fellow A(o)IR members, I'm forwarding this announcement to the list because I think that this workshop represents an interesting approach to processing computer-based data and thinking about the applications of social networks to internet research. I'd like to invite you to consider submitting to the workshop, and attending CSCW 2004 in Chicago. CSCW is a research field studying Computer Supported Collaborative Work; while it draws largely from computer science, it has many active members with backgrounds in design, sociology, anthropology, and psychology. The CSCW Conference, held this year in Chicago in November, is one that many AIR members might enjoy. --------------- Social Networks for Design and Analysis: Using Network Information in CSCW A CSCW 2004 workshop. Workshop Date: Saturday November 6, 2004 – Chicago, IL Submission Deadline: Wednesday, September 22 Notification of Acceptance: Friday, October 1 [ Note that CSCW early registration ends on October 13. ] Workshop web page: http://www.ischool.washington.edu/mcdonald/cscw04/ Organizers * Shelly Farhnam, Microsoft Research * Danyel Fisher, Microsoft Research * David W. McDonald, The Information School, University of Washington The CSCW community has a tradition of adopting social and analytical theories to understand groups and group processes as well as when designing new systems to support and augment cooperative work. Social networks have a long tradition in sociology and cultural anthropology, but are only beginning to break in totheCSCWmainstream.Thekeynotion from network analysis, that the interconnections between people can be used to understand and improve their interactions, is one that has direct implications for CSCW research. Network models have clear implications for research into communication systems, teamwork, and knowledge management. Social networks are being used in several different ways: * "Social Network Analysis" – Which is the more traditional, formal, techniques of mathematical sociology and anthropology are used to analyze a population. * "Social networks" – The general connections that people have with each other. Examples include explicitly articulated social networks in Friendster, Orkut, or LinkedIn, which use the language and concepts of social networks. * Social network techniques in CSCW design – These techniques can vary from contact management, to recommendation techniques, to ways of understanding how an organization is adopting and using a new technology. While we are particularly interested in this third stream of research, we are generally interested in understanding the broad range of social network research within CSCW. We are interested in exploring tools that both use social networks as a source of information, and that support end-user interactions with social networks. This full-day workshop seeks participation from social scientists and system designers to address the ways in which social networks can be adapted for use in analyzing cooperation and as a framework for considering new system designs. The workshop will consider four specific topics: * MEASUREMENT - How are social networks being collected and measured (automatically, manually, quantitatively, qualitatively)? What do these networks actually represent? How are the networks validated? Are the measurements implicit or explicit? * TOOLS - What is the state-of-the-art for analyzing, visualizing and representing social networks? In what context are these tools useful and how can the tools be adapted to specific CSCW situations? * APPLICATIONS - Systems are embedding social networks into the fabric of system design. How can system designers distill the complexities of networks into user-oriented displays? How are social networks supported by the system, software, or architecture? * EVALUATION - How does the use of a social network change, facilitate, or hinder users and their collaborations? JOINING THE WORKSHOP Individuals interested in participating in the workshop should submit a position paper describing work in one or more of the topic areas above and a completed workshop survey. The workshop organizers will review position papers. Authors will be notified of acceptance to the workshop on October 1st. One goal of the workshop is to nurture interdisciplinary applications of social networks that specifically consider a CSCW perspective. Attention will be paid to representing a diverse spectrum of positions. The workshop will be limited to 15 participants. All workshop attendees should register for the CSCW conference. Proposals should consist of * A four-page position paper describing work in one or more of the workshop areas above. * A completed workshop survey, which is intended to get some ideas of the broad range of skills in the community. The survey can be found on the workshop web page, http://www.ischool.washington.edu/mcdonald/cscw04/ Please submit your workshop proposal to David McDonald, dwmc@u.washington.edu in PDF or Microsoft Word.