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Project in the Social and Organizational Impacts of Computing
- TuTh, 3:30-5:00pm
- DBH 1500
- Instructor: Paul Dourish
- TA: Andy Echenique
- First, you will learn about how to design an empirical study. Even though, you have learned some of this in 161 and 162, this practicum will help you engage that material in the empirical world. What question are you trying to answer? How should you go about attempting to answer these questions? What other factors do you need to consider when engaging in empirical research?
- Second, you will learn how to gather data about people’s social and cultural environments. Techniques will include observing social dynamics, interviewing people, and analyzing technologies-in-use. We will also discuss other techniques such as organizational documents, artifact analysis, and journals and logs. For each technique you will learn what types of question it can answer, how to go about using it, and how does it influence your study design.
- Third, you will learn how to analyze the data that you collect. Analysis is the process of taking the data that you gather and turning into a systematic set of findings that let you make claims. For example, analysis lets you say how and why an organizational process is effective or ineffective for the users or whether software needs to work a certain way in order to meet the needs of potential users. We will learn how to perform analysis on the types of data that you’ve just learned how to collect.
The objective of the course is to provide practical experience in researching and analyzing social and organizational aspects and implications of information technology and digital media. Emphasis will be placed on conducting ethnographic research, writing, and presenting. You will be part of a team project analyzing organizational process and technology-in-use in the community, in a particular social group, at a local business, non-profit organization or service at UCI.
As an organizing principle, I generally choose a common theme to which all the projects will be related. This better allows us to work together as a class, since it means that lessons learned in one project can be of value to another, that the projects have some relationship to a broader topic, and that topical as well as methodological readings can be of value to everyone.
This year, the theme is online dating and mediated intimacy. We will look at and share topical readings that relate to online dating, friendship in the digital age, love, intimacy, and mediated relationships of all sorts, and each team’s research topic will connect to some aspect of this theme.
The full syllabus for the class is available here as a PDF.
Schedule
The readings are stored on UCI's webfiles service. To gain access, you will first need an activated UCINet ID, and then to register for a Webfiles account.
| 4/2 | Introduction and course overview | |
| 4/4 | Research topics/ethics | Horst, "New Media Technologies in Everyday Life". |
| 4/5 | In week 1, we'll be forming teams, identifying research projects, and beginning to assign team roles. | |
| 4/9 | Qualitative research in digital media | Postill and Pink, Social Media Ethnography. Bell et al, Making by Making Strange. |
| 4/11 | Online dating and mediated intimacy | Fiore et al, "Assessing Attractiveness". Ellison et al, "Profile as Promise". Kaye et al, "Communicating Intimacy One Bit At a Time". |
| 4/12 | In week 2, we'll review related literature to set the terms, scope, and directions for projects. | |
| 4/16 | Gathering material | Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw, "Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes" (only chapter 3 required) |
| 4/18 | Interviewing #1 | Seidman, Interviewing as Qualitative Research (chapters 1, 2, and 4) |
| 4/19 | In week 3, we'll prepare project proposals and begin data collection. | |
| 4/23 | Interviewing #2 | Seidman, Interviewing as Qualitative Research (chapters 6 and 7); Weiss, Learning from Strangers (chapter 4) |
| 4/25 | No class | |
| 4/26 | In week 4, data collection should be well under way and themes emerging. | |
| 4/30 | Guest lecture: Jed Brubaker | |
| 5/2 | Guest lecture: Andy Echenique | |
| 5/3 | In week 5, you should be beginning to wrap up most of your interviewing. | |
| 5/7 | Analyzing artifacts | Gee, Introduction to Discourse Analysis (chapters 5 and 6). |
| 5/9 | Mid-term presentations | |
| 5/10 | In week 6, you should be transitioning to analysis, memoing your interviews and developing the main themes. | |
| 5/14 | Analyzing data #1 | Lofland et al, Analyzing Social Settings (chapters 6-9); Charmaz, Constructing Grounded Theory (chapters 3-4); Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes (chapter 6); Beyer and Holtzblatt, Contextual Design (chapter 6) |
| 5/16 | No class | |
| 5/17 | In week 7, you will be developing grounded theory analysis of your data and using heuristic frameworks to identity important issues. | |
| 5/21 | Analyzing data #2 | Saldana on coding. |
| 5/23 | No class | |
| 5/24 | In week 8, you will be completing your analysis and beginning to write the final report. | |
| 5/28 | Reporting results | That's Interesting! |
| 5/30 | No class | |
| 5/31 | Writing, writing, writing, writing... | |
| 6/4 | Final presentations | |
| 6/6 | Final presentations | |
| 6/7 | Done! Phew! | |