September, 2008

Thoughts — 6 Comments
29
Sep 08

Facebook Datasets and Private Chrome

Via the Berkman Center, news of a Facebook dataset now available to the general public.  I haven’t written up the necessary research statement to access the data, but the publicly-available codebook provides insight into the set.  According to the codebook, the data is scrubbed, with personally-identifying data removed.

The “non-identifiability” of such a dataset is up for debate.  A friend network can be thought of as a fingerprint; it is likely that no two networks will be exactly similar, meaning individuals may be able to be identified in the dataset post-hoc (for friend-network verification, see Zinman & Donath, 2007).  Further, the authors of the dataset plan to release student “Favorite” data in 2011, which will provide further information that may lead to identification.  According to the authors, the collection of the dataset was approved by the IRB, Facebook and the individual college.  The dissemination of the dataset appears to be approved by the IRB.

In other news:

danah boyd recently gave a talk, “Understanding Socio-Technical Phenomena in a Web2.0 Era” at the opening symposium for MSR New England.  The video is available in a WMV stream.

Via W.H., Iron – a version of Google Chrome with all Google reporting stripped out.  In theory, this will also prevent the auto-update functionality, one I was never comfortable with.

Citation:
Zinman, A. and Donath, J.  (2007).  Is Britney Spears spam?.  In Fourth Conference on Email and Anti-Spam, Mountain View, CA, 2007.

Hacks / Noticed — No Comments
29
Sep 08

Reminder – Productivity Seminar this Friday

Just a reminder – this Friday we’ll be hosting a productivity seminar in 208 Manning Hall, from 10-11:30AM (Before CRADLE).  All students, faculty and friends are invited.

To find out more information or to propose a 10-minute talk, visit the website:  http://academicproductivity.pbwiki.com/ (password: SILS)

Sessions include:

  • 10:10 – 10:20 – Inbox Zero – Erin White
  • 10:20 – 10:30 – Your Computer’s Desktop is Not a To-Do List – Mike Brown
  • 10:30 – 10:40 – Literature alerts and push-button citations – Fred Stutzman

FULL INFO:

What: Open seminar (unconference style) on academic productivity–methods, tools, tips and tricks

Where: 208 Manning Hall, UNC-Chapel Hill

When: Friday 10/3 from 10 – 11:30am

Are you struggling with information overload, focus and concentration, or the quiet chaos of an unstructured, unscheduled “job” (despite all that ILS training)?  We feel your pain.  Join us to share your ideas
and learn from others.  We’ll discuss productivity methods and systems, tech tips, the latest tools… and just vent.

Noticed / Research / Teaching — 1 Comment
22
Sep 08

Academic Productivity workshop – October 3

Abe Crystal and I are teaming up to bring an academic productivity workshop to UNC.  From 10-11:30 on the morning of Friday, October 3, we’re going to open the floor for ten-minute talks on productivity – particularly the tools and methods we use to get our work done.  I’m probably going to talk about literature searches and alerts, a favorite time-saver of mine.

While this event is SILS-centric, it is open to members of the community.  You can find out more information about the workshop over at the wiki – http://academicproductivity.pbwiki.com/.

Noticed / Research — No Comments
22
Sep 08

Microsoft launches MSR New England

Microsoft Research has launched a new, interdisciplinary research center – MSR New England – in Cambridge, MA.  I’ve found out about this from danah boyd, who is joining the center.  danah writes:

Jennifer and Christian’s vision for the lab aligned with my view of research. They believe in interdisciplinary work, believe in the ways that new ideas can come from unexpected collaborations. While I know a lot of social scientists who curl their nose at the idea of a lab full of physicists, mathematicians, and economists, I find that quite appealing.

Microsoft describes the lab as “pursuing new, interdisciplinary areas of research that bring together core computer scientists and social scientists to understand, model, and enable the computing and online experiences of the future.”  This is great news for danah, a huge win for Microsoft, and another really exciting research center on the East Coast.  I’ll be keeping my eye on Microsoft and IBM.

Noticed — 1 Comment
18
Sep 08

IBM launches Center for Social Software

Some very interesting news – IBM has launched a Center for Social Software in Cambridge, MA.  According to IBM, the “goal of the IBM Center is to create a new type of collaborative environment to tackle some of the toughest questions about social software, identify new business models, help discover next-generation Web 2.0 applications, and determine how and why people form viral communities and the implications they have on our daily lives.”  IBM already has a great research presence in Cambridge, so this center is an exciting addition.

Unit Structures readers will be particularly interested in the corporate residency and internship opportunities.  According to Information Week, the corporate residency program offers businesses the opportunity to work with IBM researchers, with Dow Jones and Thomson Reuters the first participants.  Very cool stuff – Unit Structures looks at this program wistfully as he trudges along towards his dissertation.

Noticed / Research — 1 Comment
16
Sep 08

Pew on Teens, Video Games and Civics

This will be of interest to many Unit Structures readers – the Pew Internet and American Life project has released a new report on the gaming behaviors of young adults.  The report was led by Amanda Lenhart, who has done excellent work studying teen use of social networks and social media.  Notably, this report was a joint effort, coordinated between Pew and the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative.

Amanda introduces the report over at MacArthur’s Spotlight blog:

I was sitting in my friend’s living room a few weeks back, watching his three daughters play with the family’s Wii. Bart Simpson was trying, repeatedly, to leap over a vat of what looked like boiling liquid. The three sisters, elementary and junior high aged, were all engaged with the game and each other, talking, sharing strategies for clearing the river and advancing to the next part of the game.

In many way these girls are living examples of some of the main findings of a new research report issued today by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and Mills College, supported by the MacArthur Foundation that takes a first look at teenagers, their video gaming habits and how their gaming experiences, both in the game and around the game are yielding opportunities for social interactions and engagement with their community.

Sure to be a must-read – download the PDF here.

Teaching / Thoughts — No Comments
16
Sep 08

Technologies of Friendship – Weeks 1 and 2

Last evening was the third meeting of my Technologies of Friendship class.  While I’ve been meaning to blog about the class each week, this post will have to serve as a catch-up.  We’re actually not that far behind – this was actually only the second teaching class due to Labor Day and the fact our class meets on Monday.

Our first teaching class was designed as an overview of the material.  We read three articles exploring the social impacts of the Internet, the issues surrounding computer-mediated-communication, and the management of relationships with mediating technology.  To accompany the lecture (slides here) we completed two exercises.  The first was a name generator exercise that invited students to reflect on the various types of connections they keep through technology.  The key component of the generator was comparing categories – i.e. why did some friends end up in multiple bins, exploring those stories.  The next exercise was a reflection on social capital and medium, students were asked to think about the types of support they derive from differing mediated relationships.

The second teaching class (lecture slides) began an exploration of historical perspectives.  Our readings explored the history of two communication technologies – the telegraph and the telephone.  We explored the invention, marketing, uses and social framing of the tools, as well as the tools’ evolution of use.  Accepted uses, cultural impacts and the role of gender in technology use were also explored.  We then compared this to the development and marketing of the Internet.  We will continue this theme next week, exploring some of the early tools of Internet communication.

If you wish to follow along, you can follow items we’re bookmarking, prompt readings for the class, and of course check the website on Monday nights for lecture notes and slides.

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