graph > Automate > Run.
Step 5: Review the data and graph.
When automation is finished, you will see a fully populated NodeXL workbook and the corresponding network graph.
Reference
[1] Flickr. In: Wikipedia [Internet]. 2022 [cited 2023 Feb 9]. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flickr
Questions?
Please send an email to info@smrfoundation.org.