Course on Social Technologies

Posted by shelly on April 17, 2006

I was recently talking to folks at the UW digital media grad school about doing a ten week class on social technologies this summer. I put together a syllabus and came up with the following reading list. Some of the reading came from my own experience/exposure with the literature and some from reviewing other similar courses offered by Liz Lawley, Clay Shirky, & Jenny Preece.

Suggestions for additions? It’s an interesting excercise cobbling together a reading list on social technologies, and recognizing some of the most up to date/relevant work is online, in the context of blogs, outside the more traditional peer review process—which suggests to me we need a form of online blog peer review: a measure of quality not just determined by the quantity of eyes attending to a blog, but rather by assessment of experts.

Course description:

Online digital media is increasingly authored and shared in the context of social technologies such as email, blogs, wikis, and social networking sites. Not only do social technologies enable people to find, share and collaborate with others, socially enhanced information systems enable people to filter for the most relevant, quality digital content. This course provides students with an opportunity to learn the theory and practice underlying the design and use of social technologies for content creation, sharing, collaboration, and knowledge management. We will examine current trends in social technologies ranging from massive online communities to personal profiles, and discuss implications for the assessment and management of social technology systems.

Week 1: Introduction to Social Technologies http://many.corante.com/archives/2004/07/22/discussing_social_media.php

  • Farnham, S., MacLauren, M., Counts, S. Research in Social Computing: Approaches and New Directions.
  • Erickson, T., and Kellogg, W. A. (2000). Social Translucence: An Approach to Designing Systems that Support Social Processes. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 7, 1, 59-83.
  • Davies, W. You Don’t Know Me, but…Social Capitol and Social Software. ISociety (2003).
  • Madden, M. America’s Online Pursuits: The Changing Picture of Who’s Online and What They Do. Pew Internet & American Life Project (2003).
  • Mayfield, Ross. Discussing Social Media.

    Blogs: http://many.corante.com/ http://www.smartmobs.com/

    Week 2: Communication Technologies

    Technologies to review: Email, Netscan, IM, SMS, Mailing List

  • Walther, J. B. Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction. Communication Research, 23 (1996), 3-43.
  • Ducheneuaut, N and Bellotti V. Email as Habitat.
  • Smith, M. and Fiore, A. (2001) Visualization Components for Persistent Conversations. In Proceedings of CHI 2001, Seattle.
  • Cummings, J.N., Kraut, R., and Kiesler, S. Do we visit, call, or email? Media matter in close relationships. In Proc. CHI 2001, ACM Press (2001), 161-162.
  • Preece, J. Online Communities. Chapter: Research Speaks to Practice: Interpersonal Communication.
  • Week 3: Identity and Online Matchmaking

    Technologies to review: Match.com, MySpace.com, eHarmony.com, Xbox Live

  • Donath, J. Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. In Smith, M. & Kollock, P. Communities in Cyberspace.
  • Wallace, P. Psychology of the Internet. Cambridge University Press. (1999). Chapter 2: Your Online Persona.
  • AT Fiore, JS Donath. Online Personals: An Overview.
  • Week 4: Social Networks

    Technologies to review: MySpace.com Friendster, Tribe, Netflix, LinkedIn, Biznik

  • Boyd, D. Friendster and Publicly Articulated Social Networking. In Ext. Abstracts CHI 2004, ACM Press (2004).
  • Jensen, C., Davis, J. P., & Farnham, S. D., Finding Others Online: Reputation Systems for Social Online Spaces, CHI 2002, ACM Press (2002), 447-454.
  • Terveen, L. G. and D. W. McDonald (2005) Social Matching: A Framework and Research Agenda. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (ToCHI). 12 (3), pp. 401-434.
  • Nardi, B., Whittaker, S., & Schwarz, H. (2002). It’s Not What You Know, It’s Who You Know: Work in the Information Age. First Monday, 5, 5.
  • Coakes, E. Knowledge Management: A Sociotechnical Perspective. In Coakes, El, Willis D., and Clarke, S. (Eds) Knowledge Management in the SocioTechnical World:CSCW. Springer 2002.
  • Judith Meskell: Home of the Social Networking Services Meta List. http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/2005/02/14/home-of-the-social-networking-services-meta-list/
  • Week 5: Online Communities I

