Readings and assignments are subject to change. Please always check the online syllabus.

CS 6470: Design of Online Communities

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Date	Topic	Readings & Online Sites
1/8	Introduction
1/10	Community: Face to Face and Online	Reading: Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital by Robert Putnam Persistent and Pervasive Community: New Communication Technologies and the Future of Community by Keith Hampton A New Perspective on "Community" and its Implications for Computer-Mediated Communication Systems by Amy Bruckman. Works in Progress, CHI 2006. Online Site: Meetup
1/15	Third Places	Reading: The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg, chapters one and two. (in book store) The Heart of the Well in The Virtual Community, by Howard Rheingold. Video: How to Live in a City - 1964 by William Whyte (18 minutes) Online Site: The Georgia Tech subreddit Due: Short paper on best and worst experiences
1/17	Research Methods	Reading: Interviewing as Qualitative Research, by IE Seidman, chapters 1, 4, and 6 Just Awful Enough: the functional dysfunction of the something awful forums by Pater et al, proceedings of CHI 2014 (revised version of community study paper for this class) How to Be Popular on Habbo Hotel Online Site: Habbo Due: Post an idea for an online site that you think is worth discussing in class on the discussion on Canvas. Describe why briefly (a sentence or a short paragraph).
1/22	Research Ethics	Reading: Interviewing as Qualitative Research, by IE Seidman, chapter 5 Teaching Students to Study Online Communities Ethically by Amy Bruckman. Journal of Information Ethics 15:2, 82-98, fall 2006. Ethics for community study projects summary "DeviantArt: A Constructionist Community of Practice for Artists" by Barbara J. Ericson and Umashanthi Pavalanathan (shared as an announcement on Canvas) For further reference: The Belmont Report US Title 45 Regulations "Go Away":Participants Objections to Being Studied and the Ethics of Chatroom Research by Jim Hudson and Amy Bruckman. The Information Society, 20:127-139, 2004 Online Site: Georgia Tech IRB training Snopes Due: Obtain ethics certification via the online basic course, if you do not already have certification. (Group 2 Social / Behavioral Research Investigators and Key Personnel - Basic Course) Please do not miss this class. If you do miss this lecture, you must watch a video of class and meet with the TA.
1/24	Ethics Continued: Disguising Subjects in Published Accounts	Reading: Studying the Amateur Artist by Amy Bruckman Georgia Tech's IRB information (browse) "Interviewing Members of Online Communities: a Practical Guide to Recruiting Participants" by Amy Bruckman (draft is an announcement on Canvas, bruckman-recruiting-may18-2010.doc) Online site: Good Reads Please do not miss this class. If you do miss this lecture, you must watch a video of class and meet with the TA.
1/29	No class--snow day
1/31	Design Factors	Reading: Finding One's Own Space in Cyberspace, by Amy Bruckman Nine Principles of Community Design by Amy Jo Kim Online Site: Quora Due: Project proposals Please bring your laptop to this class.
2/5	Theory of Identity	Reading: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, by Erving Goffman. Pages 1-58, intro & most of chapter 1. Due: HW: Interview with a classmate
2/7	Identity Online	Reading: Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community by Judith Donath Separting Fact From Fiction: An Examination of Deceptive Self-Presentation in Online Dating Profiles by Catalina Toma, Jeffrey Hancock, and Nicole Ellison Twitch Chat Badges Guide Online Sites: Twitch
2/12	Gender Online	Reading: The Strange Case of the Lectronic Lover by Lindsay Van Gelder "Boyz and Gurlz," from Cyberville by Stacy Horn. On electronic reserve, with permission. Online Sites: Rookie Mag You Be Mom Due: HW: Field notes
2/14	Anonymity	Reading: We need online alter egos now more than ever by Judith Donath, Wired Magazine 4chan and /b/: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community by Michael Bernstein, Andres Monroy-Hernandez, et. al. Optional, for further reading: The Politics of 'Real Names': Power, Context, and Controling Networked Publics by danah boyd Online site (app for Android or iOS; please borrow a friend's phone if necessary): Warning: adult content. Whisper Due: HW: Interview questions
2/19	Deviant Behavior	Guest lecturer: Shagun Jhaver Reading: A Rape in Cyberspace by Julian Dibbell Regulating Behavior in Online Communities by Sara Kiesler, Robert Kraut, Paul Resnick, & Aniket Kittur Ask Not For Whom the Bell Trolls, This American Life Podcast (21 minutes) (Warning: strong language. Bleeped version available.) Project Misery (just read web page) Cave Your Trolls (just read web page) Optional, for further reading: Approaches to Managing Deviant Behavior in Virtual Communities, panel, CHI 94, by Amy Bruckman, Pavel Curtis, Cliff Figallo, and Brenda Laurel Managing Deviant Behavior in Online Communities., panel, CHI 2006. Amy Bruckman, Catalina Danis, Cliff Lampe, Janet Sternberg, and Chris Waldron. Optional Online Site: LambdaMOO, following these instructions. Due: HW: First interview transcript
