A central aspect of this course will be reading and discussing papers from the field of Social Computing.  The goal here is to learn about the history and innovations in social computing so that you can make your own novel contribution as a final project.  This class implements a “jigsaw technique” for reading papers where students will read and present different papers to each other so that no one has to read all papers in detail. Each student will read and present four papers throughout the quarter (in discussion sections) and your peers will present and facilitate discussion around the other papers, so you only need to skim these. That way, you become an expert on some papers while still getting exposure to many more!  At the end of each Thursday lecture, there will be a Quiz on that week of readings. We also expect active participation during all discussions. 

Quizzes

Student will read papers every week (except week 8 and 10) and there will be a quiz on Thursdays. The quizzes will test your knowledge and challenge you to reflect on that week's papers.  This includes the papers you did not present, so be sure to pay attention during the discussion sections and lectures. These will be "open book" quizzes so you may refer to the papers and your notes during the quiz period. Students have from the end of Thursday's lecture until end of Friday to complete the quiz on Canvas. Students will have 1 hour to submit answers, although we only expect the quiz to take you about 30 minutes. Sharing answers, discussing the questions, leveraging an LLM (e.g. ChatGPT, BARD, etc.), or doing any other forms of "collaboration" are strictly prohibited and will be reported to the Academic Integrity Office. 

Presentations

Students will choose four papers per quarter to read and present along with peers in your discussion section. Students will self-select which papers they want to present and will sign-up on the course dashboard under your section (listen for instructions on the first day of class). Presenting groups must post their slides or prerecorded videos of slides (for W2 and W7) into the Google Drive under your section folder BEFORE Monday's discussion sections!

NOTE: Mondays of Week 2 (Jan 15) and Week 7 (Feb 19) are federal holidays. Presenting groups should prepare slides and record a video of their presentation. Post the video and slides by Monday so that your peers can watch before the lectures and quiz. Students can participate those weeks by attending lectures and contributing to their section's Slack discussions. 

What to do:

Presenters must read the paper and then work with their group to create an engaging yet short presentation. Work with your group to create a Google slide deck in your section folder. Keep the presentation relatively short (under 5 minutes), just briefly summarizing the main points of the paper, and bringing in additional material to help give the topic more context. Make your slides visually appealing, including figures from the paper and images from other sources. Do not just copy and paste text into slides. Your goal is to highlight the main themes and show how it relates to what’s happening today. Showing related real-world examples is often a good way to help make the concepts clear for others. Presenting groups are not allowed to view slides from other sections; any attempt to simply copy another group will be consider a violation of academic integrity.

After your short presentation, the presenting group should lead a live discussion within your section for ~5 minutes. You and your partners should author at least two good discussion questions and put them on the last slide. Ask questions that will prompt or provoke a fruitful discussion around the paper. Good discussion questions often do not have a clear answers and elicit a range of different perspectives. Avoid yes/no questions. Ask questions that provide something concrete for students to respond to:  "If we take the paper's suggestion and design Facebook with X, what would be the expected benefits and drawbacks?" or "Can you give examples of where X was used in a social computing system?"  

Good examples of presentations:

• 1. CommunityCrit paper by Mahyar:  see slides by Alex Yuen, Jenny Wu, and Peilin Chen 

  2. The Shortest Path to Happiness paper by Quercia: see slides by Yabo Shi, Noor, Brendan, and David Yang

One member of the presenting group should also post the discussion questions to Slack (just before or during your presentation) so that other students in your section have a chance to respond to your questions through text chat on Slack.  In your section's Slack channel, create a separate Slack post for each question so that peers can use "Reply to thread" feature to keep the discussion organized. Your job is to facilitate a thoughtful peer discussion both verbally during section and asynchronously on Slack. 

Finally, after Monday's presentation and discussion, please fill out the Presenting Group Peer Eval about your partners.

