We wish you a peaceful and happy new year! This graph image is generated from The Emoji Graph.

2015 year in review for Graph Commons

2015 was a year of great new beginnings for Graph Commons and for our mission to provide an open network mapping platform, so that everyone can collectively involve in the act of mapping networks as an ongoing practice.

This post was originally posted in the Graph Commons Journal.

Here is our progress in 2015:

May

After six months of development, the new version of Graph Commons released on May 28th 2015 and witnessed a momentum of interest from people with varying interests, backgrounds and skill sets.

June

• Network mapping at Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Paris (view all workshops)
• Video tutorials released on network mapping using the new graph interface.
• SIMPOL data Hub started on financial systems simulation and policy modelling in EU.

July

• Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly data hub started with a focus on local governance
• Turkey’s Media Ownership Graph became viral in social media and resulted in ~50K visits from July 20 to 27.
• Interactive graph embed released, so you can quickly display your interactive graphs on your websites.
• Faster and smarter data import feature released, so you can import a spreadsheet of data.

August

• Force Atlas 2 layout feature released to provide better organization of large graphs.
• Graph Commons API alpha version released.
• Mobile view of graphs improved.

September

• Graph Commons Hackathons site released for announcements and documentation.
• Structured Journalism and Network Mapping Hackathon brought together programmers, activists, and journalists to create tools for network mapping and analysis using the API.
• Private plans announced to help build a sustainable platform while supporting free public graphs.
• Graph Commons Slack Channel started for community chat, questions, discussions, meeting people, sharing work.

October

• Applied to Knight News Challenge, we weren’t so lucky.
• Enrolled in Neo4j’s Startup Program and switched to Neo4j Enterprise edition.
• Interactive tutorial to get started for new members.
• Continuous database backups started.
• SIMPOL released the Climate and Energy Targets 2030 Consultations graph.

November

• Graph Comments released, enabling discussions on graphs with interactive helpers to mention people and point to nodes.
• Moved from invitation-only to open sign up.
• Featured on the Neo4j blog: Meet Graph Commons: Network Mapping For Everyone.
• Map on Syrian Refugees and NGOs attracted quite high attention.
• lobbywatch.ch started mapping relations of Swiss politicians (view lobbywatch’s graphs).

December

• Workshop at The Brown Institute, Columbia Journalism School (view documentation).
• Networks of Dispossession project’s large prints and touch screen maps featured in the exhibition at MAXXI Museum in Rome.
• Better Filters released, enabling graph authors to compose their custom filters depending on the graph context.
• Node embed released for publishers to embed information cards in their publications.
• iklimadaleti.org, new journal on ecological justice, launched using graph embeds and node embeds.
• Better site wide search released (Elastic Search), so you can search among all public graphs, nodes, and members on Graph Commons.

Coming up in January 2016…

• API refinement with general search, graph analysis + more API wrappers
• New Hackathon: Creative Use of Complex Networks, Jan 9–10

Thank you everyone for your great support and encouragement. We will continue to provide an ever-growing connected knowledge base and support a network-literate community flourishing around it.

We wish you a peaceful and happy new year!