Course Syllabus

1. COURSE DESCRIPTION

Course Code : SOCCOMP
Course Title : SOCIAL COMPUTING
Course Description
: Social computing is a growing field of study concerned with supporting, facilitating, understanding or even promoting various social behaviors through the use of web, social software or other technologies. Online engagements and interactions in wikis, blogs, online games, instant messaging systems, forums or other online communities are some of the topics for discussion. The course also teaches the basic make-up of social computing in terms of structure, media, technology and psychology.

Credit Units : 3
Pre-requisite : Usability Engineering
Co-requisite : Check your flowchart
Post-requisite : Check your flowchart
Department : Information Technology Department
SOCCOMP Blog : http://ideasonsocialcomputing.blogspot.com –this will be used for other extended recitation and discussions.


2. COURSE OBJECTIVES

The course intends to introduce social computing and push the students to migrate from being users of to idea producers or designers of social network software through:

a. learning the fundamental aspects of social computing;
b. analyzing and reviewing various social computing applications;
c. create a prototype of a social network software thru incremental accomplishments of experiments;
d. and acquire the knowledge and understanding of how social computing works.

3. COURSE OUTLINE

CONNECTIONS
 Introduction to Social Network Theory
 Types of Connections
 Propinquity, Homophily
 Distance between nodes
 Diads and mutuality
 Balance and triads
Experiment Number 1 – Six Degrees of Separation

 Social Attributes of Nodes and Networks
 Aspects of networks
 Social Circles
Experiment Number 2 – Comparative Review of Three (3) Existing Social Networks

Project Orientation

MEDIA USED
Language and Semiology/Semiotics
Language Analysis
Image analysis

Experiment Number 3 - Creating a Pattern of Social Circle/s
**Output of this experiment can be used as the final project once approved.

TECHNOLOGY
What is Web 2.0
Characteristics and practices in Web 2.0
Technologies used
PSYCHOLOGY
The Online Disinihibition effect

ISSUES IN SOCIAL COMPUTING
Project Presentation

4. REFERENCES

Kadushin, Charles. (Feb 17, 2004). Introduction to Social Network Theory. http://home.earthlink.net/~ckadushin/Texts/Basic%20Network%20Concepts.pdf
Morville, Peter. (Feb 21, 2002). Social Network Analysis. Semantic Studios. http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000006.php O’Reilly, Tim. (Sep 30, 2005). What is Web 2.0? O’Reilly Behind the Cover. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
Rayner, Philip et al. Media Studies: The Essential Resource. (2004). Routledge Taylor and Francis Group. London.
Suler, John. (Aug 4, 2004). The Online Disinhibition Effect. The Psychology of Cyberspace. http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/disinhibit.html
Fei-Yue Wang, Kathleen M. Carley, Daniel Zeng, and Wenji Mao, "Social Computing: From Social Informatics to Social Intelligence," IEEE Intelligent Systems, vol. 22, no. 2, 2007, pp. 79-83. http://dsonline.computer.org/portal/site/dsonline/menuitem.9ed3d9924aeb0dcd82ccc6716bbe36ec/index.jsp?&pName=dso_level1&path=dsonline/2007/04&file=x2tac.xml&xsl=article.xsl&

5. INSTRUCTIONAL METHODOLOGIES
• Experiments as major course work
• Long exam to reinforce concepts to be used
• Use of short video, podcast and relationship simulation tool for presentations
• Lecture, group discussions, a lot of reading assignments

6. COURSE REQUIREMENTS and GRADING SYSTEM

Class Activities –
Group work, written assignments, short quizzes 20%
Class Participation 5%
Long Exam 15%
Group Experiments (15% each) 45%
Final Project 15%
TOTAL 100%


Passing Grade – 70%