    Technologies to review: Mailing lists for community groups, Yahoo community groups, VJ Central, Wholenote.com

  • Kollock, P. The Economics of Online Cooperation: Gift Exchange and Public Goods in Cyberspace. In Smith, M. & Kollock, P. Communities in Cyberspace.
  • Preece, J. (2000) Online communities: Designing usability, supporting sociability. Chichester, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Chapters: Introduction to Online Communities, and Research Speaks to Practice: Groups.
  • Wellman, B., Haase, A.Q., Witte, J., and Hampton, K. Does the Internet Increase, Decrease, or Supplement Social Capital?: Social Networks, Participation, and Community Commitment. American Behavioral Scientist 45, 3 (2001), 436-455.
  • Haythornthwaite, C. and Wellman, B. The Internet and Every Day Life: An Introduction, in Wellman, B., and Haythornthwaite C. The Internet and Everyday Life.
  • Week 6: Online Communities II

  • Preece, J. (2000) Online communities: Designing usability, supporting sociability. Chichester, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Chapter: Community-Centered Development.
  • Resnick, P, Kuwabara, K., Zeckhauser, R., Friedman, E.. (2000). Reputation Systems. In Communications of the ACM. Vol. 43, 12, pp. 45-48. ACM Press.
  • Constant, D., Sproull, L., and Kiesler, S., (1996), The kindness of strangers: The usefulness of electronic weak ties for technical advice. Organization Science, 7, pp. 119-135.
  • Week 7: Lightweight Authoring in Social Context: from Blogs to Wikis

    Technologies to review: LiveJournal, Blogger, Wikipedia, YouTube, Creative Commons http://shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html, and http://shirky.com/writings/music_flip.html, and http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/12/01/shirky_freeloading.html

  • Herring, S., Scheidt, L., Bonus, S., & Wright, E. Bridging the Gap: A Genre Analysis of Weblogs. In Proc. HICSS-37 (2004).
  • Nardi, B., Schiano, D., Gumbrecht, M., and Swartz, L. Why we Blog. Communications of the ACM, December 2004, Vol 47, 12, (2004).
  • Clay Shirky, in Clay Shirky’s Writings about the Internet: Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing http://shirky.com/writings/weblogs_publishing.html
  • Lenhart, A., Horrigon, J., & Fallows, D. Content Crea-tion Online. Pew Internet & American Life Project (2004).
  • Cedergren Magnus. Open Content and Value Creation. http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_8/cedergren/index.html
  • Viegas, F., Wattenberg, M., Dave, K. (2004). Studying cooperation and conflict between authors with history flow visualizations. In Proceedings CHI 2004.
  • Commentary on www.shirky.com: The FCC, Weblogs, and Inequality
  • Week 8: Social Metadata: from Rater Systems to Folksonomies

    Technologies to review: Ebay, Flickr, Slashdot, Delicious, YouTube

  • Hook, K., Benyon, D., and Munro, A. (Eds) Designing Information Spaces: The Social Navigation Appoach. Springer (2004).
  • Kelly, S., Sung, C., & Farnham S. (2002). Designing for Improved Social Responsibility and Content in On-Line Communities. In Proceedings of CHI 2002, Minneapolis , April 2002.
  • Weinberber, D. Taxonomies and Tags: From Trees to Piles of Leaves. http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/misc/taxonomies_and_tags.html
  • Resnick, P., Zeckhauser, R., Swanson, J., Lockwood, K. (2003) The Value of Reputation on Ebay: A Controlled Experiment.
  • Mark Frauenfelder: “Revenge of the Know-It-Alls: Inside the Web’s free-advice revolution” (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/egoboo_pr.html)
  • Lueg, Christopher. Exploring Interaction and Participation to Support Information Seeking in a Social Information Space. In Lueg, C., and Fisher, D (Eds) From Usenet to CoWebs. Springer (2003).
  • Week 9: Mobile Technologies and Social Coordination

    Technologies to review: SMS, UPOC, Dodgeball, Mobog, Upcoming, Meetup, Evite, Couchsurfing

