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The Network Nation and Beyond

A Festschrift in Honor of Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff

Presentation Abstracts

Friday 10 a.m. - Keynote Address:

Tribute to Roxanne Hiltz & Murray Turoff: Pioneers in Science 2.0

- Ben Shneiderman (http://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben/)

The careers of Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff are marked by visionary thinking about communications technologies, innovative work to create them, and rigorous evaluation to understand the determinants of success.

Their work advanced the state and study of socio-technical systems that I predict will become the dominant topic for the next generation of science.  Traditional sciences of the natural world (let’s call them Science 1.0) have brought astonishing advances during the past 400 years. Science 1.0 will continue to be important, but many modern interdisciplinary problems such as emergency/ disaster response, environmental protection, healthcare delivery, energy sustainability, and international development are resistant to traditional reductionist thinking. 

Science 2.0 focuses on the human-designed or made world in which the dynamics of trust, privacy, responsibility, and empathy are the determinants of success.  Science 2.0 is in harmony with technology-centered progressive efforts on web science, creativity support tools, socially networked communities, online learning, universal usability, etc.  Advancing Science 2.0 will require a shift in priorities to promote intense collaboration, integrative thinking, teamwork-based education/training, and case study ethnographic research methods.  Science 2.0 will reduce the gulf between basic and applied research, while bringing theory and practice closer together. This talk reviews Hiltz & Turoff’s contributions and lays out an ambitious vision that will impact research funding, educational practices, and democratic principles.

Friday 2 p.m. - Keynote Panel: Roxanne Hiltz’ Influence on Future Research 

Panelists: Jack Carroll, Linda Harasim, Jennifer Preece, Karen Swan

Jack Carroll:

John M. Carroll is the Edward M. Frymoyer Chair Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State University.  Jack was one of the founders of human-computer interaction.  He served on the program committee of the 1982 Bureau of Standards Conference on the Human Factors of Computing Systems that in effect inaugurated the field, and was the direct predecessor of the field's flagship conference series, the ACM CHI (“Kai”) Conferences.  He states that he became increasingly aware of Roxanne and Murray as the field of HCI expanded without precedent to eventually reach where Roxanne and Murray already were.

Linda Harasim:

Linda Harasim is a Professor in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, and Network Leader & CEO of Canada's TeleLearning Network of Centres of Excellence.  She first met Roxanne and Murray in person at the 1987 Guelph, Canada Conference on Computer-Mediated Communications. But she had known of them long before, and was both thrilled and terrified at the idea of approaching them in person. She will recount her experiences as she hitched her wagon to this Starr, and of how their friendship and intellectual relationship has blossomed over the past 30 years.

Jennifer Preece:

Dr. Jenny Preece is Professor and Dean of Information Studies at the University of Maryland. Dr Preece's teaching and research interests include: online communities of interest, communities of practice, social computing and human-computer interaction.  Dr. Preece is author of over two hundred articles that include refereed journal and conference proceedings and eight books. Her two most recent books are: "Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability" (2000) and a co-authored text entitled "Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction" (1st Ed. 2002; 2nd Ed. 2007). Both books are published by John Wiley & Sons and are noted as leading texts in their fields. In 2005 Dr. Preece chaired the first International Conference on Online Communities and Social Computing as part of HCII, and in 2006 she was technical program co-chair for Communities and Technology and the CHI Education Community track. Dr. Preece is a regular conference keynote speaker about online communities and social computing.

Karen Swan:

We all know that Roxanne and Murray have profoundly changed higher education by developing the tools and techniques for implementing the “Virtual Classroom” a decade before any of the rest of us realized its potential.  But I wonder if we really “get” how profoundly Roxanne has influenced the course online teaching and learning has taken therein.  Consider the ways in which online learning is conceived in the corporate world or in K-12 education, where, for the most part, learning is still seen as a personal, private activity, not radically different from the old CAI models.  Because Roxanne is a sociologist, she immediately realized the potential computer-mediated communication holds for social interaction.  Because Roxanne is our “pioneer,” we have developed an online education community that values the social construction of knowledge. And that, as they say, made all the difference. 

