Syllabus

Week 1: Introduction and Contributions
Aug 28, Aug 30

O'Reilly, T. (2005, Sep 30). What is Web 2.0? Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software

Example sign up (at most two people per week)

Kraut, R. E., & Resnick, P. (2012). Encouraging online contributions. In R. E. Kraut & P. Resnick (Eds.), Building successful online communities: Evidence-based social design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

N/A 

Week 2: Wisdom of Crowds
Sept 4, Sept 6

Helft, M. (2008, Nov 12). Google uses searches to track flu’s spread, New York Times, p. A1.

OR

Ginsberg, J., Mohebbi, M. H., Patel, R. S., Brammer, L., Smolinski, M. S., & Brilliant, L. (2008). Detecting influenza epidemics using search engine query data. Nature, 457(7232), 1012-1014. 

HW1: Achievement Unlocked, due Mon Sep 3 @ 11:59PM

The goal of this homework is to have you experience being a newcomer on a social site, and to reflect on what the site does to welcome newcomers and encourage contribution, as well as ways it could be improved.

Select one of the four social sites below, and get to "level 10".

• Twitter: make 10 tweets and get 10 people to follow you
• Farmville: get to level 10 in Farmville
• Reddit: make 10 posts and get at least 10 upvotes
• Pinterest: pin 10 items, and make at least 10 comments on other people's pinboards

By Monday Sept 3 @ 11:59PM, do a brief writeup of 3-5 paragraphs (more is ok) describing your experiences as well as thoughts on (a) what the site does right in terms of welcoming newcomers and encouraging contribution, and (b) what could be improved (and how you might improve it). This writeup should be posted to the HW forums.

By Fri Sep 7 @11:59PM, offer useful feedback to at least three other people's homeworks.

Surowiecki, J. (2005). The Wisdom of Crowds:  Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economies, societies and nations little. New York: Doubleday. (Chapter 1).

Week 3: Crowdsourcing
Sep 11, Sep 13

Week 4: Technological Infrastructure / IRB / Project Pitch Day
Sep 18, Sep 20

HW2: Project Pitch, due Mon Sep 17 @ 11:59PM

Do one or both of the following:

- By Mon Sep 17, submit a project proposal to the HW forums. The project proposal should answer the following (this is known as Heilmeier's Catechism):

• What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon.
• How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
• What's new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?
• Who cares?
• If you're successful, what difference will it make?

You should also include what skills you have, what resources you have (e.g. any data sets you already have), what skills you need, and what resources you need.

- By Wed Sep 19 @ 11:59pm, offer constructive feedback, suggestions, or variant ideas to someone else's proposal

Familiarize yourself with the following topics by browsing through Wikipedia or other sites. This list is not comprehensive, but is rather an overview of possible topics we might discuss.

• Basic: HTML, HTTP, URL, JavaScript, Database, web server, web browser, IP address, cookie
• Intermediate: CMS, PHP, JSP, ASP, Ruby, Python, Linux, social graph, browser addon, proxy
• Advanced: CDN, cloud computing, router, DNS, data center, web service, virtual machine, saas, PageRank

Come to class with questions. Lecture will be freeform and based on your questions.

Week 5: Visualizations and the Social Web
Sep 25, Sep 27

Michelle Lew

(Gogobot)

HW3: Project Proposal, due Mon Sep25 @ 11:59PM

Have one team member post a summary of your team's project to the HW forums. It should be a refined version of the questions from the previous HW2.

Your first presentation is in two weeks, so get going! Do as many quick, formative studies or prototypes to make sure you are going in a useful direction.

Also, if you are encountering any team difficulties early on, try to address them now rather than later. For example, people being late, people not delivering on their work, quality of work, etc.   

Sebastian Echeverria (Wikia)

Week 6: Newcomers and Socialization
Oct 2, Oct 4

HW4: Visualization, due Wed Oct 3 @ 11:59PM

Do this homework at least in pairs. You can also do this homework with your project teammates (highly encouraged).

Use Many Eyes, NodeXL, or any other compelling visualization tool (outputs must be more interesting than standard Excel!) and create a useful visualization that gives you meaningful insights about your data. 

Where possible, try to use this homework as a starting point for your semester project. For example, if you have foursquare data or reddit data, use this assignment to gain some insights into the data. 

Week 7: Team Project Presentations 1
Oct 9, Oct 11

HW5: IRB Certificate, due Fri Oct 12 @ 11:59PM

Everyone should do the IRB training (behavioral) at: https://www.citiprogram.org/

If you have already done it (the short or the long version), go ahead and just send in your existing certificate.

Email your IRB certificate to both Jason and Martina. 

Week 8: Coordination and Commitment
Oct 16, Oct 18

Nishita Muhnot(Pixoto)

HW6a: Wikipedia Editing Proposal, due Wed Oct 17 @ 11:59PM

You will form teams of 2-3 people and choose a Wikipedia page to improve. The page should either be (a) related to a topic or a paper in this course (e.g. crowdsourcing, IRB, visualization, etc) or (b) something of interest to CMU or Pittsburgh (e.g. HCI, SCS, Tartan, Primanti Brothers... keep in mind that it should be factual and citeable). 

