LIS590 SSI Social Informatics Reading and Discussion Schedule

From GSLISWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Contents

[edit] 01/19/2006: Overviews and Surveys

Papers

[edit] 01/26/2006: Conceptual Orientations; Controversies; Privacy

It's important that we develop the skills of identifying basic issues in social informatics, and of understanding those issues through multiple lenses or conceptualizations. This week's papers expose the research, analysis, and expository technique of exposing multiple underlying conceptualizations of issues, and understanding them as tradeoffs and controversies. There are readings on three main examples: technological utopianism, "the hive," and privacy.

Papers Selected

[edit] 02/02/2006: Multiple Perspectives in Cognitions and Values of Users, Designers, and Policymakers

Notes

This week we'll spend much more time delving into a few specific articles, talking through their central ideas, how they work, and their practical and theoretical implications. We'll also forge links between these readings, your own work/interests, and potential projects.

Papers Selected

[edit] 02/09/2006: Adoption and Diffusion of Innovations

Notes

This week we'll explore various theories about how innovations are adopted (or not) by individuals and organizations, and how they diffuse throughout larger societies.

Papers Selected

Choose two of the resources below and prepare comments to share with the seminar:


[edit] 02/16/2006: Historical Context of SI/ICT

Group
Chip & Elizabeth
Notes
  • What is a discipline?
  • What is a technology?
  • What is ICT/SI?

LIS590SI Notes: 02/16/2006: Historical Context of SI/ICT


Papers Selected

(in no particular order)

Other Resources

This list courtesy of the AoIR listserv - a discussion has been ongoing this week regarding the history of Internet Studies as a discipline.

  • Becher, T. and P. R. Trowler (2001). Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual enquiry and the cultures of disciplines. Buckingham, UK, SRHE and Open University Press.
  • Gurak, L. (2001). Cyberliteracy. Cambridge, MA, Yale University Press.
  • Johns, M. D., S.-L. S. Chen, et al., Eds. (2004). Online social research: Methods, issues, & ethics. New York, Peter Lang.
  • Rall, D. N. (2003/2004). "A preliminary definition of internet studies and research" Available at: http://scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall
  • Rall, D. N. (2005). Exploring the range of disciplinary backgrounds of internet scholars participating in AoIR meetings, 2000-2002. Internet Research Annual Volume 3. M. Consalvo and K. O'Riordan. New York, Peter Lang: 107-122.
  • Silver, D. (2000). Looking backwards, looking forward: Cyberculture studies 1990-2000. Web.studies: Rewiring media studies for the digital age. D. Gauntlett. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 19-30.
  • Silver, D. (2000). "A Field matures: Cyberstudies at the turn of the millennium." Available at: http://www.easst.net/easst004.html 19(4).
  • Silver, D. (2004). "Internet/cyberculture/digital culture/new media/fill-in-the-blank studies." New Media & Society 6(1): 55-64.
  • Sterne, J. (1998) “Thinking the Internet: Cultural Studies vs. The Millennium.” In Doing Internet Research, ed. Steve Jones, 257-288. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
  • Strate, L. (1999). "The varieties of cyberspace: Problems in definition and delimitation." Western Journal of Communication 63(3): 382-412.
  • Weingart, P. and N. Stehr, Eds. (2000). Practising interdisciplinarity. Toronto, University of Toronto Press.
  • Wellman, B. (2004). "Internet studies: fifteen, ten and 0 years ago." New Media & Society 6(1): 123-129.

[edit] 02/23/2006: Information Ecology & Infrastructure

Group
Ingbert & Nama
Notes
Class notes (02.23.2006) and Class notes Word file (02.23.2006)
Papers Selected

Some links will only work from UIUC machines, I tried to note those links below.

  • Monteiro, Eric; Hanseth, Ole (1995). Social shaping of information infrastructure: on being specific about the technology. In Orlikowski, Wanda J., Geoff Walsham, Matthew R. Jones and Janice I DeGross. Information Technology and Changes in Organizational Work. Chapman & Hall, p.325 - 343.
  •  ??? (we're only having at most three, don't worry)
Questions
  1. What is an information infrastructure?
  2. Does the understanding that results from their method of analysis lend itself to providing design insights? If so, what are they? Are they in any way generalizable?
  3. If none of these articles provide a method of analysis that is useful for design, what would be a way of conceptualizing infrastructure in a way that would make it tractable for design?
  4. Can we plan and design an infrastructure?

[edit] Other Papers

Some links will only work from UIUC machines, I tried to note those links below.

