University of Michigan School of Information
Fall 2007 – Fridays, noon-1:30 p.m.
311 West Hall
email list: si_575@ctools.umich.edu
Instructor: Maria Souden
Office Hours: Fridays, 1:30-2:30 p.m. (location TBD)
or by appointment
seramar@umich.edu, maria.souden@gmail.com
AIM: mariasmilel
Course Overview
This course brings together students and faculty who are engaged in diverse community and public interest work to hear from a wide range of fascinating guests and to engage in discussion around their expertise and experiences. Readings include those recommended by guests and a selection of articles focusing on core concepts of community information work. Students learn the roots of community informatics -- how it is practiced and where public interest information professionals work -- and consider citizenship, opportunity, and the public good in an information society.
Learning Objectives
1. Engage with core concepts and underlying theory of community informatics.
2. Develop a sense of the professional possibilities for information and communication technologies in the public interest.
3. Connect with like-minded people and resources for doing community and public-interest oriented information work.
The CIC Seminar and the Community Informatics Specialization
The CIC seminar has historically served as an intellectual and professional “home” for students interested in the use of information for the public good. SI’s new Community Informatics specialization educates professionals who deploy information and communication technologies (ICTs) in service of the public good. Students in this specialization explore the changing role of information and technology in a civil society, including work in the areas of community networks, E-governance, and information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D).
A community informatics specialization prepares graduates for positions as public interest information professionals and technical leaders for nonprofit organizations, government agencies, community development agencies, and entrepreneurial social ventures. Community Informatics specialists are highly competitive for positions such as community network directors, corporate social responsibility managers, community digital media managers, CIOs for nonprofit organizations, and E-community builders and content managers.
Course Elements
The course material will be engaged through three primary vehicles: guest speaker talks followed by Q&A/discussion, class discussion sessions, and online discussion.
Food for Thought Speaker Series: Soup Kitchen Edition (supported by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation)
An array of guest speakers engaged in research and/or good works in community informatics have been invited to share their thoughts, ideas, and current work. The primary purpose of the speaker series is to provide students with a sense of the possibilities for leveraging ICT for the public good and to help you shape public interest information careers. The speakers typically are very accessible to students, and in the past students have been able to take advantage of the opportunity to connect regarding internships and interesting project work related to their interests. The speaker series is open to all and will be widely publicized in order to promote broader awareness of community informatics among SI students, faculty and staff and to establishing connections with like-minded scholars in other UM schools and departments. In keeping with this semester’s “Soup Kitchen” theme, a light soup luncheon will be provided on speaker weeks.
Class Discussion of Core Readings
On the weeks where no speaker is scheduled, we will use the seminar time to engage with the core community informatics readings. These sessions will each cover two core topic areas and seminar students will lead the class discussion. The purpose of these sessions is to gain an understanding of core community information concepts and provoke your thinking and questions around them, considering how they might apply to your work as an information professional. During these weeks will be brown-bagging it. These discussions will also be open to anyone who would like to participate.
Online Discussions
Online posting via the CIC Website will be used in conjunction with the seminar in three ways:
1. Stimulate in-class discussion of core readings: Generate questions and comments from the week’s readings for use by discussion leaders.
2. Host online discussion of core readings: Act as a venue for discussion of core readings for the topics for which there is no class time designated.
3. Speaker series: Generate questions and comments for the upcoming speaker.
Student Responsibilities and Evaluation
This course has traditionally served as both an entrée into public interest careers and ideas related to the use of ICTs in the public interest and a networking “home” for those interested in these issues. It relies heavily on student participation and engagement to create such a space. As an enrolled student, your responsibilities include:
• Read each week (required core readings and speaker-related materials).
• Post your thoughts, comments or questions about the core readings or speaker materials by Wednesday night prior to the seminar.
• For each discussion topic, two or three students will be responsible for leading the in-class or online discussion. This entails providing a brief synopsis of the readings and a selection of questions or thought-starters for discussion, based on your own experience, intellectual curiosity, and the online comments of your fellow students.
• Online discussion of core readings will follow a two-week schedule for engagement of material as follows:
a. Discussion leaders post brief summary of readings by Monday.
b. Students post first round of comments and questions by Wednesday.
c. Students and discussion leaders post response round comments by the following Sunday.
• For speaker weeks, it is the responsibility of the enrolled students to attend the talks and actively engage in the Q&A/discussion. After reviewing the speaker’s recommended prep or background materials, you will be asked to post potential questions or comments for the speaker and come to the talk prepared to engage in the Q&A/discussion.
• Submit a reflection paper at the end of the course, approximately 3-4 pages in length, on a topic of your choosing. This paper should be useful to you in synthesizing your learning from the course. It could be a reflection on the readings and the speakers over the course of the term, an exploration of your own interests in community informatics, ideas about new or emerging areas to be explored in the field, or a potential DFE design. Your paper should make an attempt to link the core readings/concepts with the speakers, but does not have to cover all of the topics and can also draw on outside resources and your own experiences.
• Hosting: for each speaker week, we will need four student volunteers to “host.” Hosting duties include event promotion, being available for luncheon set-up and clean-up, and introducing the speaker.