You can use the forums to suggest a topic as well as to find teammates. We will also have ~20min in class Tue Oct 16 to find and coordinate teams.

Have one member of your team post to the forums the names of your team members, the proposed page to edit, and a proposed set of changes. The proposed changes should be somewhere around 20-25 hours of work across all of your team members combined, including doing background reading and research, reviewing other people's proposed changes, talk discussion pages, and editing.

Don't actually make any edits yet though, keep them all in one place. We'll have other students review your changes first.

Week 9: Social Networks and Online Relationships
Oct 23, Oct 25

 Aishwarya Suresh

(Edulix)

Easley, D., & Kleinberg, J. (2010). Networks, crowds, and markets: Reasoning about a highly connected world: Cambridge Univ Pr.

Start with Chapter 2, p 21-39 if you are unfamiliar with graphs. Also read Chapter 3, p 47-64. You may learn some knowledge that can help you find a future job too.

Week 10: Privacy and the Social Web CANCELLED
Oct 30, Nov 1

HW6b: Wikipedia Editing draft, due Mon Oct 29 @ 11:59PM

Have one member of your team post the names of your team members, the Wikipedia page your are proposing to edit, and your proposed changes.

Make it easy for someone to tell what the page looks like now and what your proposed changes are (e.g. you can  use a PDF that has portions struck out, along with new text highlighted in yellow. Or alternatively, have two columns, one side is old text, and other side is next text, with paragraphs aligned, making it easy to see what's new and different). Visual diff tools might be useful here (I don't know of any offhand though).

HW6c: Wikipedia Editing Review, due Fri Nov 2 @ 11:59PM

Next, every person will read over one other proposed edit and add comments for feedback, by Friday of that week.

Week 11: Intellectual Property
Nov 6, Nov 8

HW6d: Making the Wikipedia Edits, due Fri Nov 9 @ 11:59PM

Take feedback from your peers into account to improve your proposed edits, and then make the edits on Wikipedia. Be sure to use a named account rather than doing it anonymously. Also, be sure to engage with the talk/discussion page too, saying what your changes were and why you made them. No writeup to our forums is necessary.
 

Visitor to CMU

danah boyd, a well-known researcher on the social web, will be giving a talk on Wed Nov 7. Please attend if you can, she's a really great speaker.

Creativecommons.org. (2011, 28 April). History: “Some Rights Reserved”: Building a Layer of Reasonable Copyright.

And...

Creativecommons.org. About The Licenses

Week 12: Team Presentations 2
Nov 13, Nov 15

Homework 6f, Wikipedia Engagement

Periodically check how your edits are doing. Are they sticking? Are people engaging with you on the talk pages? Do you need to make more changes? 

No writeup is needed.

Week 13: Online Games
Nov 20, No class Nov 22 (American Thanksgiving holiday)

HW7: Gamer Motivations, due Tue Nov 20 @ 11:59PM

Note, this assignment is due right before Thanksgiving. I originally had the due date on Monday, but figured some extra time wouldn't hurt. 

First, take your best guess as to what motivates you to play online social games. (If you don't play online games, then take your best guess as to what might motivate you.)

Next, take the Bartle test. This is an online test meant to evaluate what kind of game player you are. Afterward, take this other online motivations test by Nick Yee. (Again, both tests will be a bit hard if you haven't played any online games before). Lastly, read through at least three player profiles here (these are people who answered Nick Yee's survey, reload to read another person's responses).

Now, make a post to the HW forum created for this HW assignment. Aim for 3-6 paragraphs (more is ok). Include your Bartle test scores too. Choose any of the following (or create your own) for discussion:

• If you are an active MMORPG player, how well did the Bartle test match what you thought before you took the test?
• How good (or not) is the Bartle test overall? What do you think are its strengths and weaknesses? Be sure to synthesize thoughts from Nick Yee's paper too (take the Bartle test first before reading his paper though). 
• What other kinds of tests or questions do you think would be useful or really interesting with respect to online gaming? For example, learning more about your own personality type, your strengths and weaknesses, your significant other, etc.

Week 14: Business Issues for Web 2.0
Nov 27, Nov 29

Homework 6f, Wikipedia Engagement (Again)  

Again, check how your edits are doing. Any feedback from folks, positive or negative? Again, no writeup is needed here.

Week 15: Mobile Social
Dec 4, Dec 6

HW8: Wikipedia Edits Reflection, due Mon Dec 3 @ 11:59PM

Each team should write up a brief essay (10-20 paragraphs) about their experiences in editing Wikipedia.

Start out with basic facts. What were your edits? What happened to your edits? What happened on the talk pages? What kinds of feedback did you get?

Next, talk more about insights. For example, tie your experiences to some of the papers we have read, regarding newcomers, socialization, coordination, visualizations, etc. What did you learn that was non-obvious before starting this work?