Infrastructure
  • Jeanette Blomberg, Lucy Suchman and Randall Trigg (1994). Reflections on a Work-Oriented Design Project. Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference (PDC'94), Chapel Hill, North Carolina, October 27-28; pp 99-109. Also in G. Bowker, L. Star, W. Turner, L. Gasser (eds.) Social Science, Technical Systems, and Cooperative Work: Beyond the Great Divide. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. 189-215.
    • I've not found this one yet online. There's also a copy in a 1996 HCI conference proceeding
CSCW

May be less relevant.


Here's some other stuff I found, dunno how useful--I haven't read it

[edit] 03/02/2006: Technology and the Social

Group

Andre

Notes

After a brief consultation with Chip, I decided to submit these three papers for an introduction to Technology and the Social. Here are three [horribly formatted examples of how not to publish in] HTML versions of the papers. If you'd prefer to photocopy them, i can provide you with originals upon request. I chose these papers because the authors theorise about how those technologies affect, are affected by, or are ignored by people. Although they are not ICT specific, they have direct relevance to the penetration of ICTs in everyday life.

Class Notes - 2 March 2006

Papers Selected
  • Winner, L. (1986). Do artifacts have politics?. in The whale and the reactor: a search for limits in an age of high technology. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 19-39. [1]
  • Pacey, A (1983) The Culture of Technology. Cambridge: MIT Press 1983, 1-12.[2]
  • Berry, W. (1988) Why I Will Not Buy a Computer. Harper's Magazine (September). Reprinted from New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly (Autumn 1987), [3]
  • Hickman, L. (2003) Doing and making a democracy: Dewey's experience of technology. in Robert Scharff and Val Dusek, Eds. Philosophy of technology: the technological condition. 369-377

Papers Suggested During Class

  • Noble, D. (1997) Digital diploma mills: The automation of higher education. [4]
  • Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (1995) Universities in the digital age. [5]

Ekrich, M.

  • Pelto, P. J. & Müller-Wille, L. 1973: Reindeer herding and snowmobiles; aspects of a technological revolution. - Folk 14-15: 119-144. (I believe this is the paper about snowmobiles in Lapland that Les mentioned.)
  • Selfe, C. and Selfe, R. (1994). "The Politics of the Interface" [6]
  • Winner, L. (1996) "Who will we be in cyberspace" The Information Society 12. 63-72 [7]
  • Silverstone, R. and Haddon, L. (1996) ‘Design and the Domestication of Information and Communication Technologies: Technical Change and Everyday Life’, in Silverstone, R. and Mansell, R (eds) Communication by Design. The Politics of Information and Communication Technologies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 44-74. (this paper uses Giddens' theory of structuration to discuss ICT adoption and use)

[edit] 03/09/2006: Social Arrangements Shaping ICTs

Group
Lara & Sunny
Notes
(Link Class Notes Here)
Papers Selected
Topics for Discussion
  • Compare/Contrast Williams' perspectives (1997 vs 2005)
  • Analyze Barab's web-supported community through social shaping/social learning lens

[edit] 03/16/2006 - Design from Ethnographic Participation: How do you conceptualize what you see in a way that is tractable for design?

Group

Ingbert

Notes

Class notes (03.16.2006) and Class notes Word file (03.16.2006)

[edit] Papers Selected

Before reading the papers, please read the description I post about how this week will be structured:

  • Jeanette Blomberg, Lucy Suchman and Randall Trigg (1994). Reflections on a Work-Oriented Design Project. Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference (PDC'94), Chapel Hill, North Carolina, October 27-28; pp 99-109. Also in G. Bowker, L. Star, W. Turner, L. Gasser (eds.) Social Science, Technical Systems, and Cooperative Work: Beyond the Great Divide. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. 189-215.
Background on what is happening to New Orleans Schools

I'm sure you can find more and better ones; these readings are not required, but present in case you are curious.

Here are some local perspectives:

These two are written from a largely Middle Class perspective, and do not mention the students who have been turned away from the schools for various reasons, usually justified as a lack of space or resources.

Some local cases and situations:

[edit] Papers Suggested

Any ideas?

[edit] 03/23/2006 (Spring Break Week)

[edit] 03/30/2006: The recurrent dilemmas of ethics, privacy, safety, security, social vulnerability and social control in the uses of information.

