Michael Tyworth

More on 'sexting'

2009-12-19T16:21:30Z

The Pew Internet Research Center has just released results from a study they did on sexting behavior.

"The desire for risk-taking and sexual exploration during the teenage years combined with a constant connection via mobile devices creates a 'perfect storm' for sexting," said Lenhart. "Teenagers have always grappled with issues around sex and relationships, but their coming-of-age mistakes and transgressions have never been so easily transmitted and archived for others to see."

Spoken like a true socio-technical theorist.

2009-12-10T17:22:07Z

In this article on cyber-bulling and sexting, the author speaks straight from the socio-technical school of thought:

There are two schools of thought about how to treat sexting and its more broadly defined cousin, cyber-bullying, which covers everything from hate e-mail to nasty MySpace postings. One is that it's a mistake to focus on the technology at issue, because the hype about it obscures the underlying, long-term trouble: Kids can be incredibly cruel to each other in all kinds of ways. The Internet and the cell phone are just their latest tools. The tactics for addressing cyber-bullying should be the same as the tactics for reducing bullying of all kinds: teach kids to empathize and make sure they have a trustworthy adult to talk to if trouble is brewing.
This makes sense to me. But it's also clear that e-mails and texts and social media have some traits of their own, as the writer danah boyd explains. The bar for becoming a cyber-bully, or even a cyber-bully's accomplice, is much lower than the bar for becoming an actual bully. To torment a girl with a nude photo via sexting, you don't have to Xerox her photo and pass it around, or yell a taunt in the cafeteria, or even whisper about it over the phone, explains Robert King, a psychiatrist at the Yale Child Study Center. You can just press one button and forward the message to lots of other kids. And then those kids, one more step removed from the human being at the center of the flaying, can catch the contagion and spread it.

In other words, it's both the social context and the physical properties of the technology that matter.

Cory Doctorow on Cloud Computing

2009-09-08T16:27:29Z

Cory Doctorow has an excellent take on the hype surrounding cloud computing. Doctorow's analysis shows that technological determinism remains alive and well in popular discourse about technology:

The tech press is full of people who want to tell you how completely awesome life is going to be when everything moves to "the cloud" - that is, when all your important storage, processing and other needs are handled by vast, professionally managed data-centres.

Here's something you won't see mentioned, though: the main attraction of the cloud to investors and entrepreneurs is the idea of making money from you, on a recurring, perpetual basis, for something you currently get for a flat rate or for free without having to give up the money or privacy that cloud companies hope to leverage into fortunes.

A little creepy.

2009-09-08T16:19:45Z

The Wall Street Journal online edition has an article about how parents are using Facebook and other social networking websites to track their childrens' activities, how children respond to that form of surveillance and even create a term "helicopter parents."

As a social informaticist I find the article interesting as an example of how the use of technology is socially shaped, and how all technologies come with unintended consequences.

As a parent I'm a little creeped out.

I'll take "What is not social informatics?" for $200.

2009-08-13T11:32:37Z

Exploring the web, I came across this website. The site is dedicated to hawking the wares of a Marcus P. Zillman and he's co-opted the term 'social informatics' for precisely that purpose. An obvious reason to exclude Mr. Zillman from your consideration as a commentor on social informatics is that there is not a single bona fide social informatics resource listed on his social informatics resource page.

If you're curious about social informatics research, two better places to start are The Rob Kling Center fo Social Informatics and Wikipedia

Sara Kiesler Post-doc opportunity

2009-08-11T00:18:13Z

Sara Kiesler who is very active in the Social Informatics / Cyberinfrastructure research community is seeking candidates for a post doc position that sounds pretty fantastic:

I am seeking someone to conduct an NSF-funded interview study of scientific collaborations. This task will involve quite a bit of traveling to universities and talking with a variety of people including top scientists (half of whom will be CS, the other half a variety of disciplines), grad students, and staff including bureaucratic personnel such as people in budget offices. The task will also involve coding and analysis of the interviews.
If you are interested in virtual organization, the science of science, e-science, CSCW, and other related topics, you would have a chance to carve out your own paper from this work.

