About the Course Schedule

Assignments and readings are due on the day they are listed. For example, Rheingold should be read for Thursday, 9/1. This schedule is subject to change; please check it regularly.

week 1: Beginnings / Course Themes

T 8/29: Brief Introductions; course web site, syllabus; discussion about social media

Assignment for Thursday, 9/1
Click through the course web site, getting familiar with the layout and read the Syllabus carefully. Come to class with any questions you might have.

We start using the course book next week, so please purchase it immediately.

If you do not yet have a Twitter account, please sign up for one at http://twitter.com. Twitter works best (especially for our purposes) when the username is professional and you are authentic. For example, my username is: billwolff (http://twitter.com/billwolff), and I use my full name to show who I am. My account is unlocked. Please sign up with a professional username and keep your account unlocked. We’ll be using Twitter in a professional way so there is no need to keep anything private. Make sure you have your username with you. The shorter the username the better and please avoid underscores (_); they are hard to type on smartphones.

Please read Rheingold (1993) and watch Michael Wesch’s video, An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube, which is 55 minutes (it goes faster than it sounds; links are on the Readings page). Please annotate the Rheingold reading, noting key terms and ideas that are new to you and his discussions of community. Take notes on Wesch’s video and his discussion of community. In class we’ll start to problematize the term “community.” Be prepared to contribute to the discussion.

H 9/1: Rheingold (1993); Wesch on YouTube; Twitter usernames
Hand out Social Media Engagement Assignment

week 2: Course Themes

Assignment for Tuesday, 9/6 (updated)
Please read Baym, chapter 1; Kelly (2005), and Jenkins (2016 — note this will be online Friday evening, so don’t read the other Jenkins articles on the list).

Read through the Social Media Engagement Assignment and follow everyone in the class. Make sure your account is public. If you are new to Twitter or haven’t tweeted in a while, please read D. Silver’s short but important blog post: “The difference between thin and think tweets.”

While reading Baym, Kelly, and Jenkins, please live-tweet questions and thoughtful comments you have about each reading. For comments, you might pull out quotes you found interesting. Or share something that you related to and why. Or describe something that you might not fully agree with. Or just ideas you thought are important. Mention each author in your tweets about their work. Their usernames: @nancybaym, @kevin2kelly, and @henryjenkins.

Tweet THREE times about each reading. Reply to FIVE of your classmates tweets. Include the course hashtag #popf16 in all course-related tweets.

T 9/6: Baym, chapter 1; Kelly (2005); Jenkins (2016) (to be added Friday) ; rheingold-kelly-wesch-baym.pdf
Hand out Semester-long Hashtag Study

Assignment for Thursday, 9/8
Please read through the Semester-long Hashtag Study again and bring with you to class a list of FIVE possible hashtags to study this semester. Tweet me (and include the #popf16 hashtag) with any questions you have about the assignment.

Please read Hudson & Bruckman (2004) and Jenkins (2016). Live-tweet 2 – 3 insightful questions you have about the theoretical and practical points in each of their discussions. Reply to at least 3 of your classmate’s tweets to begin discussion. Your questions will lead discussion on Thursday.

Take a few minutes to watch the TAGS6.1 tutorial I have embedded in the Tutorial page. We’ll be setting one up in class, but if you feel like giving it a go (and you should!!) set it up yourself using any hashtag you want and let us know your successes!

H 9/8: Hudson & Bruckman (2004); Jenkins (2016); set up TAGS6.1 in class
bring list of five possible hashtags to study

week 3: Ethics

Assignment for Tuesday, 9/13
Please read Markham & Buchanan (2012) and the Twitter Developer Policy. Markham and Buchanan are the primary authors of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) working group on research ethics. The article follows-up on many of the issues raised about chat rooms by Hudson & Bruckman. The Twitter Developer Policy is, at it’s most basic, as ethics policy for how people who develop Twitter applications can use the tweets. By setting up archives you are essentially developing a kind of application.

Please live-tweet 2 – 3 questions you have about the issues and ethics raised in the two readings. Reply to at least 3 of your classmate’s tweets to begin discussion.

In class on Tuesday we’re going to talk about the ethical implications of our Twitter use through a series of case studies I’ll have for you. So, come prepared to explore, engage, debate the complexities of the issues surrounding internet research. Your live-tweets will help start you getting in the mind-set.

Have a great weekend!

T 9/13: Markham & Buchanan (2012); Twitter Developer Policy; ethics-scenerios.pdf

Assignment for Thursday, 9/15
In class on Tuesday we discussed the ethical questions academic researchers must ask when deciding how to approach research online users and environments. Prior texts we have discussed, which as Rheingold, Wesch, and to slightly less extent, Kelly, have provided a rather utopian view of online environments and participatory culture.