Karen Swan is a research professor in the Research Center for Educational Technology at Kent State University.  She has been involved in online learning for over a decade, which she says is not half as long as Roxanne and Murray. Roxanne has been a major influence, role model, collaborator, friend for almost that whole time.

Friday 4 p.m. - Session: Interaction in Virtual Teams

Impacts of Electronic Self-portrayal on Newly Formed Virtual Teams

- Shoshana Altschuller (Baruch College, http://cisnet.baruch.cuny.edu/phd/altschuller/)

- Raquel Benbunan-Fich (Baruch College, http://cisnet.baruch.cuny.edu/fich/)

The extent to which a computer-mediated communication system can portray the true identity of its users – Electronic Self-Portrayal (ESP) – is crucial to the ability for trust to develop in newly formed virtual teams, where members do not have prior knowledge of each other. ESP is conceptualized in two dimensions: how the system portrays who the members are (personal representation) and the way they formulate their messages (messaging-based representation). This paper reports the results of a 2x2 factorial experiment crossing the graphical identification of team members (photos vs. avatars) with  the ability to edit messages before submitting them (high vs. low rehearsability) afforded by a chat system. Our findings indicate that the combination of both factors – identification and rehearsability – affects trust among team members.  Partial electronic self-portrayal modes, with one form of true representation in one factor but not in the other (photo with high rehearsability or avatar with low rehearsability), have a positive impact on trust. Other combinations provide minimum and maximum self-portrayal and are not as conducive to trust.  These findings have significant theoretical and practical implications for understanding the importance of electronic self-portrayal in newly formed teams. In addition, this research is the first to empirically test the effects of different levels of rehearsability within synchronous group communication.

Leadership Roles and Issues in Partially Distributed Teams

- Linda Plotnick (New Jersey Institute of Technology)

- Rosalie J. Ocker (Pennsylvania State University)

- Starr Roxanne Hiltz (New Jersey Institute of Technology, http://web.njit.edu/~hiltz/)

- Mary Beth Rosson (Penn State University, http://faculty.ist.psu.edu/rosson/)

Leadership in virtual teams presents unique challenges that are not present in traditional teams.  The leader must develop presence through electronic media rather than face-to-face as she or he would in a traditional team.  Partially distributed teams have additional challenges as some subgroups may have a leader physically present while others only interact with the leader through electronic communication.  Partially distributed teams can have various leadership configurations, such as a single overall team leader with no subgroup leaders, subgroup leaders with no overall leadership, a combination of subgroup and team leaders, or be self-managed (no explicitly designated leader).  One approach to understanding leadership is to look at the roles enacted by the leaders.  This paper discusses the special challenges of partially distributed team leadership and leadership roles through discussions of relevant literature and a pilot study undertaken to study leadership configuration in partially distributed teams.

Friday 5 p.m. - Session: Empirical Studies in Virtual Teams

Creativity in Asynchronous Virtual Teams:  Putting the Pieces Together

- Rosalie J. Ocker (Pennsylvania State University, rocker@ist.psu.edu)

Three related experiments, involving nearly 100 teams and 400 graduate students, found that virtual teams communicating strictly asynchronously produced significantly more creative results than did teams that engaged in some amount of synchronous communication (i.e., face-to-face or synchronous electronic communication).  Four studies were conducted to explore creativity in the asynchronous virtual teams -- each from a different aspect.  Study one investigated individual team member personality, study two investigated team composition, while studies three and four investigated facets of team interaction.  This presentation presents key findings from each study and synthesizes results across studies.  The analysis highlights the importance of team members, in terms of personality, as well as the composition of individuals into teams, in influencing team interaction and the resulting level of team creativity.