The postdoc would be for one year. It would not be necessary to live in Pittsburgh since the study is nationwide, however, would require you to visit periodically.

Fall semester almost here.

2009-08-06T23:48:16Z

For the upcoming fall semester I will be teaching three courses at Washington & Jefferson:

ITL 100 - Information Technology & Society

A survey of information technology innovations that changed society in fundamental ways, within the context of a more broadly defined discussion of the "history of technology."Topics within the history of information technology include the development of the integrated circuit, the personal computer, the Internet and the world wide Web, etc.Topics within the history of technology (broadly defined) include ethical, legal, environmental, and feminist issues involved in the development and implementation of new technologies.The course entails a combination of historical overview and a number of individual case studies of technology development and implementation.The latter will focus on issues of leadership, the identification and solution of complex problems, and the unexpected consequences of technological advances.

ITL 102 - Introduction to Proramming

An introduction to object-oriented programming, with an emphasis on program design, problem solving, methodology, and algorithms. Students will master the fundamental concepts and structures common to programming.

ITL 112 - Database Concepts

An overview of the role of databases within a variety of academic, business, and governmental organizations, and an introduction to database design and management. Students will be required to create databases related to their major fields or areas of academic interest using both small business and enterprise-class database management systems.

Paper published in Information Polity

2009-05-21T11:26:59Z

I am coauthor on a paper published in the latest issue of Information Polity.

Abstract:

In this article we offer visual depictions and analysis of contextual factors relative to the presence of public safety networks (PSNs) in the United States (US). A PSN combines shared technological infrastructures for supporting information sharing, computing interoperability and interagency interactions involving policing, criminal justice, and emergency response. The broad research objective is to explain the formation of PSNs based upon factors derived from rational choice and institutional theories. To do so we develop maps to represent our data analysis. This analysis suggests that our approach is promising for generating insights about PSNs and, by extension, about other types of inter-organizational collaborations focusing on using information and communication technologies to enable information-sharing.

Visiting Professor at Washington & Jefferson College

2009-04-24T18:26:07Z

I have accepted a position in the Information Technology Leadership program at Washington & Jefferson College beginning in the fall of 2009. The position is a 3 year visiting professor position in which I'll be engaged in undergraduate teaching. When not teaching I will be writing and continuing my research.

I'm really excited to be getting this opportunity and think it will be a fantastic chance to hone my skills as a teacher.

CFP: 2009 Summer Research Institute for the Science of Socio-Technical Systems

2009-03-01T15:04:42Z

Call for Participation:
2009 Summer Research Institute for the Science of Socio-Technical Systems: 11-15 June, 2009 @ Syracuse University's Minnowbrook Conference Center, Blue Mountain Lake, NY

Application screening begins 2 March, 2009

Eligibility: Doctoral students, Post-doctoral scholars and pre-tenure faculty at US-based institutions.

Notification: Late March, 2009

Cost: Most will be covered for accepted participants

Background
A science of socio-technical systems is emerging from research in the fields of HCI, social computing, social informatics, CSCW, sociology of computing, and other domains. The Consortium for the Science of Socio-Technical Systems (CSST) is a new organization devoted to advancing research on socio-technical systems. Building on the success of the 2008 Summer Research Institute, the CSST will, again, be hosting a summer research institute for advanced doctoral students and pre-tenure faculty in summer, 2009. A primary goal of the institute is to build a new cohort of faculty and graduate students who are interested in research on the design and interplay of technology and humans at the level of individuals, groups, organizations, and larger communities. Examples of this kind of work include research on:

new forms of organizing (e.g., virtual organizations, massive online activities)
social computing (e.g., online communities, social network sites)
distributed work (e.g., collaboratories, virtual teams and organizations)
new technologies (e.g., recommender systems, prediction markets, ubiquitous computing)
novel forms of production (e.g., open source software, Wikipedia)
new forms of expression and entertainment (e.g., blogs, wikis, massive multiplayer online role-playing games)
information and communication technologies for developing regions (e.g., cell phone-based applications to assist economic development, infrastructure development for local economic action).

