LIS590 SSI Social Informatics Syllabus

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Contents

[edit] Overview

This Research Seminar course investigates Social Informatics: relationships between social systems and information/communication technologies (ICTs). This course introduces the major theories underpinning contemporary SI research. It also covers descriptive and analytical accounts of how ICTs and social systems work, and studies of the dilemmas that regularly emerge at the intersection of ICTs and human social activity. Since ICTs (broadly construed) pre-date computing technology, the course considers historical foundations of Social Informatics thought.

We anticipate that participants will be able to develop conference papers, journal papers, and both M.S. and Ph.D. thesis topics from their work in this course.

[edit] Subject Matter

Subject matter is organized under the following topics:

  • Overviews and surveys*
  • What conceptual orientations can we take toward analyzing ICTs?* (2 weeks)
    • "Mental Models" for ICTs
    • "Webs" and "Packages" vs "Objects" and "Users"
    • Utopianism/Dystopianism
    • Organizational (structure, process, power, dynamics), Institutional, and Economic Perspectives
    • Multiple Perspectives and Regimes of Truth
    • Social Networks
    • Collective Sensemaking
    • Social Constructionism
    • Social Capital
    • Critical and Phenomenological perspectives (Ellul, Heidegger)
    • Pragmatism
    • Hermeneutics
  • When did people begin thinking about Social Informatics issues, and how have the ideas of Social Informatics developed over time?*
  • How do social arrangements shape ICTs? How do they shape the processes of ICT design and use?*
  • In what senses are knowledge, cognition, action, and technology best seen as social, distributed and "situated"?*
  • How do "Sociotechnical Interaction Networks" form and how do they work?*
    • Online communities (e.g., Open Source Software communities, Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game communities; Celebrity and fan networks; Help networks; Affiliative groups and hobbyist networks)
    • Online, collective, and over-the-shoulder learning
    • Computer-Supported Collaborative Work/Learning (CSCW/CSL)
    • Knowledge Networks
  • What are the "recurrent dilemmas" of ethics, privacy, safety, security, social vulnerability and social control in the uses of information and ICTs?*
  • Other central issues (covered as needed/appropriate)
    • What roles do infrastructures, contexts and work practices play in design and use of ICTs?
    • (How) are work/workplaces, play/playplaces, learning/learningplaces, life/lifeplaces shaped or transformed by ICTs? How do the constraints and affordances of ICTs (re)shape social arrangements?
    • How do social arrangements shape public access to information, and vice versa?
    • What do ICTs have in common with traditional social movements? What can be expained by viewing ICTs as social movements?
    • What issues of participation, equity & policy do ICTs raise?
    • What issues of identity, gender, race, status do ICTs raise?

In some senses, items with asterisks following them represent core knowledge of field. We intend to weave in readings and discussion of issues from other areas as the interests of participants dictate.

As a research seminar course, along with the subject matter of the course material, we give significant attention to the research methods, history, and scientific context of the ideas treated.

[edit] Format

[edit] Coursework

The format of the course is reading, analysis, presentation, and discussion of research articles and books. We'll couple this through the semester with joint project work and writing in areas that may interest you individually. Students will form groups covering each of the core subject areas. Each group will lead the class in developing, presenting, and discussing new knowledge in their area. This allows students to build a deep understanding in their chosen areas, while also gaining a broader grasp of other areas led by other groups. Experience has taught us that each week we'll probably be able to cover two or three different articles thoroughly. In some weeks we may treat a number of papers on the same thread or theme from the same researchers, in which case there may be more, though overlapping, papers.

[edit] Visitors

From time to time we may host prominent research visitors with expertise and insight in the subject areas of Social Informatics.

[edit] Prerequisite Knowledge

Graduate standing in LIS or related field, and interest in the social dimensions of information and communications technologies. We assume you have the skills to locate, retrieve, and copy materials in hard copy or electronic formats.

[edit] Calendar

See the LIS590 SSI Social Informatics Reading and Discussion Schedule for a week-by-week schedule.

At this point, Social Informatics covers an exceedingly wide range of topics. Almost any main topic in the subject listing below could form the basis for a full course in itself. Our feeling is that we'll gain more if we select topics to cover in some depth, rather than trying to survey everything. We've started with the list below, foregrounding some analytical perspectives and some topical subjects, and backgrounding others. We expect to adjust the list and the emphases, possibly switching out or elaborating some topics and switching in or reducing the time spent on others as the interests of class members become clear.

The course covers each of the topics below for the number of weeks shown in a rotating schedule. Representative sample papers for each topic are given below; these are just some starting points, and we'll be adding more papers to these selection lists.

The group responsible for a given week's readings should do these things:

  • Look into each of the papers in the topic's suggested list, extend and refine the list, and make a final decision on which papers the class will tackle, with input from other class members.
  • Write up notes on the articles. Rather than being a summary summary of the articles, the notes should capture your own interpretations of them and your views of questions they raise and/or answer. Also useful would be background material on the writers, their intellectual schools of thought, and the methods they've used. The responsible group should post these notes on the class wiki for the given week.
  • Compose an exercise that gives the class direct experience with one or more of the issues raised in the readings. We'll model this with examples in the first few weeks.

Groups can consult with Les and/or Chip at any time about developing readings, notes, and exercises---we'll be glad to help and advise.

