Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
For more on networked sociality see Rainie et al. ( 2012 ). Networked. The new
social operating system. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
A short article by Churchill cautions us to remember as designers we may not
be like the users we are designing for, and to think carefully when designing social
systems. This is of course a general point, but when it comes to social commu-
nication tools, it is particularly important.
Churchill ( 2010 ). The (anti) social net. interactions. 17(5). 22-25.
Generally, the question of how to support teams using technology is considered by
human factors and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). Conferences
and journals in this area will provide more information and more current infor-
mation. An early collection of readings is still useful: Baecker ( 1993 ).
For more on collaborative virtual environments, Churchill, Snowdon, and
Munro's book contains articles on the topic:
E. F. Churchill, D. Snowdon and A. Munro (Eds). ( 2001 ). Collaborative virtual envi-
ronments. Digital places and spaces for interaction. London, UK: Springer Verlag.
There are several places where work on computational models of social
behavior can be found. In addition to the Journal of Mathematical Sociology, there
is a society focused on this, NAACSOS—The North American Association for
Computational Social and Organizational Science ( www.dis.anl.gov/naacsos ) .
Their conference is associated with the Computational and Mathematical Orga-
nization Theory Conference (CASOS) ( www.casos.ece.cmu.edu ). The National
Research Council, an independent agency that gives independent scientific advice
to the government, has written a report that lays out a summary of work that can
and should be done: (Committee on Organizational Modeling from Individuals to
Societies 2007 ).
9.8 Exercises
9.1 Spam regularly appears in our email and now battles for our attention and our
resources alongside legitimate emails. In some cases the spam is non-trivial in
that the author is serious, genuine, and locatable. The rest are often removed
automatically using spam filters.
(a)
Use the frameworks from informal groups, transaction costs, and net-
works, to explain the incentives and impact of spam. Generate an
equation to compute the transaction costs of spam. Generate an equation
to compute how many email addresses are visible on the Internet.
(b)
Discuss, using costs and benefits, how much it would cost to ask people
to donate to charity on your campus using email, and the wisdom and
practical matters of this approach. (You might be able to use information
from Cheyne and Ritter 2001 ).
Search WWH ::




Custom Search