]]> Institute faculty
With funding from the NSF, the institute will bring together a faculty of distinguished scholars in the domain of socio-technical systems with up to 30 campers, drawn from among advanced doctoral students, post-doctoral fellows, and pre-tenure faculty conducting research on socio-technical systems.

Steve Sawyer, Syracuse University, Director
Tom Finholt, University of Michigan, Co-Director
Mark Ackerman, University of Michigan
Bill Dutton, Oxford University
Jonathan Grudin, Microsoft Corporation
C. Suzanne Iacono, National Science Foundation
Wendy Kellogg, IBM
Wayne Lutters, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Tony Salvador, Intel Corporation
Suzanne Weisband, University of Arizona

Institute goals
The goals of the institute are to:

Expand on and strengthen connections among the cohort of researchers in this area, and build on the network of relations formed through the 2008 Summer Research Institute.
Guide the work of the new researchers by having experts in socio-technical systems research give advice.
Provide encouragement and support for the selection of socio-technical systems research topics.
Illustrate the interrelationship and diversity of the field of socio-technical systems research.

How the institute will be conducted
The institute will be conducted as a residential program at Syracuse University's Minnowbrook Conference Center with morning small group sessions devoted to feedback on students' research, and evening group sessions consisting of presentations by the institute faculty (e.g., work in progress, instruction in new methods, instruction in new analytic techniques) and moderated discussions (e.g., on career development, how to obtain funding, publication strategies). Afternoons will be reserved for informal activities, such as group outings and picnics. Costs of participation, including travel, food and accommodations, will be covered.

How to apply
The application process requires two parts:

1. A 300 word response to this question:

How does your research advance our scientific understanding of socio-technical systems?

A few references, particularly if they are not to your own work, may be helpful but are not required.

2. Your current curriculum vitae (as PDF or in a Word or WordPerfect format).

Please send this response as an attachment in a common word processor format or as PDF of an email with the email subject being CSST'09 application to csst2009@syr.edu.

Please ensure that you include your name, your current U.S.-based institution and affiliation, an email address, and your status (PhD candidate, post-doctoral scholar, pre-tenure faculty, or an explanation of some other status) along with the response.

Please note that participation in this institute will be restricted to those doctoral candidates who have proposed their dissertation at the time of submission up through pre-tenure faculty who are at US institutions. This includes post-doctoral scholars who are not in tenure-track positions if they are less than five years from having completed their doctorate.

Selection and notification

Participants will be chosen by a committee of the institute director, associate director, and selected institute faculty. Selection will reflect these criteria:

Clear articulation of the research contribution to socio-technical systems (theory, practice or design)
Clear development of socio-technical concepts and principles relative to your research interests and contribution.

Additional information:
For further information please visit si.umich.edu/csstinstitute.

How to conduct a peer review.

2009-01-12T23:05:50Z

I may only (sic) be a graduate student, but I am lucky to have received excellent tutelage in how to conduct a peer review of a paper. Recently I have had opportunity to be on the receiving end of poor quality reviews. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that the outcome of the one set of reviews was a 'reject,' and the other an 'accept.'

Really though, the quality of a review is independent of the review outcome. For one can receive a high quality review that results in rejection; or a poor quality review that results in acceptance. Ultimately, all of us in the research game want high quality reviews that end up in acceptance of our work.

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An overall lack of effort to really read the manuscript and understand what it is the author is talking about. Too often reviewers tend to try and crowbar the subject of a paper into their own paradigm instead of evaluating the paper on its own merit.
Copy editing. Generating a list of 17 insights, 15 of which are suggestions for restructuring the language of a sentence or paragraph is not useful to the author.
Making a strong statement of fact without supporting evidence; or essentially offering the criticism "You're wrong, I'm right."
Making contradictory criticisms; for example: "This topic requires a broader and more specific discussion."
Personal nastiness.

