This Social Computing class at the University of Colorado Boulder tackles the topic of “on-line sociality.” The course will examine online behaviors as they are exhibited on the social web and other social computing platforms. This has been historically called “computer mediated communication” or CMC. We will examine how CMC has evolved to what we know today as both social and technical (“socio-technical”) phenomena.
The course will aggressively survey a range of social computing platforms and issues, while also diving deeply into two major platforms of study for which we have recognized expertise at the University of Colorado Boulder: Twitter and OpenStreetMap. We will bring brand-new research results to the course by reviewing brand new papers from the international research community--many of which are still in “to appear” status--and attempt to duplicate and extend those results in projects. We will examine theories that describe on-line behavior, and consider how design features of social computing platforms and the circumstances in which they are used create different forms of on-line sociality.
The course will use visualization and analysis tools, including Splunk and Tilemill, to analyze data that are collected by the students as well as by the instructors’ research group at the University of Colorado Boulder. We will examine data that are societally relevant and topical to students, including social media data from the recent Colorado Floods.
Students will express their learning through quizzes, on-line and off-line discussion of reading, individual research assignments, and group research projects.