INFSCI 3550: The Social Web

Doctoral Seminar, Systems

(Spring 2010, CRN 39539)

[ Formal Data | Syllabus | Tools| Wiki | CourseWeb ]

Course Tools

CourseWeb

The key tool for the course is the Pitt CourseWeb powered by Blackboard Course Management System, a product of Blackboard, Inc. You need to have Pitt University Computer Account to login to CourseInfo site. Use Account Managament Page to check the status of your account. We will use CourseWeb for several kinds of communication during this course. This site will also provide details on your homeworks and projects.

Class Wiki

Class Wiki is a dedicated Wiki installation, which we will use to collaboratively create structured course offprint. A course schedule and a brief outline of all topics as well as links to most interesting resources are posted there.

LinkedIn, one of the most popular social networking systems, will be used as a social networking component for the course. Its goal is to help you to learn a bit about each other, while exploring typical features of this group of systems. Create an account (if you do not have one yet), join our class group , and, if you wish, add your instructor and classmates as your connections.

BibSonomy

BibSonomy is a unique social tagging system, which allows you to collect, share, and tag both Web links and research papers. It is a kind of del.icio.us and CiteULike in one. It also has almost any feature that a social tagging system may have and provides a great case to study this kind of systems. We will use Bibsonomy for two reasons:

To find and share papers related to each topic of the course. Every week you are expected to find and post to BibSonomy 3 research papers related to either topics discussed in class. Post to Social_Web group (and to your own account if you wish) and tag. Use your own tags, as well as a topic tag provided for each topic. One of the tags should be Lecture-X where X is the lecture number
To share interesting links (to blogposts, news articles, videos, pictures, etc.) related to the course. Sharing links and voting for other links is encouraged, but not required for PhD students.

Wordpress

Wordpress is a Web Log (blog) system. It will be used for two purposes:

Maintain your own blog - your learning journal. Post summaries of the papers, which you discovered and read each week, summary of the talks you visited, other thoughs and reflections on course lectures
Discuss mandatory readings in a class blog. Post a brief reflection to the one of the assigned reading papers. Check what other posted, reconcile your opinions.

Create an account (if you do not have one). Youur blog can be private if you wish, but the instructors should be able to see it for grading. Classmates could be also added and encouraged to add the blog to their blogroll. Also, add classroom blog to your own blogroll.

CoMeT

CoMeT is a social tagging systems for sharing information about research talks and colloqua. The goal of using this system in our course is to practice sharing and tagging an another context and explore the issue of participation rewards. Creare your account. Find and post 2 research talks per week. Share it with your friends and see how many users will benefit form your sharing. Attend one of these colloquia per month and post your feedback to your learning journal.

Eventur

Eventur is an interesting combination of several social systems - a social tagging systems to share events in Pittsburgh area, a social networking system, and a trust-based social recommender. Find and post 2 new cultural events per week. Connect with your friends and try to engage your social connections. Visit one of the events posted by you (or anyone else) and post a feedback on Eventur site. Pittsburgh has a lot to offer beyond your classroom. Go social, as the course itself.