Undoubtedly reviews are low priority endeavors for many research faculty because reviewing does not count much towards tenure. The temptations to soothe oneself psychologically by paying negative reviews forward, or attempting to boost one's ego by demeaning the work of someone else are undoubtedly strong ones. Then of course, there are the first-year grad students who think they've learned everything the need to know already - or even knew it before they got to grad school - and have to demonstrate it; and unfortunately end up like the blonde guy in Good Will Hunting:

But what can we be done to conduct useful peer reviews; even of submissions we do not particularly care for? Here is what I've learned:

Take the approach to reviewing that you want the paper to get published; that the review process is, to a degree, a collaboration between you (the reviewer) and the author to work to make the paper better. Avoid the pitfall of starting out with the view that the paper is a failure and has to prove it is not.
If you do not have expertise on a particular area then state that upfront and either make no comment or limit your comments to non-expert issues. For example, if you do not know the details of a particular analytical method do not criticize it unless you are willing to learn it or deconstruct it and analyze the results.
Do not offer revision suggestions that are, in essence, ways to re-frame the paper to one that you would write on the topic that you would write about. The authors would have written that paper originally if they wanted to.
Look for ways to offer suggestions that strengthen the paper. For example, if you're aware of literature that speaks to the particular submission and may have some salience offer specific citations for the author to consult and reasons for why they might be useful.
If the paper is in an area for which you are only tangentially aware, take the time to learn some about the area so you can make a more informed assessment of the manuscript's contribution.
Finally, but most importantly: write the kind of review you would like to receive yourself. By this I do not mean in terms of accept or reject; after all it's self-evident we all want to have our work accepted. What I mean here, give your review in the style you would like to have, and with the depth of insight and content you would like to have. Really think about what whether or not a comment such as "The conclusions are all common sense," really is the kind of feedback that would be useful if someone gave it to you.

That's my $.02 on reviewing.

2009 i-Conference Poster Submission Accepted

2009-01-12T23:01:36Z

I have had a poster abstract accepted for the 2009 i-Conference. The poster outlines some preliminary findings from my dissertation research. I will be presenting this poster at the i-Conference pending acceptance to the Doctoral Colloquium.

2 Papers Accepted to 8th SIG-USE Research Symposium

2008-09-25T15:27:30Z

Two papers have been accepted to the 8th SIG-SI / SIG-USE research symposium at this year's annual meeting of the American Society of Information Science & Technology.

I will be presenting a paper I co-authored with Dr. Steve Sawyer of Syracuse University where we situate Social Informatics in the broader theoretical debate on the socio-technical nature of information and communications technologies (ICT). This paper is in the vein of, and draws on, the insights of the Leonardi & Barley paper discussed in the prior post.

You can read this paper here.

I will also be presenting as a research poster on some early findings from my dissertation research on the influence of organizational identity on the design of complex inter-organizational information systems. Specifically, I find that organizational identity claims are reflected in both the organizational and technological designs of integrated criminal justice information systems.

You can read the paper here.

Excellent paper on social theory of technology

2008-09-25T15:08:08Z

Paul Leonardi and Stephen Barley have written an excellent paper on how we theorize technology and social action. It is by far the best treatment of this subject I have ever read.

Social theorists of technology continue to battle with issues of materiality and social context, structure and agency. Leonardi and Barley frame this as a tension between the materialism (artifact) and the idealism (people) and determinism (structure) and voluneerism (agency). Their analysis shows that theorists tend to favor or lean towards idealism and volunteerism resulting in little to no agency being assigned to the artifact; and that this 'tilting' is a result of conflating materialism with determinism (e.g., if one assigns any agency to the material properties of a technological artifact, one is by definition a technological determinist).

Indeed in my own work I have found that there is an inertial tendency to drift towards the social half of socio-technical. Part of this I believe is because accounting for both the social and the technical simultaneously is messy, difficult, and ambiguous. It's difficult to present a parsimonius explanation of a phenomenon when by definition there is more than one contributing factor. Saying "it's both materiality and idealism" can be dissatisfying.

Key to this article is the argument that materialism matters - a loaded gun retains its lethality independent of whether its used as a hammer - and that theorists need to do a better job of accounting for the affordances and constraints presented by technology's material properties.

