SONIVIS is an Eclipse-based open source software for analysing and visualizing virtual information spaces such as Wiki, Weblogs, or Social Network Sites. The objective is to investigate different development stages of these information spaces and therefore to recommend appropriate knowledge management activities depending on each stage. For this, we explore different networks such as collaboration and information networks to answer questions like these: What are the “hot” topics in my company? Who collaborates with whom? What forces drive the network’s dynamics?

The SONIVIS:Project currently provides release 0.8. We encourage you to download SONIVIS, try it, and give us your feedback though the Forum and CodeBeamer (bug tracking system).

At this point of time, we focus on Wiki-based information spaces. Wiki-specific networks can be examined from different perspectives, e.g. social perspective, knowledge perspective, information perspective, or event perspective. Each perspective ensures that special aspects of the information space can be investigated. Therefore, an analysis of these different network types is necessary to understand all knowledge processes in a Wiki. Relationships in one network usually imply relationships in another: Comparison of these defined networks enables recognition of existing networks interdependencies.

The user interface of SONIVIS is organized into three main perspectives: Analysis, Manipulation, and Statistics. Besides various Wiki and network analysis metrics, the tool provides predefined and user-definable graphical analyzes. It offers a quick overview on current Wiki states or developments, e.g. author activity levels, edit growth, or collaboration index.