Communication Differences in Virtual Design Teams: Findings from a Multi-Method Analysis of High and Low Performing Experimental Teams

- Jerry Fjermestad (New Jersey Institute of Technology, fjermestad@adm.njit.edu)

- Rosalie J. Ocker (Pennsylvania State University, rocker@ist.psu.edu)

This multi-method study distinguishes between four high performing and four low performing fully distributed virtual design teams, through an analysis of their asynchronous communication.  Results indicate that these teams were similar in terms of the number of messages exchanged, the amount of communication devoted to aspects of design, and the amount and proportion of communication spent on team coordination, supportive commentary, and “other” topics.  However, high performing teams were more verbose-they communicated more words. They also spent less time in brainstorming activities.  Rather, high performing teams engaged in more critical commentary and active debate, compared to low performing teams.  High performing teams conducted more in-depth discussions in the form of argumentation, as ideas were developed through an interactive debate of the pros and cons of issues.  This debate resulted in the need for summaries, which served a dual role as they became intermediate steps in the process of writing the report deliverable.

Keywords:  Virtual teams, computer-mediated communication, software requirements analysis, software design, distributed software development, creativity, innovation

Saturday 10 a.m. - Keynote Panel: Murray Turoff’s Influence on Future Research

Panelists: Mary Beth Rosson, Edward A. Stohr, Bartel Van de Walle

Mary Beth Rosson:

Mary Beth Rosson is professor of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) at Pennsylvania State University, where she is co-director of the Computer-Supported Collaboration and Learning Lab. She received a Ph.D. in experimental psychology in 1982 from the University of Texas. Before coming to Penn State in 2003, she was a professor of computer science at Virginia Tech for 10 years, and prior to this a research staff member at IBM’s T. J. Watson Research Center for 11 years. Rosson’s research interests include the design and evaluation of interactive systems, particularly scenario-based design. She has worked for many years on the design and evaluation of collaborative systems for problem solving and learning. She also has directed projects investigating the psychological issues associated with high-level programming languages and tools, most recently in the area of informal programming by end users. Rosson is author of Usability Engineering: Scenario-Based Development of Human-Computer Interaction (Morgan Kaufmann, 2002), and numerous articles, book chapters, and tutorials. She is very active in both the HCI and the software engineering research communities, serving as general chair for OOPSLA 2000 and for SIGCHI 2007.

Edward A. Stohr:

The presentation will provide a short overview of the pioneering contributions of Murray and Roxanne from a broad historic perspective. This will be followed by some speculation about future educational directions in the information systems field. In particular, the speculation will concern two key questions for the field - What will we need to teach our students in the next decade? and What broad skill sets will they require to succeed in the next decade or so? 

Edward A. Stohr is Director of the Center for Technology Management Research at the Howe School of Technology Management, Stevens Institute of Technology.  Until recently, he was Associate Dean for Research and Academics in the Howe School.  Prior to joining Stevens in 2001, Ted was a faculty member at NYU’s Stern School of Business for over 20 years. While at NYU, he served as Chair of the Department of Information Systems for 11 years and as Director of Stern’s Center for Research on Information Systems for five years. His research focuses on the problems of developing computer systems to support work and decision making in organizations. In 1991, he was general chair of the International Conference on Information Systems. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Information Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Bartel Van De Walle:

Dr. Bartel Van de Walle is Associate Professor at Tilburg University (the Netherlands) and visiting Research Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (USA). He received his MSc and his PhD in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Ghent University (Belgium).

His dissertation research was on preference modeling and multi-criteria decision analysis, two areas which are still at the basis of his current research on information systems for crisis management and response (ISCRAM), for which he has been awarded a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship.

Bartel has founded the international ISCRAM Community (http://www.iscram.org), which currently has over 1300 registered users, and has organized sessions, tracks, international workshops and conferences and a PhD Summer School in this area in Europe, the US and China. The ISCRAM2007 annual conference has been awarded the status of AIS Affiliated Conference by the AIS (Association for Information Systems), the premier global organization for academics specializing in Information Systems. 

Bartel is serving on the board of the Journal of Information Technology Theory and Applications (JITTA) as a senior editor and is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and the newly established International Journal of Service Sciences. He has published more than 70 papers in proceedings of international conferences and journals, and has served as an expert reviewer or consultant for the American and Dutch National Science Foundation, the European Commission, the United Nations (International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), and the World Health Organization.