Call for Papers: 4th Annual SI Research Symposium

2008-06-26T22:01:45Z

First Call for Papers and Participation:

4th Annual Social Informatics Research Symposium (SIG SI) People, information and technology: The social analysis of computing

Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology Saturday, October 25, 2008, 8:30-12:30 PM Hyatt Regency Columbus, Ohio

The purpose of this ASIST preconference research symposium is to disseminate current research and research in progress that investigates the social aspects of information and communications technologies (ICT) across all areas of ASIST. The symposium includes members of many SIGs and defines "social" broadly to include critical and historical approaches and well as contemporary social analysis. It defines "technology" broadly to include traditional technologies (i.e., paper) as well as state of the art computer systems. This year's theme is "People, information and technology: The social analysis of computing."]]>
This symposium will highlight research focusing on the social realities of ICT based information systems (broadly defined) in IS in order to better understand the following:

How are the design, implementation, use, disuse, and ongoing reconfiguration of information and ICTs influenced by social groups, organizations, politics, and culture?
How do information and ICTs shape those creating, implementing and using them?
What are the roles of information and ICT in ongoing social change at various levels of social analysis such as groups, organizational units, political entities or cultural systems?
What are the complex reciprocal relationships among information, ICT, people, social groups and the environments that surround and pervade them?
What are the variations in meanings or interpretations of information and ICT across social groups and organizations?
What are the moral or ethnical consequences of ICT system development and use?

We are particularly interested in work that assumes a critical stance towards the notion of mutual shaping - what is involved in people transforming information and information transforming people? A critical analysis is useful because it "bring into question established social assumptions and values regarding information and communication technologies (ICTs) and established understandings of 'information,' particularly as they play themselves out and are institutionalized in social and professional discourses and professional training." (Day, 2007; 575).

We encourage all scholars, both beginning and established, interested in social aspects of ICT (broadly defined) to share their research and research in progress by submitting an extended abstract of their work and attending the symposium.

This year, the SIG SI is partnering with SIG USE to offer a comprehensive full day program. The theme of this symposium fits well with the main themes of the SIG USE symposium meaning that there would be a full day of exploration of the question of the transformative relationships between people, information, and ICTs from two different but clearly related perspectives. The SIG SI symposium will take place on Saturday morning and the SIG USE symposium will be in the afternoon. Collectively, the two sessions can offer a comprehensive full day program, although each will work well as a stand-alone event.
The two SIGs will co-sponsor a networking lunch that will take place in between the two events [Cost: Pay-on-your-own. Further details to be announced later]. There will be a discount for people who register for both symposia.

Call for papers and posters:

Submit a short paper (2000 words) or poster (500 words) by August 29,
2008

Submissions may include empirical, critical and theoretical work, as well as richly described practice cases and demonstrations.

Acceptance announcements made by September 9, in time for conference early registration (ends Sept 12th).

Tentative Schedule

Paper presentations: 8:30-10:45 pm
Break: 10:45-11:15 (with poster viewing) Closing Keynote Discussion: 11:15-12:30 pm Lunch with SIG-USE: 12:30-1:30 PM

Fees

Members $60 - $70 after Sept. 12
Non-members $70 - $80, after Sept. 12

If you register for the SI Symposium and the SIG-USE Symposium you will receive a $10 discount:

Members $140 - $150 after Sept. 12
Non-members $150 - $160, after Sept. 14

Organizers:

Howard Rosenbaum, School of Library and Information Science -Indiana University hrosenba@indiana.edu Elisabeth Davenport, School of Computing, Napier University e.davenport@napier.ac.uk Kalpana Shankar, School of Informatics -Indiana University shankark@indiana.edu

Day, R. (2007). Kling and the "critical": Social informatics and critical informatics. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 58(4): 575-582.

Horton, K., Davenport, E. and Wood-Harper, T. (2005). Exploring sociotechnical interaction with Rob Kling: five "big" ideas. Information Technology & People 18(1): 50-67