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Project in the Social and Organizational Impacts of Computing
- TuTh, 11:00-12:20pm
- MSTB 118
- Instructor: Paul Dourish
- TA: Xinning Gui
- 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.
Three streams of activities structure the class. The first and primary activity is your own team-based project work, a small ethnographic project that you will undertake over the course of the quarter. In parallel with this are two streams of reading and class discussion -- one on methods and methodological concerns, and another of exemplary ethnographic papers that highlight issues that you might encounter in the course of your project work.
The class is evaluated primarily through the end-of-quarter report and presentation on your project work, although there are also components in your grade for participation through the quarter and for intermediate deliverables.
The full syllabus for the class is available here as a PDF. Please read it -- it contains a very detailed breakdown of what is due and what is going to be covered each week of the quarter. We will distribute printed copies in the first class meeting and go through it together. The PDF syllabus is your primary resource for navigating the class. Please consult it regularly. If we need to deviate from it any way, I'll make in-class and email announcements.
Here is the list of team assignments, and here are further details on what your report should cover.
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.
| 4/4 | Introduction, course overview, forming teams | |
| 4/6 | Projects and sites | |
| 4/7 | By the end of week one, teams will be decided, team roles assigned, and an initial set of project possibilities identified. | |
| 4/11 | The mechanics of participation | DeWalt and De Walt, Becoming a Participant and Becoming an Observer. |
| 4/13 | Participation, observation, rapport, ethics | Rogers, Reconfiguring the Social Scientist. |
| 4/14 | By the end of week 2, we'll have decided on project topics and be working on setting the terms and scope for those projects, as well as doing some initial observational exercises. Here are discussion slides on literature review and sources from a previous class offering that you might find useful. | |
| 4/18 | Interviewing #1 | Seidman, Interviewing as Qualitative Research (chapters 1, 2, and 4); Becker, How I Learned What a Crock Was. |
| 4/20 | Interviewing #2 | Seidman, Interviewing as Qualitative Research (chapters 6 and 7); Weiss, Learning from Strangers (chapter 4). |
| 4/21 | By the end of week 3, we will have put together project proposals, be starting data collection, and have learned some methods that are going to be important. | |
| 4/25 | Notes and other material | Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw, "Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes" (only chapter 3 required). |
| 4/27 | Analyzing artifacts | Gee, Introduction to Discourse Analysis (chapters 5 and 6). |
| 4/28 | By the end of week 4, we should have identified initial project themes and be carrying out interviews and observations. | |
| 5/2 | Mid-term presentations | |
| 5/4 | Analyzing data #1 | Lofland et al, Analyzing Social Settings (chapters 6-9); Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes (chapter 6); Charmaz, Constructing Grounded Theory (chapters 3-4). |
| 5/5 | By the end of week 5, the majority of the interview work should be done. | |
| 5/9 | Guest lecture | |
| 5/11 | Guest lecture | |
| 5/12 | By the end of week 6, you should be transitioning to analysis, memoing your interviews and developing the main themes. | |
| 5/16 | Analyzing data #2 | Saldana on coding. |
| 5/18 | Analyzing data #3 | Beyer and Holtzblatt, Contextual Design (chapter 6). Slides from this lecture. |
| 5/19 | By the end of week 7, you should have an emerging grounded theory analysis of your data and using heuristic frameworks to identity important issues. | |
| 5/23 | Reporting results | That's Interesting! |
| 5/25 | Individual meetings | |
| 5/26 | By the end of week 8, your analysis should be complete and you have started writing the final report. | |
| 5/30 | Final presentations | Teams 1, 2, and 3. |
| 6/1 | Final presentations | Teams 4, 5, and 6. |
| 6/2 | Week 9: Writing, writing, writing, writing... | |
| 6/6 | Final presentations | Teams 7, 8, 9, and 10. |
| 6/8 | No meeting | |
| 6/7 | End of week 10: Done! Phew! | |
| 6/13 | Final reports due at 5pm | Details on what your report should cover. Example reports from previous offerings: #1 and #2. |