To summarize:

• Coordinate with your presenting group the week BEFORE you present

• Read the paper and work with your presenting to prepare a short overview talk (and video for W2 and W7)

• Post your presenting group's slides/video to your section folder before Monday's section

• Post your group's discussion questions to your section's Slack channel before Monday's section

• Present in under 5 minutes and lead a short discussion during Monday's section

• Fill out the Presenting Group Peer Eval AFTER Monday's section 

Grading:

 Presenters will be graded based on their understanding of the paper and the quality of their presentation. Grading rubric for presentations:

• Understanding of paper (30%): How effectively did does the presenting group cover the main points in the paper? To what extent does the presentation include examples and references to outside work to help contextualize the main points in the paper?

• Presentation quality (30%): What is the overall presentation quality? This includes the organization and visual appearance of the talk, the verbal delivery, the preparation and conciseness of the talk, and use of concrete examples/visuals to help explain the paper. Slides with walls of text are considered ineffective and should be avoided.  Talks will be deducted for going longer than 5 minutes. 

• Thoughtfulness of discussion questions (30%): Are the discussion prompts open-ended, reflective, and thought-provoking? Did the discussion prompts facilitate an engaging and deep discussion around the topic? Was the time for discussion well-managed? 

• Group preparedness (10%): Did the presenting group appear to be prepared and in sync? To what extent did they work together on the slides, discussion questions, and verbal presentation (either in lecture or prerecorded)? Slides and/or pre-recorded talks should be posted before class to get full credit.

Audience participation

For all the papers you are NOT presenting, you play the role of an “Audience Member” where you try to learn about the paper through active discussion (either verbally or textually). Before Monday's section, audience members should skim the papers (see note below on Reading vs. Skimming) and prepare a few question. During Monday's section, audience members should try to actively learn by discussing the paper details or relating the paper to outside situations or information. Try to attend studio and make a few substantive verbal comments or Slack channel replies per week. We encourage audience members to approach these conversations organically and naturally, rather than just trying to meet a quota. Audience members should speak up or use Slack when thoughts come to mind during class. Or if students miss an opportunity to speak during class, respond on your section's Slack channel after class using the "Reply to thread" options to discuss, critique, argue against, and continue to respond to your own replies.

Audience members should make a strong effort: 1) to advance the discussion and everyone’s understanding of the paper, 2) to build on peers’ prior comments, and 3) to make connections and references to other readings, videos, lectures, discussions from outside of class that enhance our understanding of the concepts in the paper. Comments will not count towards participation if they are off-topic or only peripherally connected to the topic. Also, avoid dominating the verbal discussions so that you give all your peers an opportunity to speak during class. 

FAQs:

What if I need to miss Monday's section?

A significant portion of your grade is impacted by attending the Monday section to present weekly papers and to participate in discussions.  This course is structured around the concept of “active learning” where students actively participate in co-constructing knowledge, rather than just passively consuming information. Active learning includes asking questions during lectures, participating in activities, contributing to discussions, and collaborating with teammates on projects. 

If students cannot regularly attend their discussion section time, communicate with the instructor about a potential swap to another section time on Monday.  

If students need to miss one Monday due to illness or an excused absence:

• Please communicate with your IA so that they understand the situation.  

• The presenting group can either prerecord their talks or give the talks without the absent members. Work with your presenting group and make sure to post the talk video and discussion questions to Slack before class. Obviously it works best if someone can be there in real-time to lead the discussion.  If the whole presenting group happens to miss a section, the IA can play your presentation video and then lead the peer discussion on your behalf. 

• Audience members may leave comments after the class period in Slack (in the appropriate channel for your section). Make sure to post your comments as a reply to the thread started by the presenting group. 

What does it mean to “read” versus “skim” papers?

 Reading academic papers can seem daunting at first. However, effective reading is a skill that can be mastered with practice. As a Presenter, you are expected to spend about an hour to fully read and understand the paper.  Review this article for advice on how to read academic papers to extract the gist of a paper, how to read critically, and how to use the paper as a way to start thinking creatively in the research area.   

As an Audience Member, you may only need to spend 5-10 minutes skimming each paper before class. Skimming includes reading the title, authors, year, abstract, headers, figures, tables, captions, and conclusion. Try to get a sense of the topics, structure and thesis of the paper. Then pay attention to the Presentations to gain a deeper understanding of the paper.