  • Rheingold, H. Smart Mobs: The Next Revolution. Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, MA, 2002.
  • Ito, M. Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, and the Re-Placement of Social Contact, In Mobile Communications: Re-negotiation of the Social Sphere, Rich Ling and Pedersen, Eds.
  • Ling, R., & Yttri, B. (2002). Nobody sits at home and waits for the telephone to ring: Micro and hyper-coordination through the use of the mobile telephone. In J. Katz & M. Aakhus (Eds.), Perpetual contact (pp. 139-69). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Comments
    1. mwigdltaaeJune 18, 2007 @ 07:09 PM

      Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! nwyuyzpyipp

    2. dgrnwiogftJuly 23, 2007 @ 01:24 PM
    3. uxcjfmxxkcJuly 23, 2007 @ 02:39 PM
    4. kdcpvqdtkvJuly 23, 2007 @ 03:28 PM
    5. dvdsdadqreJuly 23, 2007 @ 05:22 PM
    6. xeirntcjhxNovember 21, 2007 @ 06:54 PM

      Prices of gold, oil and other commodities have surged, but much of the cause has been growing demand and speculation in financial markets. A recent study by Fed staffers found that the U.S. consumer got special treatment from companies sending goods into the country they have been more willing to accept thinner margins, especially since 2002. They didn’t give as much latitude to other countries, reflecting the dollar’s international dominance and concerns about losing ground in a key market. Even if the weak dollar has only a modest impact on inflation, there are other risks. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, has remained tame in recent months, within the 1% to 2% comfort zone for some Fed officials. But the dollar’s decline could boost the public’s expectation of future inflation, creating a self fulfilling effect…
      http://new-blog-for-you.com/

    7. usxkzlnorvNovember 23, 2007 @ 04:23 PM

      th, a senior police investigator has claimed that the Princess of Wales and her boyfriend would have survived if they had been wearing seat belts when their car crashed in a Paris underpass ten years back. Senior accident expert Anthony Read told the jury at the inquest that he could “almost guarantee” that the couple would have survived had they been strapped in and travelling at the speed limit when their Mercedes crashed in the Alma tunnel in 1997, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported here on Wednesday. A probe by the British police has established that no one was wearing belts in the car at the time of the crash. The revelation came as the inquest was told that the paparazzi, who had pursued Diana and Dodi through the French capital on the night of the fatal car crash, would not to compelled to appear before the jury. The…
      http://site-with-content.com/

    8. yjqexbfptoNovember 24, 2007 @ 05:57 PM

      I have never been much in favour of online shopping. The idea that the ancient physical delight of strolling the marketplace or bazaar and taking in its sights and smells might one day be replaced by clicking and dragging from a desktop is one I have always found more repugnant than convenient. But that was before I found out aboutWhat is Etsy? If you ask its founder, 27 year old Brooklyn based Rob Kalin, Etsy is “a childhood word from a Fellini movie” that he chose because “it embodies the curiosity of imagination” (the naughty Kalin has also playfully told the press that Etsy comes…
      http://bestnews-4u.com/

    9. kgdcxytnhiNovember 25, 2007 @ 01:15 PM

      Juan Carlos Ferrero has made three Grand Slam finals and six semifinals since 2001. Photo / Reuters Former World No 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero has been confirmed for the Heineken Open. The Spaniard will join compatriots Nicolas Almagro and David Ferrer, who recently succumbed to Roger Federer in the final of the Masters Cup in Shanghai. With Argentinians Guillermo Canas and Juan Monaco and Croatian Mario Ancic all hitting Auckland, the field is rich in quality. Currently ranked 24th, Ferrero may not have been able to add to his career titles tally of 11 in 2007 but he still made the final of Costa Do Suipe, where he was beaten by Canas, and made an impact at numerous other events. He was a semifinalist at Vienna, Acapulco and the Masters Series at Monte Carlo, where he beat Richard Gasquet but lost to Federer. There were also quarter finals at Stuttgart and at Wimbledon, where he lost to champion Federer in four sets, proving that despite being a former Roland Garros…
      http://my-newsblog.com/

    10. lrhlfhdielDecember 07, 2007 @ 12:31 PM
    11. hjzmynceaqDecember 11, 2007 @ 04:18 AM
    Post a comment
    Comment