Saturday 11:15 a.m. - Session: Cross-Impact Analysis

Scenario Construction via Cross Impact

- Victor A. Bañuls Silvera (Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Spain, http://webdee.upo.es/vabansil)

In this work a step-by-step model for building scenarios is proposed. The model is based on Interpretive Structural Modeling and is an extension of the original Turoff’s Cross-Impact approach (Turoff, 1972). Based on the example showed in Turoff (1972) it is exemplified how scenarios can be obtained by the application of Interpretive Structural Modeling. The authors’ proposal allows researchers and practitioners to: (1) handle complex systems; (2) obtain a set of plausible snapshots of the future; (3) analyze interaction between events; (4) detect critical events. Operational issues and practical applications are also discussed.

Keywords: Cross-Impact Method (CIM), Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM), Scenarios, Complex Systems.

Turoff, M. (1972). An Alternative Approach to Cross Impact Analysis, Technological Forecasting and Social Change 3, 309-339.

The Hacking Game: Cross-Impact Analysis Tool

- Art Hendela (New Jersey Institute of Technology, http://web.njit.edu/~ahh2/)

Protection of intellectual property (IP) in corporate computer networks is vital for the survival of the firm.  Losing corporate secrets to insiders, terrorists, or competitive espionage can result in the loss of market share, jobs, or prestige.  Finite budgets need to be allocated in such a way as to maximize protection of IP.  The Hacking Game is a mathematical model using Cross Impact Analysis to aid the planning of resource allocation to protect these networks in an efficient manner. The Hacking Game uses teams of offense and defense experts to help determine the relative probabilities of events and their interactions. The game can be extended to non-network environments that feature an offense/defense structure.  Two such environments include protecting chemical plants from terrorist attacks and launching new business products against competitors.

Saturday Lunch Keynote Address:

Networks Within and Across Media

- Ronald E. Rice (http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/rice_flash.htm)

Research done in collaboration with:

- Hyo Kim (Media Division, CIT Ajou University, South Korea, hkimscil@commres.org, hkimscil@ajou.ac.kr)

- Gwang Jae Kim (Sogang University, South Korea, majesty2@gmail.com)

- Han Woo Park (YeungNam University, South Korea, hanpark@ynu.ac.kr)

This study aims at exploring, describing, and comparing the configurations of social relationships in people’s everyday communication settings through five different media: face-to-face, email, instant messaging, mobile phone, and small message service. Through a web survey designed to attract participants throughout Korea and across a variety of occupations, we asked respondents to identify (1) for each medium (2) up to five of their most frequent communication partners, (3) the type of the relationship (work colleagues, family, friends, etc.), and (4) their own occupation. Social network analysis was employed to describe and explain the configurations of social relations overall, and for different occupational roles and with different types of social relations across and through each of these media. While there are some precedents for the methods used here, we used a novel approach to identifying configurations of social relations across media, occupations and type of relations. Briefly, mobile communication media tend to be used in reinforcing strong social ties, while computer-mediated text-based media tend to be used in expanding relationships with weak ties. These results are discussed within the socio-cultural context of South Korea, and social-networking patterns expressed in the increasingly mobile generation.

Ronald E. Rice (Ph.D. in Communication Research, Stanford University; B.A. in English Literature, Columbia University) is Arthur N. Rupe Chair in the Social Effects of Mass Communication in the Department of Communication, and Co-Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media, at University of California, Santa Barbara. He has co-authored or co-edited Media Ownership: Research and Regulation (2007); The Internet and Health Care: Theory, Research and Practice (2006); Social Consequences of Internet Use: Access, Involvement and Interaction (2002); The Internet and Health Communication (2001); Accessing and Browsing Information and Communication (2001); Public Communication Campaigns (1st ed: 1981; 2nd ed: 1989; 3rd ed: 2001); Research Methods and the New Media (1988); Managing Organizational Innovation (1987); and The New Media: Communication, Research and Technology (1984).

He has conducted research and published widely in communication science, public communication campaigns, computer-mediated communication systems, methodology, organizational and management theory, information systems, information science and bibliometrics, social uses and effects of the Internet, and social networks.  His publications have won awards as best dissertation from the American Society for Information Science and Technology, half a dozen times as best paper from International Communication Association divisions, and twice as best paper from Academy of Management divisions.  Dr. Rice has been elected divisional officer in both the International Communication Association and the Academy of Management, elected President of the ICA (2006-2007), awarded a Fulbright Award to Finland (2006), appointed as Wee Kim Wee Professor of the School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (2007), and has served as Associate Editor for Human Communication Research, and for MIS Quarterly.  He is on the editorial board of Asian Journal of Communication, Communication Monographs, Communication Studies Journal, Communication Theory, Human Communication Research, the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, the Journal of Communication, the online Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Journal of Health Communication, Journal of Management Information Systems, and New Media and Society.

