Boundaries & Learning Re: Korean students
Han wrote:
But please understand that they are undergraduate kids and this is a valuable learning process.
As others have implied, the Korean students have us considering [as social scientist], the entire issue of boundaries. I think as future researchers, the students will probably learn a lot from this experience about formal, informal, and especially invisible boundaries of all social groups whether they are in Geospace or cyberspace. I hope their experiences will provoke class discussion about boundaries and how to avoid violating unknown cultural boundaries by first listening and observing (lurking) to understand the group's norms (etiquette) for welcoming and introducing potential new participants. IMHO, we as social scientist also have something to learn. We made assumptions based on the "face" of the message which led to imposing sanctions against the perceived "deviants" by filtering them out as spam. Aren't these the type of dynamics we are trying to understand about the Internet as a social world? The group's immediate reaction reminds me of the early and mid 1990's when AOL "newbies" were so vilified for not understanding netiquette. In the end, the newbies won by sheer numbers so there is no consensus on how to insert yourself into the existing conversation -- especially if you want to "change" or introduce a new topic to the existing participants. IMHO, this is a "teaching moment" for both the students and for ourselves as researchers. The group is for "internet researchers" but some of us apparently have very specific definition of what "internet research" posts are valid questions? What are the group's boundaries for topic discussions (rhetorical question only)? My two cents. Deana wrote:
.. that's the same reason why I quit using this kind of assignment. My students never really read the messages on the lists that I had them subscribe to.
As for pedagogy, I would like to try this assignment. However, I would have my students lurk first and write a profile of the group they have selected to join. The profile would include some statements about the group's norms (netiquette) and identifying a strategy for "joining the conversation" and posting their research. I would also have them include a discussion of what would happen if they violated the group norms so their message is considered spam or "flame bait." This profile would be the pre-assignment before they are allowed to post. Then, of course, I would have them write a short "ethnographic" description of what happened when they joined the lists and posted. They actually become participant-observers doing field work. Because, I want them to be familiar with the IRB (legal ethics requirements for Americans researchers), I would like them to include some discussion of the ethics issue as a participant-observer researcher. Robin ------ Robin Y. Mabry Hubbard, MBA, EdS Rural Sociology Doctoral Student - Community Informatics Email: ryh352@mizzou.edu My Homepage: http://www.rrchubbard.org Murphy's Law: There is never enough time to do it right; but there is always time to do it over ~ Our Future arrived Yesterday! ~ [I am not inviting any postmodernist to my party!]
I most certainly agree. At the same time, it is interesting to note that Gmail's algorithms saw these emails as spam as well. While two made it into my inbox, most of the others did not. So we definitely have a lot to learn in numerous directions. Not to let ourselves off the hook, but it was not "simply" the wrong list or impatient readers or anything else, but a combination of things which resulted in "sanctions." Casey O'Donnell (Long time lurker) On 6/14/06, R.Mabry-Hubbard (UMC Student) <ryh352@mizzou.edu> wrote:
IMHO, we as social scientist also have something to learn. We made assumptions based on the "face" of the message which led to imposing sanctions against the perceived "deviants" by filtering them out as spam.
I am researching communication in virtual workplaces both for my dissertation and a related project. I would welcome your opinions on resources I should read. I have read widely in CMC and intercultural communication but don't want to miss important current contributions to the study of virtual workplaces. Thank you for your suggestions. Best, Pam Pamela Estes Brewer Lecturer -- Coordinator, Professional Writing Department of English and Philosophy Murray State University PhD Student in Technical Communication & Rhetoric, Texas Tech University 270-809-4719 fax 270-809-4545 pam.brewer@murraystate.edu
Dear Pam - As I recall, some of the earliest work on CSCW was undertaken at the University of Arizona, Tempe. These titles came up in my database: Luff, P., J. Hindmarsh, et al., Eds. (2000). Workplace Studies: Recovering Work Practice and Informing System Design. Cambridge, Cambridge Univ Press. For activity theory and workplaces, and I'm sure she's written more on this recently: Nardi, B., Ed. (1996). Context and consciousness: Activity theory and human-computer interaction. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press. Also Paul Dourish, not sure if you are working on that level. It's pretty much in the vein of CSCW - I couldn't tell if that's your take on workplaces or not. Anyway, might be something in it for you: Dourish, P. (2001). Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press. Here's an incomplete bibliography that cites his work: Dourish, P. (2001). Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. Cambridge: MIT Press. Kutti, K., Harsten, E., Fitzpatrick, G., Dourish, P., and Schmidt, K. (2003). Proceedings of the Eighth European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work ECSCW 2003 (Helsinki, Finland). Dordrecht: Kluwer. ECSCW. journal papers Dourish, P. (1995). Developing a Reflective Model of Collaborative Systems. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction. 2(1), 40-63. Dourish, P., Adler, A., Bellotti, V. and Henderson, A. (1996). Your Place or Mine? Learning from Long-Term Use of Audio-Video Communication. Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, 5(1), 33-62. Dourish, P. (1998). Using Metalevel Techniques in a Flexible Toolkit for CSCW Applications. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 5(2), 109-155. Dourish, P. and Button, G. (1998). On "Technomethodology": Foundational Relationships between Ethnomethodology and System Design. Human-Computer Interaction, 13(4), 395-432. Dourish, P., Edwards, W.K., LaMarca, A. and Salisbury, M. (1999). Presto: An Experimental Architecture for Fluid Interactive Document Spaces. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 6(2), 133-161. Dourish, P. and Edwards, W.K. (2000). A Tale of Two Toolkits: Relating Infrastructure and Use in Flexible CSCW Toolkits. Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, 9(1), 33-51. Dourish, P., Edwards, W.K., LaMarca, A., Lamping, J., Petersen, K., Salisbury, M., Terry, D. and Thornton, J. (2000). Extending Document Management Systems with User-Specific Active Properties. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 18(2), 140-170. Dourish, P. (2001). Seeking a Foundation for Context-Aware Computing. Human-Computer Interaction, 16(2-3). Dourish, P. (2003). The Appropriation of Interactive Technologies: Some Lessons from Placeless Documents. Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: Special Issue on Evolving Use of Groupware, 12, 465-490. Reddy, M., Pratt, W., Dourish, P., and Shabot, M. (2003). Sociotechnical Requirements Analysis for Clinical Systems. Methods of Information in Medicine, 42, 437-444. Dourish, P. (2004). What We Talk About When We Talk About Context. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 8(1), 19-30. Dourish, P., Grinter, R., Delgado de la Flor, J., and Joseph, M. (2004). Security in the Wild: User Strategies for Managing Security as an Everyday, Practical Problem. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 8(6), 391-401. DePaula, R., Ding, X., Dourish, P., Nies, K., Pillet, B., Redmiles, D.F., Ren, J., Rode, J.A., and Silva Filho, R. (2005). In the Eye of the Beholder: A Visualization-based Approach to Information System Security. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 63(1-2), 5- Cheers, Denise Denise N. Rall, Ph.D. submitted, School of Environ. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 AUSTRALIA Tuesdays: Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 or Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html Virtual member, Cybermetrics Group, University of Wolverhampton, UK http://cybermetrics.wlv.ac.uk/index.html
participants (4)
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Casey O'Donnell -
Denise N. Rall -
Pam Brewer -
R.Mabry-Hubbard (UMC Student)