[edit] 1. Overviews and surveys* (1 Week)

[edit] 2. What conceptual orientations can we take toward analyzing ICTs?* (2 weeks)

  • Rob Kling and Walt Scacchi, "The Web of Computing: Computing Technology as Social Organization." in Perspectives on the Computer Revolution by Zenon W. Pylyshyn, Liam J. Bannon Ablex Pub; 2nd edition (February, 1990)
  • Power/knowledge: selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977 / Michel Foucault; edited by Colin Gordon, 1980. (Sections on regimes of truth).
  • DeSanctis, G. and Poole, M. S. (1994). Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use: Adaptive structuration theory. Organization Science, 5(2):121-147.
  • Orlikowski WJ, and Gash DC, "Technological frames: making sense of information technology in organizations." ACM Trans. Inf. Syst., Vol. 12, No. 2. (April 1994), pp. 174-207.
  • Wanda J. Orlikowski and C. Suzanne Iacono, "Research Commentary: Desperately Seeking the "IT" in IT Research--A Call to Theorizing the IT Artifact." Information Systems Research 12(2), pp. 121-134, June 2001.

[edit] 3. When did people begin thinking about Social Informatics issues, and how have the ideas of Social Informatics developed over time?* (1 week)

  • Daniel R. Headrick, When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowledge in the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700-1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)

[edit] 4. How do social arrangements shape ICTs? How do they shape the processes of ICT design and use?* (3 weeks)

  • Rob Kling, "Critical Professional Discourses about Information and Communications Technologies and Social Life in U.S." CSI Working Paper No. 02-06, SLIS, Indiana Univ (online).
  • Orlikowski, W. J. 1993. "Learning from notes: organizational issues in groupware implementation". The Information Society, (Jul/Sep) 9.3. 237-250.
  • MacKenzie, D. A. & Wajcman, J. (1999), The Social Shaping of Technology. Buckingham England; Philadelphia, Open University Press. Ch.1 - MacKenzie & Wajcman. The Social Shaping of Technology. (p. 3-27) Ch. 7 - Kline & Pinch. The Social Construction of Technology. (p.113-115)
  • Schmidt, K. and Simone, C. (1992). Taking CSCW seriously: Supporting articulation work. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 1(1-2):7-40.

[edit] 5. In what senses are knowledge, cognition, action, and technology best seen as social, distributed and "situated"? (2 weeks)

  • Hutchins, E., and Klausen, T. (2000) 'Distributed cognition in an airline cockpit. Cognition and communication at work'. In Cognition and communication at work, Y. Engström and D. Middleton, Eds. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 15-34. http://hci.ucsd.edu/10/cockpit-cog.pdf
  • Hutchins, E. (1995b) 'How a cockpit remembers its speeds'. Cognitive Science 19, 265-288.
  • Nardi, B.A. (1996b). Studying context: a comparison of activity theory, situated action models, and distributed cognition. In B.A. Nardi (Ed.), Context and consciousness. Activity theory and human-computer interaction (pp. 69-102). MIT press.
  • Lave, J, Murtaugh, M. & de la Rocha, O. (1984). The dialectic of arithmetic in grocery shopping. In B. Rogoff & J. Lave (Eds.), Everyday cognition. Its development in social context. London: Harvard University Press. (See (pp. 67-94) quotes here: http://www.ikaras.org/lc_dc_material_distribution.php)

(Simon/Suchman/Agre etc. debates in Cognitive Science in the mid-1990s?)

[edit] 6. How do "Sociotechnical Interaction Networks" form and how do they work?* (3 weeks)

The case of games

Other

  • Herring, S.C. (2002). "Computer-mediated communication on the Internet". Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 36. pp. 109-168.
  • Haythornthwaite, Caroline A.; Kazmer, Michelle M. Learning, Culture, And Community In Online Education : Research And Practice

7. What are the "recurrent dilemmas" of ethics, privacy, safety, security, social vulnerability and social control in the uses of information and ICTs?* (3 weeks)

  • Richard O. Mason, "A Tapestry of Privacy: A Meta-Discussion" Prepared for Privacy: Looking Ahead, Looking Back, Connelly Program in Business Ethics, Georgetown School of Business http://cyberethics.cbi.msstate.edu/mason2/
  • Kenneth Laudon, "Markets and Privacy," in R. Kling, Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Change (2nd ed.), 
Morgan Kaufmann, 1996.

[edit] 8. Other central issues (covered as needed/appropriate)

What roles do infrastructures, contexts and work practices play in design and use of ICTs?

  • Star, S. L., and Ruhleder, K. 1996. Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design and Access for Large Information Spaces. Information Systems Research, 7, 111-133.
  • Bowker, G. and Star, S.L. 1998. "Building information infrastructures for social worlds: the role of classifications and standards," In Toru Ishida, ed. Community Computing and Support Systems:Social Interaction in Networked Communities. Berlin:Springer-Verlag. pp. 231-248

(How) are work/workplaces, play/playplaces, learning/learningplaces, life/lifeplaces transformed by ICTs? How do the constraints and affordances of ICTs (re)shape social arrangements?

How do social arrangements shape public access to information, and vice versa?

  • Dutton, W. (2004). Social transformation in an information society: Rethinking access to you and the world. Paris : UNESCO.
  • Lessig

What do ICTs have in common with traditional social movements? What can be expained by viewing ICTs as social movements?

  • Iacono, S., & Kling, R. (2001). Computerization Movements: The Rise of the Internet and Distant Forms of Work. In J. A. Yates & J. V. Maanen (Eds.), Information Technology and Organizational Transformation: History, Rhetoric and Practice (pp. 93-136): Sage Publications. http://www.slis.indiana.edu/faculty/kling/pubs/Kling_comp.htm
  • R. Kling and E. M. Gerson, "Patterns of Segmentation and Intersection in the Computing World." Symbolic Interaction 2: 24-43 1978.

What issues of participation, equity & policy do ICTs raise?

  • Digital Divide readings?

What issues of identity, gender, race, status do ICTs raise?

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