DESCRIPTION:
This course focuses on how social groups form and evolve, how members of these groups interact with each other, and how these groups are supported and augmented with computer systems. The course is interdisciplinary, drawing from the fields of computer science, psychology, and sociology. It covers key theories and technologies of social computing in terms of (1) computer systems supporting social behavior and (2) socially intelligent computing carried out by groups. Students will have a chance to explore social computing systems, get experience with social data analyses and focus on design, and evaluation of a social software as their final project for the course.
PREREQUISITES:
This course does not assume any particular prerequisites. However, this is a graduate course which assumes critical thinking, desire to learn and being challenged with new topics, and hard work.
TEXT:
We will be reading excerpts from a large number of books and articles. Links to electronic copies are provided.
GRADING:
- In-class activities [10 points]
- 3 Quizzes [15 points]: Social network analysis, social capital, Recommender systems
- Readings and response to readings [15 points]
- Social data analysis assignment [20 points]
- Social software analysis assignment [10 points]
- Final project [30 points]
OFFICE HOUR:
Thursday 1:00-2:00 pm, or by appointment, 709 Information Science Building (135 North Bellefield Avenue)
TOPICS TO BE COVERED:
- Social software
- Social computing technologies
- Social information processing
- Human computation and collective intelligence
- Social capital
- Online communities
- Socialization of newcomers
- Encouraging contribution
- Diversity, conflict and coordination
- Evaluation methodologies
- Visualization and sense making
- Research ethics
Readings:
- Reading 1 - Social bots: Ferrara, E., Varol, O., Davis, C., Menczer, F., & Flammini, A. (2016). The rise of social bots. Communications of the ACM, 59(7), 96-104.
- Reading 2 - Social capital: Gee, L. K., Jones, J. J., Fariss, C. J., Burke, M., & Fowler, J. H. (2017). The paradox of weak ties in 55 countries. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 133, 362-372.
- Reading 3 - Social computing and social movements: Twyman, M., Keegan, B. C., & Shaw, A. (2016). Black Lives Matter in Wikipedia: Collaboration and Collective Memory around Online Social Movements. arXiv preprint arXiv:1611.01257, 2016
SYLLABUS:
| # | Date | Topic | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2018-01-11 | Introduction and overview Social Software | What social computing is What we learn in this class Blogging and microblogging software: what are blogs? Who blogs? |
| 2 | 2018-01-18 | Social Networks and Social Network Analysis | Networks: definition, metrics Modeling and visualization Practical applications Social networks: Design, Technology, Features, and Impacts Project ideas posted |
| 3 | 2018-01-25 | Social information processing | Tagging Social navigation Social search Social bots Quiz 1: Social network analysis Reading 1 |
| 4 | 2018-02-01 | Distributed collaboration | Wikis and Wikipedia Computer supported collaboration tools Content sharing Open source software development Project ideas due - in-class discussions |
| 5 | 2018-02-08 | Social capital | Definitions and measures Social capital and social networks Role of online communities on social capital Reading 2 Social software analsysis assignment posted |
| 6 | 2018-02-15 | Social data analysis | Visualization Sense-making APIs Wikipedia Quiz 2: Social capital Social data analysis assignment posted |
| 7 | 2018-02-22 | Midterm project report | In-class presentation of project ideas, progress report, and timeline |
| 8 | 2018-03-01 | Recommender systems | content based collaborative filtering chalenges of social information processing Social software analysis assignment DUE |
| 9 | 2018-03-08 | Spring break | No class |
| 10 | 2018-03-15 | Evaluation methodologies and research ethics | Data collection Data analysis Usability studies Conducting research on the Internet Privacy IRB Quiz 3: Recommender systems |
| 11 | 2018-03-22 | Challenges of online communities | Dealing with newcomers under-contribution problem Encouraging contributions to online communities Strategies supported by social science theories |
| 12 | 2018-03-29 | Human computation and collective intelligence | Crowdsourcing Mechanical turk Purposeful games Creative crowdsourcing |
| 13 | 2018-04-05 | Social computing, cities, and society | Impact on physical and psychological well-being Connection to real world Equality of participation Reading 3 |
| 14 | 2018-04-12 | In-class project work and discussion | An opportunity to discuss your project and get feedback before the final deadline |
| 15 | 2018-04-19 | Final project | Final project poster session |
COURSE POLICIES
Academic Integrity: You are expected to be fully aware of your responsibility to maintain a high quality of integrity in all of your work. All work must be your own, unless collaboration is specifically and explicitly permitted as in the course group project. Any unauthorized collaboration or copying will at minimum result in no credit for the affected assignment and may be subject to further action under the University Guidelines for Academic Integrity. You are expected to have read and understood these Guidelines. A document discussing these guidelines was included in your orientation materials.
Attendance: Class attendance, while not mandatory, is required if you want to succeed in this course, especially since the course does not have any course book and involves a lot of in-class discussions. If you have missed the lecture, make sure that you have a copy of the slides. All the lecture materials will be uploaded online. The class participation credit is engineered to encourage your attendance.
Late Submissions: Homework or projects submitted after due date will be accepted, but your objective grade will be scaled so that you lose 10% of the grade for every late working day. I.e., if you will submit your work one week late, you will lose 70% of the grade.
Concerning Students with Disabilities: If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both your instructor and Disability Resources and Services, 216 William Pitt Union, (412) 648-7890/(412) 383-7355 (TTY), as early as possible in the term. DRS will verify your disability and determine reasonable accommodations for this course.
An important note on plagiarism: Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated. Students caught cheating or plagiarizing will receive no credit for the assignment on which the cheating occurred. Additional actions -- including assigning the student a failing grade in the class or referring the case for disciplinary action -- may be taken at the discretion of the instructors. You may incorporate excerpts from publications by other authors, but they must be clearly marked as quotations and properly attributed. You may obtain copy editing assistance, and you may discuss your ideas with others, but all substantive writing and ideas must be your own or else be explicitly attributed to another, using a citation sufficiently detailed for someone else to easily locate your source.