Social Networks for Design and Analysis: Using Network Information in CSCW

Workshop Description

The CSCW community has a tradition of adopting social and analytical theories to understand groups and group processes as well as when designing new systems to support and augment cooperative work. Social networks have a long tradition in sociology and cultural anthropology, but are only beginning to break into the CSCW mainstream. The key notion from network analysis, that the interconnections between people can be used to understand and improve their interactions, is one that has direct implications for CSCW research. Network models have clear implications for research into communication systems, teamwork, and knowledge management.

Social networks are being used in several different ways:

• "Social Network Analysis" – Which is the more traditional, formal, techniques of mathematical sociology and anthropology that are used to analyze a population.
• "Social networks" – The general connections that people have with each other. Examples include explicitly articulated social networks in Friendster, Orkut, or LinkedIn, which use the language and concepts of social networks.
• Social network techniques in CSCW design – These techniques can vary from contact management, to recommendation techniques, to ways of understanding how an organization is adopting and using a new technology.

While we are particularly interested in this third stream of research, we are generally interested in understanding the broad range of social network research within CSCW. We are interested in exploring tools that both use social networks as a source of information, and that support end-user interactions with social networks.

This full-day workshop seeks participation from social scientists and system designers to address the ways in which social networks can be adapted for use in analyzing cooperation and as a framework for considering new system designs. The workshop will consider four specific topics:

• Measurement - How are social networks being collected and measured (automatically, manually, quantitatively, qualitatively)? What do these networks actually represent? How are the networks validated? Are the measurements implicit or explicit?
• Tools - What is the state-of-the-art for analyzing, visualizing and representing social networks? In what context are these tools useful and how can the tools be adapted to specific CSCW situations?
• Application - Systems are embedding social networks into the fabric of system design. How can system designers distill the complexities of networks into user-oriented displays? How are social networks supported by the system, software, or architecture?
• Evaluation - How does the use of a social network change, facilitate, or hinder users and their collaborations?

Joining the workshop
Individuals interested in participating in the workshop should submit a position paper describing work in one or more of the topic areas above and a completed workshop survey. The workshop organizers will review position papers. Authors will be notified of acceptance to the workshop on October 1st. One goal of the workshop is to nurture interdisciplinary applications of social networks that specifically consider a CSCW perspective. Attention will be paid to representing a diverse spectrum of positions. The workshop will be limited to 15 participants.

All workshop attendees should register for the CSCW conference.

Proposals should consist of:

• A four-page position paper describing work in one or more of the workshop areas above.
• A completed workshop survey, which is intended to get some ideas of the broad range of skills in the community.

Please send submissions to David W. McDonald dwmc@u.washington.edu