See http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/rice_flash.htm and http://www.cftnm.ucsb.edu for more details.

Saturday 2 p.m. - Session: Coordination and Decision Making

SMS Text-Message Triage in the Command and Control Center: An Assessment for Role-Based Agents

- Elizabeth Avery Gomez (City University of New York, eaverygomez4@gmail.com)

The continuous shift to low-cost mobile devices for communication at a distance mirrors the Human Communication via Computer discussed in The Network Nation (1978). Not only are individuals around the world able to connect through computer-mediated communication, they are now able to do so "anytime" and "anywhere". SMS text-messaging, known to be highly reliable, offers promise as one interoperable communication exchange vehicle for crisis response spanning both the stationary computer and mobile device. This research discusses options for SMS text-message triage by role-based agents to help coordinators at the command and control center respond to field needs more timely and efficiently. Findings from a Spring 2007 field study are leveraged for discussion to answer: Can plain language training, adapted for SMS text-messaging improve message content, increasing options for message triage from the field responder to the command and control coordinator?

The Dynamic Delphi System

- Connie White (New Jersey Institute of Technology, connie.m.white@gmail.com)

- Murray Turoff (New Jersey Institute of Technology, http://web.njit.edu/~turoff/)

A dynamic approach implementing a Delphi system is developed.   We identify how this method is different from past Delphi methodologies exploring their limitations and proposing alternative solutions. This approach is catered more towards decision making where large groups of experts are involved with a dilemma that is quickly evolving and where time is of the essence where decisions must be made as promptly and accurately as possible.   As the situation advances and the environment changes, knowledgeable solutions can be offered to maximize the greatest potential for the best outcome given a sequence of events for the overall problem.   There are no rounds per say as the interactions are asynchronous and changes are reflected by the fine-tuning from expert views in real time.  A dynamic group decision is calculated utilizing visualization as feedback of group results from the individual contributions as they are changed based upon new inputs and the discussions of those differences.    We will show how this approach is a superior method for handling complex problems utilizing the collective intelligence of large numbers of heterogeneous experts engaged in a collaborative effort.  The overall goal, as expressed by Hiltz and Turoff, is the one of obtaining true collaborative intelligence by large groups where the final solution is better than any one of the members of the group would have made alone.

Why the Hypes were Fads - High Reliability Theory as an Explanation: Dances with the Organization

- Gerd Van Den Eede (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, Gerd.VanDenEede@econ.kuleuven.be)

- Bartel Van De Walle (University of Tilburg, Netherlands, http://www.uvt.nl/webwijs2/show/?uid=b.a.vandewalle)

When people ask what makes an organization to a success, one can witness a number of answers. Some answers refer to the charisma and vision of leadership and employees, other to more structural qualities of an organization. But however diverse these answers might be, there almost always is the same undertone that an organization ‘does what it does because of plans, intentional selection of means that get the organization to agree upon goals, and all of this is accomplished by such rationalized procedures as cost-benefit analyses, division of labor, specified areas of discretion, authority invested in the office, job descriptions, and a consistent evaluation and reward system’ (Weick 1976, p. 1) The thing is, however, that often reality is not the way people say it is. And even though deep-down, people know that this generalized idea is a fiction that is ‘rare in nature” (Weick 1976, p. 1), it is remarkable how these rationalizing hypotheses flourish in science as well as in practice.

In this paper we will try to find out why themes that have dominated organization theory literature and practice over the last decades did not – or only in part – fulfill their promises. We want to point out that in time most management practices create their own nemesis and that every practice contains the seeds of its own destruction (Clegg, da Cunha, and Cunha 2002, p. 491). We will deduct why this is the case by relying on insights from High Reliability Theory (e.g. Rochlin, La Porte, and Roberts 1987) and by extension on constructs from Loose Coupling Theory (Orton and Weick 1990), Sensemaking Theory (Weick 1995) and Practical Drift (Snook 2002).

