Introduction Winter 2024 COGS 123 Prof. Steven Dow Prof. Steven Dow Associate Professor, Cognitive Science Af liated w/ Computer Science and Engineering • Research interests: HCI, social computing, and creativity • Associate Editor for the Journal of Social Computing • recent co-Chair of HCOMP 2017 (crowdsourcing conference) • recent co-Chair for C&C/DIS 2019 (creativity and design conferences) • upcoming Chair for Collective Intelligence 2025 conference fi • Teaching team TAs Lu Sun PhD in Cognitive Science Annapurna Vadaparty PhD in Cognitive Science IAs: Saleha Ahmedi Allen Chen Ryan Eang Rawan Ghazouli Joyce Hwieun Kim Yi Lu Frances Sy Kimberly Wong Social websites are popular Social media applications are popular TikTok has 1 Billion monthly active users (MAUs) https://www.investisdigital.com/blog/technology/tiktok-most-visited-site-2021 Social media applications are popular TikTok has 1 Billion monthly active users (MAUs)! https://www.investisdigital.com/blog/technology/tiktok-most-visited-site-2021 Social media popularity over time https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/09/06/livestreaming-tiktoktwitch-instagram-social-media-app-annie/5741302001/ Social aggregation of information Social creativity http://www.aaronkoblin.com/work/ thesheepmarket/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oU0I8APK-o Social in uence fl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-liked_Instagram_posts Social in uence fl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-liked_Instagram_posts Social in uence fl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-liked_Instagram_posts Social play Minecraft 166M monthly active players Fornite 236M monthly active players https://www.demandsage.com/ Social play Minecraft 166M monthly active players Fornite 236M monthly active players Among Us 163M monthly active players https://www.demandsage.com/ Social commerce Social gigs and services Social news and politics Social news and politics Social matching But also new social challenges… But also new social challenges… Opportunities for Social Computing • Innovating new social computing experiences that change how we work, play, learn, etc. • Understanding the theory and underlying factors that affect technology adoption and diffusions fl • Studying how technology affects trust, awareness, privacy, well-being, coordination, con ict… Challenges for Social Computing • Prototyping new systems with groups (eg., anything more than a few simultaneous users is really hard to prototype) • Dealing with unprecedented dangers: predators, cyberbullying, internet addiction, shrinking attentions spans, decreased literacy, oversharing, threats to democracy • Combating misinformation, disinformation, deep fakes • Breaking out of echo chambers and polarization A brief history of the WWW Early days of the WWW (circa 1994) Web 0.1: Memex • Vannevar Bush: MIT academic, developer of analog computer, science administrator & presidential science advisor • "As We May Think" Atlantic Monthly (1945) • Problem: Info overload • Lots of information • Access through both indexing and clicking • Trails through the material are storable fi fi • Solution: Micro che-based system to nd and link info Web 0.1: Memex fi “Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and ampli ed.” —Bush, 1945 Web 0.2: Hypertext • Ted Nelson: an American pioneer of information technology, philosopher, and sociologist. • Idea of hypertext for computers (1965) • Project Xanadu: goal of creating a computer network with a simple user interface • June 1995 issue of Wired magazine called Xanadu "the longest-running vaporware project in the history of computing" Web 1.0: Web is Born • Tim Berners-Lee: English computer scientist who “invented” the web • For scientists to easily retrieve documents from anywhere around world • First website, CERN (Aug 6, 1991) • “I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the TCP and DNS ideas and ta-da! — the World Wide Web.” • Finding and retrieving information built into the DNA of the web • Early sites were read-only (view source) 1992 1993 1994 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 A typical webpage Even after the Web was invented… • “Good design” not prevalent • Collaboration not part of DNA of web (one-way info ow) • Not enough people online (no broadband, slow computers) • Unclear business models fl • …. Even after the Web was invented… World of Warcraft only possible b/c of cheaper computers, faster broadband, scalable servers, and enough people online. Take away one of these… Even after the Web was invented… Wikipedia • Seems obvious in retrospect that it can work • Wasn’t so obvious when rst created that it could work Why would people volunteer to help? • Can you actually get thousands of people working together, productively? • Quality control? • Can the servers and software scale up? • Why would people trust it over printed encyclopedia? fi • What is “Web 2.0”? Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 ?? Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 • Static, not personalized • Everyone can make content • Primarily experts vs everybody • Oversharing (too much content) • Likely higher initial quality • More personalization / interactivity • Top-down organization • Integration of online identities • More two-way comm • Bigger privacy issues • More haters / trolls / bad actors • Lots more people on Internet Web 2.0 Continues to Evolve • It took the convergence, evolution, and adoption of MANY innovations for us to get to Web 2.0 • What kind of social innovations were needed? • “Architectures of Participation” (Tim O’Reilly, 2003) • Ex. Hardware, Software, Incentives, Economics, etc • New architectures of participation being created every day • Still arguably in early stages of the social web Web 3.0?? Web 3.0?? What is Social Computing? Social Computing (de nitions) • “Interactive and collaborative behavior between computer users” (Techopedia) • “digital systems that support useful functionality by making socially produced information available to their users” (Wikipedia) fi • “the study of technology-mediated human interaction, encompassing all social activity from interpersonal relationships, teams, communities, institutions, to society at large.” (Amy Zhang, UW) fi The rst “killer app”? Social Computing (early examples) • Email • Note taking • Connected video spaces • Instant messaging • Telepresence fi CSCW draws on many elds of study A brief history of the research eld 1986: rst CSCW conference (1989 rst European CSCW) • 1992: CSCW journal • 2010: CSCW hosted annually instead of every other year • 2013: CSCW became know as “computer supported cooperative work and social computing” fi • fi 1984: Greif & Cashman organized a workshop and coined the term “computer supported cooperative work” (CSCW) fi • Key insights along the way • 1984: Greif and Cashman workshop de ned CSCW as “a set of concerns about supporting multiple individuals working together with computer systems” • Early approaches to supporting groups for “of ce automation” had run out of steam • Dif culty understanding systems requirements fi fi fi • Extending and integrating single user applications was not adequate for groups Key insights along the way • Noted the “situated” nature of work… often work did not occur as planned. (Suchman, 1987) • Calls for supporting “articulation” work and making the actions of others more transparent (Strauss, 1988) • Awareness in real-time, distributed environments as “the understanding of the activities of others, which provide a context for our own activity” (Dourish and Bellotti, 1992) • Need for in-depth study of work practice, in sites of actual work—otherwise adoption usually failed. Communicating through space and time time different same Ellis et al, 1991 same place different places space Communicating through space and time time different same Ellis et al, 1991 asynchronous / co-located asynchronous / remote Project walls Meeting room schedules Post-It notes Public displays Digital Media Sharing Groupware Calendars Voting MS Word Collaboration Instant messaging synchronous / co-located synchronous / remote Large displays / whiteboards Tabletop interaction Spectator interfaces Networked gaming Video conferencing Instant messaging same place different places space Communicating through space and time time different same fi Ellis et al, 1991 asynchronous / co-located asynchronous / remote Project walls Meeting room schedules Post-It notes Public displays Graf ti Digital media sharing Voting systems Social media posts Peer review systems synchronous / co-located synchronous / remote Whiteboards Large shared displays Tabletop interaction Spectator interfaces Networked gaming Video conferencing Instant messaging Collaboration spaces (Miro, GDocs) same place different places space New devices for 2024 Key insights along the way • Beyond being there (Hollan and Stornetta, 1992) • The technological pursuit of face-to-face communication is often inappropriate and destined to fail. • Value in supporting ephermality, anonymity, semi-synchrony… • Distance matters (Olsen and Olsen, 2000) • establish common ground • plan loose coupling of work • prepare for collaboration readiness • learn collaboration technology Key insights along the way What’s different about social web (danah boyd, 2014) persistence: the durability of online expressions and content • visibility: the potential audience who can bear witness • spreadability: the ease with which content can be shared • searchability: the ability to nd content fi • What will we do in this course? Course topics • Online collaboration, awareness, coordination • Social data mining, and online experiments • Identity, credibility, trust • Mobile web, urban computing • Political and civic computing • Games, virtual environments • Crowdsourcing/human computation • Distributed innovation • Citizen science, volunteerism • Privacy and security • Understand social, technical and business challenges social computing applications must solve to be successful • Learn how to analyze, design, and build technologies for social interaction • Understand the social impact of spending much of your lives online • Understand what impacts the spread of social artifacts and how to measure impact • Find the right balance between generalizable principles and speci cs of current social sites fi Course goals Website socialcomputing.ucsd.edu • Logistics and grading policy • Discussions • Project • Schedule (see course dashboard) Summary of work this quarter • Create an awesome nal project (teams of 4-5) • Prepare for Monday paper discussions (present 4 per quarter) • Weekly quizzes… starts this week! fi • Participate in person during lectures and Monday sections Grading breakdown • 32% Presenting papers (~4 times per quarter) • 8% Quizzes about papers • 10% Participation (in person or Slack) • 50% Final project Papers and discussions • Lots of reading in this course! • Skim all four papers per week by Monday’s section. • Actively listen and discuss papers presented by peers. • Present four papers throughout the quarter. • Do the quiz on Fridays for each week of papers. • Bring a charged laptop to Monday sections. Discussion Roles: Presenters • Four times per quarter: Read the paper in detail • Create a Google slide deck with group members • Present the key points and intellectual context: what in uenced this paper and what did it in uence. Make it visual, high-level, and short (~5 mins) • Compose discussion questions, post them on Slack, and lead a discussion in person and on Slack (~5 min) fl fl • Self evaluate your presenting group (after each presentation) Discussion Roles: Audience Members • Skim all papers that you are NOT presenting • Communicate verbally during section and lecture discussions • Or, write replies to Slack posts about the papers • Make substantive contributions, not super cial ones fi • Offer a few contributions per week (either verbal or written) Quizzes • On Thursdays after lecture (except week 8 and 10) • Will cover all readings from that week • Open book, open notes • Open for ~24 hours, but once you start, must nish in 60 min fi • 1% of grade per quiz, so don’t stress out Final project Invent a novel social computing experience • Choose your own team (4-5 people per team) • Conduct research on a problem or opportunity • Prototype a novel social computing experience (a live demo that can be tested in class) • Measure/observe how people interact with each other fi • Create a nal presentation and online portfolio Typical week • (Weekend) Read / skim papers ahead time • (Monday morning) Meet presenting group and prepare slides • (Monday afternoon) Engage during Monday discussions • (Tues - Thurs) Attend lectures; respond to Slack; work on team project • (Thurs-Friday) Do the quiz; Read next assigned paper… Course dashboard Review the papers, nd your section (e.g, “3-4pm CSB 114”), and sign up for 4 papers to present during Monday discussion sections: fi tinyurl.com/cogs123-w24 Quiz for this Thursday • Everyone should read “It's Complicated” - Chapter 1, pages 29-53 (danah boyd, 2014) • “Open book” quiz • Starts after lecture on Thurs and open until Friday midnight • 60 minutes to submit after starting For any feedback to Prof. Dow, even anonymously: https://tinyurl.com/dow-feedback-w24 Icebreaker time! Break ice: 3 x 3 game • groups of 3 people; 3 minutes per round; 3 rounds • Introduce yourself • Share something that helps others understand you better • Pick a few questions to discuss (next slide) Breaking ice - possible discussions: • One thing you would like to change about social media? • Something that you are looking forward to in this class? • What’s one new service or app you wish already existed? • What is your favorite social media platform? Why? • What practical skills can you contribute to a team project? • Any ideas for a team project? Reminders • Read “It's Complicated” chapter 1 for Thursday’s class • Sign up for papers to present in your section • By Thursday, connect with your rst Presenting Group fi • Prepare W2 video presentation by next Monday