On Thursday we are going to shift our focus to consider what happens when things get ugly online. Please watch Ronson (2015), which is a TED Talk, and then read Ronson (2015) in that order.

I’d like you to continue the lively discussion we’re having on Twitter by connecting what Ronson writes and discusses to Jenkins, Ito, and boyd’s discussion on participatory culture. You’ve been live-tweeting very well for the last weeks, so you should have an excellent idea of what is expected. I look forward to your discussion.

H 9/15: Ronson (2015); Ronson TED talk; archive difficulty level slide; Sacco viz
Set up collaborative research sites in class on WordPress; students sign up for which day they’ll be attending next week.
Hashtag Study Proposal due by class time (bring digital version to class)
Hand out Benchmark 1 Assignment

week 4: Setting up the Archives

Assignment for Tuesday, 9/20 or Thursday 9/22
Begin working on your research page as outlined in the Benchmark 1 Assignment. Live-tweet as you work on it, as well as when you work on the stages discussed below.

By class time, create a new TAGS6.1 archive specifically for the hashtag you’ll be studying this semester. If it is the same hashtag you used to create the test archive in class, please create a new one anyways so you gain experience setting up TAGS6.1 again. See the Tutorials page for the TAGS6.1 tutorial.

We are about to begin the most complex part of the entire semester: Setting up DMI-TCAT (Digital Methods Initiative – Twitter Capture and Analysis Toolset). Doing so is a precise process that requires extreme attention to specifics, instructions, and details. Part of the set-up will take place outside of class, with the more complex portion taking place in class. There are three stages to this process:

1. Setting up the server space using Amazon’s free servers.
2. Acquiring Twitter Developer Access Keys and Tokens
3. Installing DMI-TCAT using Terminal.

Stages 1 and 2 must be completed at home before you come to class on Tuesday or Thursday.

You can find the instructions to set these up at http://archives.williamwolff.org/dmi-tcat/.

DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO COMPLETE STAGES 1 AND 2.

IF YOU HAVE NOT SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED STAGES 1 AND 2 BY SUNDAY EVENING, BOOK AN APPOINTMENT WITH ME ON MONDAY, 9/19 AT https://billwolff.youcanbook.me/. SIGN UP FOR A 20 MINUTE BLOCK.

This is where the fun of the semester really starts (if you can see archiving as fun :-) so be confident, get ready to step out of your comfort zone, and dig in!

If you own a Mac laptop, please bring it with you to class. Know exactly where on the computer your Key Pair file is stored and where the file holding your Twitter API access keys and passwords are stored. These terms will make sense after you complete Stages 1 and 2 of the installation tutorials. Please try to arrive in class early.

If you do not own a Mac, you will use one of the classroom laptops. Email yourself your Key Pair file and the file holding your Twitter API access keys and passwords. Please arrive to class 10 minutes early so you can get set up with the Mac computer.

T 9/20: set up DMI-TCAT in class (half class attends)
H 9/22: set up DMI-TCAT in class (half class attends)

week 5: Personal Connections

T 9/27: Study web sites and getting caught up; discuss hashtag community spaces
Benchmark 1 due on collaborative site
Hand out Benchmark 2 Assignment
H 9/29: Baym, chapter 2; boyd & Ellison (2007)

week 6: Personal Connections

T 10/4: Baym chapters 3 and 4 (2014); Nardi and O’Day (1999)
H 10/6: Baym, chapter 5; boyd, Golder, Lotan (2010); Daer, Hoffman, Goodman (2014) Benchmark 2 due on collaborative site

week 7: Open Coding Begins

T 10/11: No Class, Fall Break

Assignment for Thursday, 10/13
Please read Wolff (2015), which is a somewhat lengthy web text. Tweet at least 5 questions you have about the whole article and reply to at least 5 of your classmates’ questions. The questions can be about understanding what is being discussed, about the conclusions, about the data analysis, etc.

I’m getting the feeling that some are not reading the readings carefully enough. Please make sure you are reading all the articles thoroughly.

Come to class with 10 of your archived tweets in an Excel file. We will start to look at them according to Grounded Theory methods.

Fixing the TAGS 6.1 Visualization
1. Open your TAGS 6.1 archive with the Read Me/Settings tab open
2. Click on the blue share button in the upper right
3. A pop-up window will appear. Click on Advanced.
4. Next to “Private – Only you can access” click the word Change in blue.
5. Select the option for “Anyone with a link.” Then click Save.
6. You should now be able to view both the TAGSExplorer Visualization and the Searchable Archive:

H 10/13: Wolff (2015) and Open Coding; tweeting-questions-about-baby-we-were-born-to-tweet.pdf
Tweets must be archived by today

week 8: Open Coding Continues

T 10/18: Grounded Theory and Open Coding
Hand out Benchmark 3 Assignment

Assignment for Conferences During Week 9
Please complete the Open Coding portion of the Benchmark 3 Assignment, which includes coding 200 tweets.