We will focus on the Matrix Organization (seventies), Management by Objectives, Self-steering teams, Total Quality Management (eighties), Business Process Re-engineering and Knowledge Management (nineties) but the list could undoubtedly be enhanced with other management practices as well.

Rationale of this paper

It is hard to tell exactly at how many occasions Murray has challenged our thoughts, but it must be somewhere between continuously and perpetually. Murray usually does this with very little words, sometimes speaking in riddles, always leaving us with a strong feeling that he wanted us to see something. But as Murray is not the kind of person that wants people to just copy his ideas, he wants us to take his thoughts to our own frames of reference. He is always curious in seeing how his insights can be elaborated by relying on interesting constructs. Probably this is one of the reasons why he so generously shares his ideas with the research community.

It is at one of these sharing occasions that Murray challenged us by asking why we didn’t take High Reliability Theory (HRT) – and some of the other constructs we use in our own work – to explain why a lot of the management hypes the world has witnessed over the last couple of decades were fads. Murray suggested we should for instance look into matrix organizations, but suggested other hypes would be interesting to look into as well. We believe this Festschrift is an excellent occasion to enhance our own thinking with Murray’s, as a way of thanking him for his inspiration and guidance.

Clegg, Stewart R., Joao V. da Cunha, and Miguel P. Cunha (2002), "Management paradoxes: A relational view," Human Relations, 55(5), 483-503.

Orton, J. D. and Karl E. Weick (1990), "Loosely Coupled Systems: A Reconceptualization," Academy of Management Review, 15(2), 203-23.

Rochlin, Gene I., Todd R. La Porte, and Karlene H. Roberts (1987), "The Self-Designing High-Reliability Organization," Naval War College Review, 76-90.

Snook, Scott A. (2002), Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of US Black Hawks over Northern Iraq. Princeton-Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Weick, Karl E. (1976), "Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems," Administrative Science Quarterly, 21 1-19.

Weick, Karl E. (1995), Sensemaking in Organizations. Thoasand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Saturday 4 p.m. - Session: Education and Healthcare Applications

The Use of the Tablet PC to Support Collaborative Learning

- Donald George (Ocean County College, dtg7329@njit.edu)

This paper presents a literature review examining computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) and how the Tablet PC (TPC) may be used to enhance CSCL processes. Examined are educational learning models and how information technology (IT) may be leveraged to support various learning models, with the collaborative learning model in particular being the focus. Noteworthy applications of the TPC to date in education and instruction are examined. The role and importance of the concept of “grounding” in CSCL practices is examined and in particular how the TPC may enhance the grounding process when compared with other commonly used approaches to CSCL. Based on constructs examined in the literature, a model describing the use of the TPC to support collaborative learning is elaborated. The model is based in part on the technology acceptance model (TAM). The constructs in this model include: grounding, enhanced communication, self efficacy, collective efficacy, motivation, enjoyment, perceived learning outcomes, time management, and lastly the three constructs which are the foundation of TAM: ease of use, usefulness and intention to use.

Developing Successful Service-Learning Opportunities for Students of Information Technology

- Donna Dufner (University of Nebraska at Omaha, http://www.isqa.unomaha.edu/dufner/)

Service-Learning courses for students enrolled in Schools of Information Technology (IT), Management Information Systems (MIS), Computer Science (CS), etc. have been the last to be developed. The learning component of the course must be appropriate for the students' educational objectives as well as the requirements of the program. Providing a community service experience for students is only the beginning of a well developed Service-Learning course for students in the technical fields of computing and related disciplines. Developing and delivering successful IT, MIS or CS Service-Learning courses are faced with a multitude of challenges. Educators are expected to offer students a meaningful and appropriate educational experience. Identifying projects that are small enough to be completed in one semester and yet are meaningful to both the students and the client is a challenge. Educators may also be required to provide a meaningful educational experience for non-technical students who want to enroll in a Service-Learning course where the learning component is “technical”. Methods for engaging the Ipod generation in community work and service; while at the same time teaching important course skills will be presented. The integration of student teams comprised of “technical” students e.g., computer science majors and “non-technical” students such as education majors into a Service-Learning course will also be presented and discussed.  Outcomes and lessons learned will be presented for, “Teaching Computer Basics at the Douglas County Department of Corrections − otherwise known as the Jail”, A Service-Learning course offered to students at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) where “techies and “Non-techies” worked together to create a successful learning experience for inmates.

