Who (Fall 2009 term):

Sep 25: How SI PhD Students Are Using Internships and Institutes to Further Their Research

Speakers:

Eytan Bakshy. Eytan worked with the Human Social Dynamics group at Yahoo! Research in New York and studied information diffusion and social influence in networks.
Eric Cook. Eric attended the Oxford Internet Institute's Summer Doctoral Program, held in partnership with the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. This year's theme was "Creativity, Innovation and the Internet."
Marianne Ryan. Marianne attended Singularity University, held at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA. She conducted research on the policy, legal, and ethical challenges presented by emerging technologies.
Xiaomu Zhou. Xiaomu attended the Consortium for the Science of Socio-Technical Systems, a new NSF-funded organization devoted to advancing research on socio-technical systems. Junior scholars were engaged with experts in socio-technical systems and received feedback and guidance for their research.

Oct 9: 4S Talks

Archer L. Batcheller
Faculty Discussant: Ixchel M. Faniel
Title: Scientific Cyberinfrastructure and the Qualities of Lay Science
Abstract: Scientific cyberinfrastructure consists of organizations, technologies, and practices that support science work at a distance. This paper advances the stream of work on public engagement in science by focusing on a particular type of public engagement, lay research, as mediated by increasingly-influential cyberinfrastructures. Here we focus on two active cyberinfrastructure-building efforts in limnology and climate science to see how lay scientists are affecting and affected by growing cyberinfrastructure. Surveys and interviews with both professional and lay scientists, and technology-builders yield data about the background/motivations/goals of the scientists, what types of work they do, and how those goals are being addressed as technical and social cyberinfrastructure grows. The particular context of lay science also suggests amenable design methodologies such as participatory design.

Ayse Buyuktur
Faculty Discussant: Ann Zimmerman
Title: Distributing Science: Architecture, Participation, and Boundary Work in Online Citizen Science Projects
Abstract: We report on early findings from our Distributing Citizen Science Project, combining ethnographic, historical, and network analytic techniques to explore dynamics of organization and participation across online citizen science projects in fields ranging from astronomy and molecular biology to ecology and weather prediction. In this talk we focus on practices and tensions associated with efforts to "discipline the users" in a variety of projects, and their impact on the motivations, roles, and autonomies of amateur and professional project participants.

Oct 23: ASIST Talks

Shu-Yi (Max) Chen
Faculty Discussant: Mark Newman
Title: Take Your Time First, Time Your Search Later: How College Students Perceive Time in Web Searching
Abstract: Temporal issues in information behavior are generally under-discussed. This paper reports results from experimental study interviews of 45 undergraduate and graduate students on time perception in the conducting of Web searches. In many cases, the results indicate that at the beginning of their searching activity, students in this study do not explicitly consider temporal issues. However, temporal issues usually surface with the progression of time, especially when searches do not go as planned. Moreover, felt time length during Web searching could be felt subjectively. As well, some temporal issues with Web searching are entangled with other life issues, such as homework or social obligations. It is suggested herein that additional conceptual and empirical research is needed to advance knowledge on this topic.

Nikhil Sharma
Faculty Discussant: Soo Young Rieh
Title: Artifact Usefulness and Usage in Sensemaking Handoffs
Abstract: The complexities of sensemaking suggest that collaboration should be difficult, requiring a rich ecology of collaboration support. This can be a problem for handoff sensemaking, where one person must continue where another has left off, sometimes with only material artifacts as the basis of the handoff. A detailed analysis of essential attributes of sensemaking tasks, and elements identified in the computer supported collaborative work literature were combined to yield insight into handoff sensemaking and guide empirical work. A lab-study showed that handoffs relying only on artifacts from previous sensemaking could be successful. The lab studies also indicated timing and quality affects on the sensemaking handoffs, with different quality materials used differently, and early efforts possibly being particularly difficult to hand off. Design of support for sensemaking handoffs will have to take such effects into account.

Nov 6: Daniel Zhou

Faculty Discussant: Qiaozhu Mei
Title: Assessment of Conversation Co-mentions as a Resource for Software Module Recommendation
Abstract: Conversation double pivots recommend target items related to a source item, based on co-mentions of source and target items in online forums. We deployed several variants on the drupal.org site that supports the Drupal open source community, and assessed them through clickthrough rates. A similarity metric based on correlation of mentions rather than mere co-occurrence reduced the problem of over-recommending the most popular modules, but additional corrections for recency and uniqueness of mentions were not helpful. Detection of more module mentions in conversations dramatically improved the quality of recommendations, even though the detection algorithm then had more false positives. Recommendations based on conversation co- mention were more effective than those based on co-installation, because co-installation data only led to recommendations of complementary modules and not substitutes. Recommendations based on co-mention were more effective than those based on text similarity matching for navigating from the most popular modules, but less effective than text matching for less popular modules.

Nov 20: Lian Jian

Faculty Discussant: Yan Chen
Title: Aggregation and Manipulation in Market Scoring Rules: Effects of Interface and Information Distribution
Abstract: In this study, we conducted a series of human-subject experiments to analyze the performance of market scoring rule based prediction markets. We found that markets with structured trading orders provide better predictions than those with unstructured trading orders. This result suggests that future theoretical work on the strategic behavior ofprediction market traders will need to take into account the trading order. We also compared the performance of markets under two different signal distribution conditions: conditionally independent signals and independent signals. We found evidence supporting the theoretical prediction that there will be more bluffing in the independent signal markets. Lastly, we conducted an experiment to compare the probability-report markets and the security-trade markets. And we found no significant difference between the two.

Dec 11: Radaphat (Pae) Chongthammakun

Faculty Discussant: Michael Cohen
Title: Extending Virtual Organizations in the Public Sector: Lessons from CSCW, STS, and Organization Science
Abstract: This paper explores current research around IT-related organizational change in the public sector, and in particular the emergence of "virtual organizations"(VOs) in government. We argue that despite their centrality to broader digital government visions, the tensions and challenges attending VO development remain a theoretical and empirical weak point in digital government scholarship to date. This paper draws on findings from the fields of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Science and Technology Studies (STS), and Organization Science to illuminate three central problems confronting the growth of public sector VOs: problems of distance, alignment, and resistance. Theoretically and empirically informed approaches to these problems promise to improve both understanding and practice of IT-related organizational change in government.

Ricardo L. Punzalan
Faculty Discussant: David Wallace
Title: Archiving Culture/Recording Tradition: Reflections on Archives, Culture and Community in a Ghanaian Town
Abstract: What does culture have to do with the preservation of records? And how do archives contribute to the preservation of culture and traditions? To answer these questions, I will present a preliminary report on a six-week fieldwork project conducted in the region around Techiman, Ghana, an area considered the autochthonous home of the Bono people. In Techiman, I studied the recordkeeping practices of its Traditional Council, composed of various chiefs headed by the Omanhene or Techimanhene (Supreme Chief of Techiman). While still considered a predominantly oral society, Techiman's Traditional Council generates records of its meetings and important decisions. I will explore the place of textual records in a postcolonial oral society by 1) discussing the role of records within an indigenous leadership structure; 2) presenting how documents came to be regarded by the chieftaincy as a vital aspect of Techiman's heritage; 3) examining how the chieftaincy rationalize the idea that archiving will guarantee the preservation of culture and traditions; and, 4) describing the precarious role of archives and recordkeeping in Techiman.

What

When

Where