Group
Chris
Notes
(Link notes here)
Papers Selected
  • Mason, R. (1986). Four ethical issues of the information age. Management Information Systems Quarterly, 10(1), 5-12. PDF versionor HTML version
  • Mason, R. (2000). A tapestry of privacy: A meta-discussion. Retrieved 03/01, 2006, from http://cyberethics.cbi.msstate.edu/mason2/
  • Odlyzko, A. (2003, January 27-30). Economics, psychology, and sociology of security. Paper presented at the Financial Cryptography, 7th International Conference. [8]
  • Smith, J. (2002). Ethics and information systems: Resolving the quandaries. Database for Advances in Information Systems, 33(3), 8-22. [9]

Optional

  • Arief, B., & Besnard, D. (2003). Technical and human issues in computer-based systems security. England: University of Newcastle upon Tyne. [10]
  • O'Donnell, R. (2003). Social engineering, does it render traditional computer security methods useless: University of Brighton. [11]
  • Altschuller, S. (2004). Developing an IT view-based framework for IS ethics research: Baruch College. [12]

Questions

  1. How does information security affect one’s privacy?
  2. What information should be secured?
  3. How should private information be controlled and accessed?
  4. Who should have access to personal and private information?
  5. What ethical concerns influence information?
  6. How do ethical positions alter, given one’s perspective?

[edit] 04/06/2006: Social, Distributed, and "Situated"

Group
Sunny & Lara
Notes
Class notes (04.06.2006)
Papers Selected
Questions

1. Compare and contrast Activity Theory, Situated Action Models, and Distributed Cognition

Please fill out this table for the comparision and we will go over during the class.

http://ilabs.inquiry.uiuc.edu/ilab/ssi/documents/2554/home/si-discussion-sunny.doc?draft=1&file_id=13

2. The airline cockpit and artifacts of knowledge articles focus on a particular model of interaction. What other model(s) could be applied to these subjects? What would this look like? Would a different model be more pertinent for the topic?

3. Do you agree with the Nardi's advocate on the use of Activity Theory to pursue better design of technology?

4. Which frame (tool) will explain better the situation of your interest and why?

5. How does the activity theory explain networkers and their activity in intensional networks in a case study of Nardi et al? More specifically, how individual consciousness (subjet's object) is shaping the set of coordinated actions? What's the strength or weakness of utilizing activity theory in this case?

[edit] 04/13/2006: The Case of Games

Group
Andre and Chris
Notes
(Link notes here)
Papers Selected
The Case of Games
Articles of Interest
  • Wasik, B. (2006) "My Crowd: Part 1 Or, Phase 5: A report from the inventor of the flash mob" excerpted from the March 2006 issue. posted on February 22, 2006. Retrieved on March 28, 2006 from http://www.harpers.org/MyCrowd_01.html.
  • Adler, P.S. and Kwon, S. (2002). Social capital: Prospects for a new concept. Academy of Management Review 27.1 17-40
Articles Mentioned in Class

David Gauntlett - Ten Things Wrong with the Media 'Effects' Model - http://www.theory.org.uk/david/effects.htm

Clive Thompson - Tunnel Vision - http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70387-0.html

[edit] 04/20/2006 Geographic Information Science

Group
Nama
Note:

The intention of the discussion is two-fold. First, briefly visit the allied discipline of Geographic Information Science in general and Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) in particular. Sometimes, it may be refreshing to look our own field from outside, and see how it relates/does not relate with others.

Currently, the SDI field is exploring to borrow some useful concepts from the field of Information Science/Information Infrastructure (II). The article by Georgiadou and her collegues is the one that is representative of this trend. Accordingly, the second intention is to discuss this reading and evaluate the usefulness of the II concepts that it attempts to bring from II to the SDI field.

The reason I selected the second article (Though there are three readings, I do not count the first as an article) is that I find the notion of "Effective Use" equally applicable to both IS/II and GIS/SDI. I thought that some discussion on this would be illuminating !

Some Questions

1. How are II and SDI related? How do they supplement each other?

2. How robust are the II conceptual tools -- installed base, self-reinforcing standards, cultivation (and others?) -- in themselves? Do they provide useful conceptual framework for SDIs?

3. Do we agree or disagree to the notion of effective use, and why? What are its theoritical underpinnings?

4. How much of all information can be organized spatially or geographically?

Papers Selected
Class Notes

[edit] 04/27/2006 Appropriating Technology

Ron Eglash visiting

Eglash, Ron, Crossiant, Jennifer , Di Chiro, Giovanna, & Fouché, Rayvon (2004). Appropriating Technology: Vernacular Science and Social Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Introduction

Hickman, Larry (1989). Doing and making in a democracy: Dewey's experience of technology. In Paul T. Durbin (ed.), Philosophy of technology. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

[edit] 05/4/2006 Closing/Opening

Meet at 1501 N Coler

  • Finalize proiject
  • ICES forms
Retrieved from "http://www.gslis.org/wiki/LIS590_SSI_Social_Informatics_Reading_and_Discussion_Schedule"
Personal tools