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 reading summaries [21 points]
- Social data analysis assignment [15 points]
- Social software analysis assignment [10 points]
- Final project [30 points]
OFFICE HOUR:
Monday 3:00-4:00 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
- Social computing ethics
Readings:
- Reading 1 - Cyberbullying definition and factors contributing to it
- Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. W. (2008). Cyberbullying: An exploratory analysis of factors related to offending and victimization. Deviant behavior, 29(2), 129-156.
- Brewer, G., & Kerslake, J. (2015). Cyberbullying, self-esteem, empathy and loneliness. Computers in human behavior, 48, 255-260.
- Reading 2 - Detecting instances of cyberbullying
- Rosa, H., Pereira, N., Ribeiro, R., Ferreira, P. C., Carvalho, J. P., Oliveira, S., ... & Trancoso, I. (2018). Automatic cyberbullying detection: A systematic review. Computers in Human Behavior
- Ioannou, A., Blackburn, J., Stringhini, G., De Cristofaro, E., Kourtellis, N., & Sirivianos, M. (2018). From risk factors to detection and intervention: a practical proposal for future work on cyberbullying Behaviour & Information Technology, 37(3), 258-266.
- Reading 3 - Cyberbullying interventions and design solutions
- Ashktorab, Z., & Vitak, J. (2016, May). Designing cyberbullying mitigation and prevention solutions through participatory design with teenagers. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 3895-3905). ACM.
- Ranney, M. L., Pittman, S. K., Riese, A., Ybarra, M., Huang, J., Spirito, A., & Rosen, R. (2018). Mobile Health Intervention Development Principles: Lessons from an Adolescent Cyberbullying Intervention. In Proceedings of the 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
SYLLABUS:
| # | Date | Topic | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2019-01-10 | Introduction and overview | Course logistics and requirements Overview of what social computing is about and what you will learn in this course |
| 2 | 2019-01-17 | Social Networks and Social Network Analysis | Networks: definition, metrics Social networks: Design, Technology, Features, and Impacts Project proposal assignment posted |
| 3 | 2019-01-24 | Social software | What is social software? What are examples of social software? What should we know about social software Quiz 1: Social network analysis reading1 |
| 4 | 2019-01-31 | Distributed collaboration | Wikis and Wikipedia Computer supported collaboration tools Content sharing Open source software development Project proposal due Social software analsysis assignment posted |
| 5 | 2019-02-07 | Social information processing | Tagging Social navigation Social search Social bots |
| 6 | 2019-02-14 | Recommender systems | content based collaborative filtering chalenges of social information processing |
| 7 | 2019-02-21 | Evaluation methodologies and research ethics | Data collection Data analysis Usability studies Conducting research on the Internet Privacy IRB Quiz 2: Recommender systems |