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The Social Side of Information

Week 1: Course Introduction

Jan. 22nd
Introduction, Organization, and Administrative Fun.

No Readings

Jan. 24th
Chapters 1 and 2 in Brown, John Seely and Paul Duguid. 2000. The Social Life of Information. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. [Chapter 1]    [Chapter 2]

Week 2: Current Issues in Socio-Technical Systems

Jan. 29th
Chapters 8, 10-11 in Lessig, Lawrence. 2006. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (v2). New York, NY: Basic Books. [PDF]

Jan. 31st
Reading Response Due
Online Readings:

Week 3: Social Implications of the Internet

Feb. 5th
DiMaggio, Paul, Eszter Hargittai, W. Russell Neuman, and John P. Robinson. 2001. “Social Implications of the Internet.” Annual Review of Sociology 27:307-336. [PDF]

Feb. 7th
McKenna, Katelyn, and John A. Bargh. 2000. “Plan 9 From Cyberspace: The Implications of the Internet for Personality and Social Psychology.” Personality and Social Psychology Review 4. [PDF]
(Note that this is NOT in your reader.)

Week 4: Reading and Evaluating Research

Feb. 12th
Research Methods Knowledge Base - Qualitative Section (Online Only) Read the entire ‘Qualitative Measures ‘ Section and all five subsections as well.

Feb. 14th
Reading Response Due
Assignment 1 Distributed
Chapter 8 in Dooley, David. 2000. “The Logic of Social Research: ruling out rival hypotheses.” in Social Science Research Methods, edited by David Dooley: Prentice Hall.

Information & Technology Adoption and Use

Week 5: Social Network Analysis and Information Technology - Theory and Examples

Feb. 19th
Chapters 1-2 in Wasserman, Stanley, and Katherine Faust. 1994. Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Granovetter, Mark. 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” The American Journal of Sociology 78:1360-1380. [PDF]

Feb. 21th
Assignment 1 Due
McPherson, Miller, Lynn Smith-Lovin and James Cook. 2001. “Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks.” Annual Review of Sociology Vol. 27, pp. 415-444.[PDF]

Week 6: Case Studies on Information in Networks

Feb. 26th
Hurlbert, Jeanne S., Valerie A. Haines and John J. Beggs. 2000. “Core Networks and Tie Activation: What Kinds of Routine Networks Allocate Resources in Nonroutine Situations?” American Sociological Review, 65 (4) (Aug., 2000), pp. 598-618. [PDF]

Feb. 28th
Reading Response Due
Adamic, Lada A., Orkut Buyukkokten, and Eytan Adar. 2003. “A Social Network Caught in the Web.” First Monday 8. [link]

Week 7: Diffusion of Innovation

Mar. 4th
Chapter 1 in Rogers, Everett M. 1995. Diffusion of Innovations. New York, NY: Free Press.

Geroski, P.A. 2000. “Models of technology diffusion.” Research Policy 29:603-625.

Mar. 6
Chapters 1-3 in Valente, Thomas. 1995. Network Models of the Diffusion of Innovations. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Week 8: Values, Perceptions, and Practices in Adoption and Use

Mar. 11
Stanley, Laura D. 2003. “Beyond Access: Psychosocial Barriers to Computer Literacy.” The Information Society 19:407-416. [PDF]

Leonardi, Paul M. 2003. “Problematizing ‘New Media’: Culturally Based Perceptions of Cell Phones, Computers, and the Internet among United States Latinos.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 20:160-179.

Mar. 13th
Assignment 2 Distributed
In-class Exercise

Week 9: Information Sharing and Knowledge Transfer

Mar. 18
Ryan, Dan. 2006. “Getting the Word Out: Notes on the Social Organization of Notification.” Sociological Theory 24:228-254. [PDF]

Mar. 20
Assignment 2 Due
MacKenzie, Donald. 1996. “Chapter 10: Tacit Knowledge and the Uninvention of Nuclear Weapons.” in Knowing Machines. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Osterloh, Margit and Bruno S. Frey. 2000. “Motivation, Knowledge Transfer, and Organizational Forms.” Organization Science 11:538-550. [PDF]

SPRING RECESS: March 24-28

Deconstructing the User

Week 11: Identity, Reputation, and Trust

Apr. 1
Donath, Judith. 1998. “Identity and deception in the virtual community.” in Communities in Cyberspace, edited by P. Kollock and M. Smith. London: Routledge.

Chapters 1-2 in Turkle, Sherry. 1995. Life on the Screen. New York, NY: Touchstone.

Apr. 3
Reading Response Due
Ubois, Jeff. 2003. “Online Reputation Systems.” Pp. 1-33 in Release 1.0: www.edventure.com. [PDF]

Marsh, Stephen and Mark R. Dibben. 2003. “The Role of Trust in Information Science and Technology.” Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 37:465-498. [PDF]

Week 12: Users & Technology: Determinism, SCOT, and ANT

Apr. 8
Technological Determinism [Online Only]
Pinch, T. J. 1996. “The Social Construction of Technology: A Review.” in Technological Change, edited by Robert Fox: Gordon & Breach.

Apr. 10
Esnault, Liliane, Romain Zeiliger, and Frederic Vermeulin. 2006. “On the user of Acter-Network Theory for Developing Web Services Dedicated to Communities of Practice.” in Innovative Approaches for Learning and Knowledge Sharing, edited by E. Tomadaki and P. Scott. [PDF]

Chapter 3 in MacKenzie, Donald. 1996. “Economic and Sociological Explanations of Technological Change.” in Knowing Machines. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Week 13: Challenges to Designing with the Social in Mind

Apr. 15
Ackerman, Mark S. 2000. “The intellectual challenge of CSCW: the gap between social requirements and technical feasability.” Human Computer Interaction 15:179-203. [PDF]

Apr. 17
Assignment 3 Distributed
Dourish, Paul. 2006. “Implications for Design.” Pp. 541-550 in Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (SIGCHI). Montreal, Canada. [PDF]

Groups, Communities, and Online Organization

Week 14: Community Structure & Dynamics

Apr. 22
Smith, M. K. (2001) ‘Community’ in The Encyclopedia of Informal Education. [Link]

Wellman, Barry and Milena Gulia. 1999. “Net Surfers Don’t Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities.” Chapter 7 in Communities in Cyberspace, Kollock and Smith, eds.

Apr. 24
Assignment 3 Due
Wilson, Samuel M., and Leighton C. Peterson. 2002. “The Anthropology of Online Communities.” Annual Review of Anthropology 31:449-467. [PDF]

Week 15: Crowdsourcing and User-Generated Content

Apr. 29
Kollock, Peter. 1999. “The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace.” Chapter 9 in Communities in Cyberspace, Kollock and Smith, eds

Rafaeli, Sheizaf , and Daphne R. Raban. 2005. “Information sharing online: a research challenge.” International Journal of Knowledge and Learning 1:62-79. [PDF]

May 1
Selections from Surowiecki - The Wisdom of Crowds [PDF]

Selections from Anderson - The Long Tail[PDF]

Week 16: Wrapping Up

May 6
Roundtable Presentations

May 8
Course Wrap-Up

May 15
Final Papers Due