Time Schedule:
George Mobus
TCSS 466
Tacoma Campus
Examines the uses of computer and communications technologies, including application implementations, for supporting human-to-human communications in both personal and social contexts. Includes topics from sociological and psychological aspects needed to design effective systems. Prerequisite: TCSS 325; TCSS 360.
Class description
The field of Computer-Mediated Communications (CMC) provides a unique perspective on the interface between the technologies of distributed computing and communications networks, and human-machine/human-human interactions. This area provides model understanding of these complex interactions in light of an important social enterprise -- discourse. It brings together, under one topic, diverse aspects of computing and software systems, telecommunications, and psycho-sociological factors that let us look at a paradigm case of how human to human communications can be facilitated, in the best cases, or disturbed, in the worst.
This course lays out the major areas of the field and provides an understanding and appreciation for the interrelationships between them. It further develops the CSS student's knowledge of information architectures, software designs, human-computer interactions (HCI) and the social and cultural implications of global scale CMC.
Student learning goals
Factual Knowledge: Technical details regarding the Internet, telecommunications and networking (in general), protocols and integration with applications. Exposure to specific studies of usage patterns of several different CMC systems. An introductory level look at aspects of sociology and psychology of on-line interactions, circumstances under which it appears that people are either productive in achieving goals of discourse, or fail to achieve those goals, and what aspects of the structure of the CMC system might have contributed to those results.
Conceptual Knowledge: Relationships between the architectural features, functions and HCI elements of various CMC systems and the user experience/success or failure in achieving the desired communications. Case studies from mail lists, threaded discussions, and eDelphi will be used to illustrate usage patterns and results.
Integration: The social context of uses of CMC to achieve human goals will be studied through case studies of standards setting bodies (World Wide Web Consortium - W3C) and community governance. Using the relationships explored above, we will develop hypotheses about the overall effectiveness of CMC in helping communities of interested parties achieve broader goals of social importance.
Analytical: From the hypotheses above, we will develop sets of questions about the effectiveness and how to better test it in one or more CMC application area. We will identify what works and what seems not to work in producing the desired results from the CMC application. We will attempt to develop plans for discovering better methods when we find areas that need improvement.
Synthesis: The project will be used for students to bring together their understandings in order to produce a Wiki-based CMC application with a socially important purpose.
General method of instruction
Text readings, lectures, research project, and hands-on programming project.
Recommended preparation
Students will need several established competencies to succeed in this course. Primary among them is strong design and programming ability. But equally important will be the ability to learn new languages on-the-fly. This course will strengthen the students' capacity for life-long learning by challenging them to learn new programming languages without explicit instruction.
Class assignments and grading
Grading will be based on the following components:
* Midterm exam - 20% * Final exam - 25% * Project - 30% * Research Paper - 15% * Quizzes - 10%
See above.