2/21	Social Roles	Reading: "Roles: from Newcomer to Old-Timer," Chapters 4 in Community Building on the Web by Amy Jo Kim (electronic reserve) Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs by Richard Bartle A Conceptual and Operational Definition of 'Social Role' in Online Community by Eric Gleave, Howard Welser, Thomas Lento, and Marc Smith Online Site: Stack Overflow
2/26	Theory of Online Collaboration	Reading: "What can online collaboration accomplish?" draft book chapter by Amy Bruckman (on Canvas) Optional further reading: The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm by Yochai Benkler (Read the introduction carefully. Rest of the text is recommended but optional. Footnotes are optional.)
2/28	Moderation	Guest lecturer: Shagun Jhaver Reading: Platforms Intervene by Tarleton Gillespie The Virtues of Moderation by James Grimmelmann Online Site: Slashdot Optional reading: The Secret Rules of the Internet, The murky history of moderation and how it's shaping the future of free speech by Catherine Buni and Soraya Chemaly Due: HW: Second interview transcript
3/5	Online Privacy	Guest lecturer: Julia Deeb-Swihart Reading: Privacy and human behavior in the age of information, Alessandro Acquisti et al, Science 347, 509 (2015) (use library's web localizer to get free access) "Anonymized" data really isn't Optional, for further reading: Best Data Practices for Online Service Providers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation "Privacy policies as decision-making tools, an evaluation of online privacy notices." by Carlos Jensen and Colin Potts. Proceedings of CHI 2004. (ACM DL) Online Site: Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on Privacy (browse) Read the privacy policy of one online site you use. List your site on the wiki, making sure no one else in the class has picked your site. Come to class prepared to discuss the policy.
3/7	Participation and Lurking	Reading: "Lurker demographics: counting the silent" by Blair Nonnecke and Jenny Preece. Proceedings of CHI 2000, April 1 - 6, 2000, The Hague, Netherlands, pp. 73-80. (ACM DL) Understandng Deja Reviewers by Eric Gilbert and Karrie Karahalios Widespread Underprovision on Reddit by Eric Gilbert
3/12	Motivation	Reading: Using Social Psychology to Motivate Contrubtions to Online Communities Encouraging contributions to online communities by Kraut and Resnick Due: HW: Third interview transcript
3/14	Online Public Shaming	Reading: Puppy Poo Girl Behind The Alarming Rise Of The Online Vigilante Detective How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco's Life, New York Times, February 2015 Optional, for further reading: Wikipedia article on Internet Vigilantism
3/19 & 3/21	Spring break--no class
3/26	Wikipedia and the nature of "truth"	Reading: "Should you believe Wikipedia?" book chapter by Amy Bruckman (on Canvas) Optional further reading: Becoming Wikipedian: Transformation of Participation in a Collaborative Online Encyclopedia. by Susan Bryant, Andrea Forte, and Amy Bruckman. Proceedings of Group 2005. Can History be Open Source? by Roy Rosenzweig Online Sites: Everything2 (Pick an article and compare it to Wikipedia on the same topic.)
3/28	Community Study Presentations	Due: Community Study Papers
4/2	The Internet in Cuba	Guest Lecturer: Michaelanne Dye Reading: Locating the Internet in the Parks of Havana by Michaelanne Dye et. al. El Paquete Semanal: The Week's Internet in Havana by Michaelanne Dye et. al.
4/4	The Social, the Technical, the Political	Guest Lecturer: Julia Deeb-Swihart Reading: Do Artifacts Have Politics? (Use library web localizer to get free access). by Langdon Winner. (in The Whale and The Reactor) Code v2.0 by Lawrence Lessig. Chapters 3& 7. (Available free online, but you may wish to buy it anyway.) Online Site: Kiva
4/9	Class Presentations, Continued
4/11	Innovative Systems	Papers by Amy Zhang: Squadbox: A Tool to Combat Email Harassment Using Friendsourced Moderation. by Kaitlin Mahar, Amy X. Zhang, David Karger (CHI 2018) Wikum: Bridging Discussion Forumsand Wikis Using Recursive Summarization by Zhang, Verou, and Krager (CSCW 2017) Online sites: SquadBox Wikum
4/16	Design Presentations	Due: Design Papers
4/18	Design Presentations, continued
4/23	Looking Forwards	No reading for today. As your "reading reflection," please submit one to two pages on how you think online communities, social media, and the internet, will be different ten years from now. Come to class prepared to discuss your predictions.

Readings and assignments are subject to change.

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