I will be emailing you an invite to a Dropbox folder. Please upload your coded spreadsheet to the folder using the following naming convention:

yourlastname-popf13-open-coding.xlsx

I will also be emailing you the conference sign-up sheet. Please sign up for a slot as soon as you get the email. I will be meeting with 42 students next week, so finding alternate times will be difficult.

H 10/20: Class canceled so you can work on your coding.

week 9: Conferences and Coding (updated)

T 10/25: Class Canceled for Conferences
H 10/27: Class Canceled for Conferences

week 10: Coding and Analyzing Data

T 11/1: Axial Coding

Assignment for Thursday, 11/3
In class we starting talking about Axial Coding and generating a list of practices informed by our readings. I’d like you to continue that work and build on in by completing the following:

1. Continue to build your list of practices based on the readings. When you have 8 – 10 practices, tweet a photo of it.
2. Choose the Open Coding category or categories you’d like to focus on in Axial Coding. There should be approximately 100 tweets total.
3. Copy those tweets and usernames from the Open Coding tab to the Axial Coding tab.
4. Axial Code 10 tweets in the same way we did in class.Please upload your coded spreadsheet to the folder using the following naming convention:yourlastname-popf13-open-coding.xlsx or .ods

We’ll talk about all this in class on Thursday.

H 11/3: Selective More Axial Coding

week 11: Network Visualizations

T 11/8: Selective Coding
Benchmark 3 due on collaborative site
H 11/10: Class Canceled; Bill in Chicago at a Conference
Hand out Network Visualizations Assignment

week 12: Network Visualizations

T 11/15: Selective Coding and Benchmark 3
Benchmark 3 due on collaborative site by 11:00pm

Assignment for Thursday, November 7
On Thursday we will begin our discussion of network visualizations. We’re not going to get too far into the woods on the visuals. Rather, we are going to learn the basics of how to make them and how to interpret them so you can get a feel for the possibilities such work affords. You may find you’re really interested and want to take future classes on it. Or, you may not. Either way, we’ll be making some very cool network visualizations of our hashtags and will write about them a bit. Please complete the following by Thursday:

1. If you have yet to do so already, please STOP archiving in DMI-TCAT. You can do that by going to the Capture page. To the right of the archive you have created, click STOP. DO NOT CLICK DELETE. We’re just stopping the archiving process.
2. Download and install Gephi, which is the open source software we’ll be using to create network visualizations. DMI-TCAT exports data in formats that Gephi can read, which is why we are using it. It’s also fairly easy to just jump into.

Please also watch these two videos. When watching, tweet questions and thoughts you have about network visualizations. In class we’ll go over examples of networks so we can become proficient in the terminology used to discuss them. Please watch them in the order listed. The first video contains important network terminology and the second goes into further detail about networks. In the second video, Jen Golbeck gives a thoughtful and extended discussion of information visualization. I encourage you to watch it, but if you don’t want to, you can skip ahead to 10:07 and watch until the end. Please live-tweet your watching experiences. The video is from an online course she ran, so you’ll hear references to that throughout; ignore those.

H 11/17: Networks Videos; network-mapping-handout.pdf
Hand out Final Graphics Assignment

week 13: Class and Holiday

Assignment for Tuesday, November 22
Please watch the following tutorial, which takes you from DMI-TCAT to Gephi to create a map of mentions.

After watching the video, create and export two network maps: an In-Degree Network and an Out-Degree Network. The tutorial takes you through the process.

After creating your maps, tweet them and share a few things that are interesting to you about them. If you have any questions, let me know. Looking forward to seeing what your #hashtags archives look like visually!

If you have trouble at first, don’t get frustrated. It took me many tries to get comfortable with it. Just re-watch the part of the tutorial that you need to and go from there.

NOTE 1: Do not use Safari when accessing DMI-TCAT. It downloads a .txt file, which is not the correct file format. Use Chrome or Firefox instead.

NOTE 2: At around the 12:20 mark, I discuss a Partition tab. The newest version doesn’t have that tab. It has an Attribute tab. Use the Attribute tab and you’ll find the Modularity Class option. Sorry for any confusion.

T 11/22: Class Will Meet Class Canceled for Conferences (M, T)
Hand out Network Visualizations Assignment
H 11/24: No Class, Thanksgiving

week 14: Conferences & Final Graphics

T 11/29: Class Canceled for Conferences (T, W)
H 12/1: Canva and Moovly
Hand out Data Graphics Assignment

week 15: Final Thoughts

T 12/6: Course evals; Reflecting on the semester
Network Visualizations and Analysis due on collaborative site
H 12/8: Graphics draft due

Monday, 12/12 Tues 12/13: Data Graphics and reflections due on Study Page by 11:00pm