Health-Care Information Systems Development: Lessons Learned

- Gururajan Rao (Quantum Enterprises, Inc., grao@quantument.com)

Enterprise-wide, health-care systems design and development for areas such as Regulatory New Drug Application (NDA) submissions, Clinical Trials Management, Diagnostic Imaging, Hospital Information Management, Drug Manufacturing, Drug Packaging and Labeling and Laboratory Information Management requires a good integrated approach. The tendency in most health-care institutional divisions is not to let control of their systems in the design and implementation phases. This approach makes it less accessible, visible and hinders integration with other enterprise-wide systems. This results in serious last-minute overruns, project delays and avoidable last minute information integration and data validation problems. Integration issues related to submission of NDAs are being addressed by the FDA with new initiatives such as the eCTD (Electronic Common Technical Document). Apart from such FDA initiatives, there are several ways the health-care industry can adopt to develop an integrated approach to health-care systems design and development. These include development of an enterprise-wide architecture for health-care enterprises, a common meta-data and taxonomy approach for enterprise systems, LDAP synchronized security, common security templates, etc. These methods can minimize resulting data integration issues and enterprise data and document tracking problems. This talk demonstrates design examples associated with some of the methods mentioned above such as the common, enterprise-wide metadata and taxonomy management approach.

Saturday 5:30 p.m. - Session: Network Nation Reflections

Web 0.1 = Web 3.0?  Back to the Future in the Network Nation

- James Whitescarver (jimscarver@gmail.com)

- Ananthan Subaru (ananthan2@gmail.com)

- Ken Schreihofer (New Jersey Institute of Technology, kensch@njit.edu)

- Thomas Moulton (tom@molton.us)

- Samir Chopra (schopra.philo@gmail.com)

- Bhamidipati, Rao (rao@springventures.com)

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it...", George Santayana, ("Reason in Common Sense") Santayana's oft-quoted words warn us of the folly of failing to learn from past mistakes. But perhaps equally pernicious consequences await us if we ignore the successes of the past.

In two decades of intense innovation in the 1970s-80s, Electronic Frontier Foundation pioneer Dr. Murray Turoff and social scientist Dr. Starr Roxanne Hiltz pioneered a dazzling array of achievements in the field of Computer Mediated Communication at the Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, using as their platforms, the production systems EIES, EIES 2, and TEIES. While some of these concepts were carried over into the advent of the public internet ("Web 1.0") or were expressed in the recent popularization of social networking and collaborative systems ("Web 2.0"); many functions of the EIES series of systems have yet to come into mainstream use. Given current technological and social trends such concepts may very well compose the next generation of networking systems, or "Web 3.0". In this paper, we highlight not just their singular achievements, but also lay down a roadmap for the possible evolution and development of Web 3.0 and the continuing information revolution in the Network Nation.

MySpace, Facebook and YouTube: 21st Century Electronic Democracy in Action

- Catherine Dwyer (Pace University, http://csis.pace.edu/~dwyer)

In The Network Nation, Hiltz and Turoff predict the development of an electronic democracy. The prominent role of social software sites such as YouTube, MySpace and Facebook in the upcoming 2008 United States presidential election is a realization of that prediction. Each major candidate, both democratic and republican, has a profile on each of these sites (in addition to their own campaign blogs and web sites). Using data available from the blog techpresident.com, an analysis of the use of social software by presidential candidates is presented. The popularity of candidates on social networking sites can be tracked, along with the number of users viewing their videos on YouTube. The relevance of this data is illustrated with a comparison of the impact of specific events on a candidate's popularity, such as a presidential debate. The paper concludes with a discussion of the costs and benefits the result from the role of social software in the political process.