SI-575 is taken on a credit-no credit basis. Credit is contingent upon ongoing participation in the activities above and submission of a final reflection paper
CIC Seminar Fall 2007 Tentative Schedule
Sept. 7 Kick-off with all CIC faculty and Dean, semester overview
Sept. 14 Introductions/Class Business, Sign-ups & IN-CLASS DISCUSSION OF CORE READINGS [brownbag]
Required
Weick, K. E. (1984). Small wins: Redefining the scale of social problems. American Psychologist, 39(1), 40-49.
Sawyer, S., & Eschenfelder, K. R. (2002). Social informatics: Perspectives, examples, and trends. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 36(1), 427-465.
Gurstein, M. (2002). Community informatics (white paper). www.communities.org.ru/ci-text/ci-v2.doc
Gurstein, M. (2003). Effective use: A community informatics strategy beyond the digital divide. First Monday, 8(12). http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/gurstein/index.html
Bishop, A. P. (2005). Community informatics: Integrating action, research and learning. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science &Technology, Aug/Sep 2005, 6-10. http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Aug-05/bishopbruce.html
Sept. 21 IN-CLASS DISCUSSION OF CORE READINGS [brownbag]
Public Goods and Common Pool Resources
Required:
Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks : How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press. (pp 1-16. Chapters 4, 5, & 9). Available online at http://www.congo-education.net/wealth-of-networks/ or in pdf form at http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/index.php?title=Download_PDFs_of_the_book
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (chapters 1 & 6)
Recommended:
Ledyard, J. (1995). Public goods: A survey of experimental research. In J. H. Kagel & A. E. Roth (Eds.), The handbook of experimental economics (pp. 111-194). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Inequality, Diversity, Identity and Power
Required:
• Stone, Deborah. Policy Paradox and Political Reason. Harper Collins Publisher. 1996. (pp. 30-48)
• Delpit, Lisa. “The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children,” Beyond Silenced Voices: Class, Race and Gender in United States Schools, Ed. Lois Weis and Michelle Fine. Albany: SUNY Press, 1993.
• Senyak, Josh. “Thinking About Community Technology and the Digital Divide: Why Computer Access Is an Important Topic.” (archived at http://www.si.umich.edu/~presnick/cic/readings/SenyakFongDigDiv.htm)
• Hart, Stuart and Sanjay Sharma. “Engaging fringe stakeholders for competitive imagination,” Academy of Management Executive, 18:1, p. 7-18, 2004
Recommended:
• Besser, Howard. “The Next Digital Divides” (archived at http://www.si.umich.edu/~presnick/cic/readings/BesserDigDiv.htm)
• Minow, Martha. Not Only for Myself: Identity Politics and the Law. The New Press, 1997. (pp. 9-58)
September 28-November 9—FOOD FOR THOUGHT: SOUP KITCHEN EDITION
Sept. 28 SPEAKER SERIES [soup]: Michael Gordon, Professor of Business Information Technology, The University of Michigan
Topic: IT and poverty alleviation, both in the developing world and in the US
Oct. 5 SPEAKER SERIES [soup]: Kevin Thompson, IBM Corporate Citizenship
ONLINE DISCUSSION OF CORE READINGS: International Communications Technologies for Development
Required:
• Parikh, Tapan and Edward D. Lazowska. “Designing an Architecture for Delivering Mobile Information Services to the Rural Developing World” WWW 2006, May 23-26, 2006. Edinburgh, Scotland. (http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/tapan/publications.html)
• Prahalad, C.K. The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Philadelphia: Wharton School Publishing, 2005. (Preface, Chapter 1)
Oct. 12 SPEAKER SERIES [soup]: Scot Rourke, onecleveland
Oct. 19 SPEAKER SERIES [soup]: Ann Bishop, UIUC GSLIS Professor & Community Informatics Leader
Oct. 26 SPEAKER SERIES [soup]: Gavin Clabaugh, Mott Foundation and Andy Wolber from NPower Michigan
Topic: Nonprofits and Information Technology
ONLINE DISCUSSION OF CORE READINGS: The Non-Profit Sector and Philanthropy
Tentative-TBD
• Light, Paul. Making Nonprofits Work: A Report on the Tides of Nonprofit Management Reform. Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute, Brookings Institution Press, 2000
• Drucker, Peter F. Managing the Nonprofit Organization. Collins, 2006
Nov. 3 SPEAKER SERIES [soup]: Laurie Cirivello, Grand Rapids Community Media Center
Topic: Using New Multimedia Media Tools and Web 2.0 To Strengthen Nonprofit Work & Community Building
Nov. 9 SPEAKER SERIES [soup]: Andrew Clement, University of Toronto CRACIN project
Nov. 16 IN-CLASS DISCUSSION OF CORE READINGS [brownbag]
Social Capital
Required:
• Putnam, Robert. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. 2000. (Chapters 1, 16 & 21)
• Durlauf, Steven. “The Empirics of Social Capital: Some Skeptical Thoughts,”
Social Development Strategy paper, World Bank, January 2002.
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTRANETSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/214578-1112888617281/20549292/Durlauf2.pdf
Recommended:
• “Better Together”, the report of the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America. (www.bettertogether.org).
• Resnick, Paul. “Beyond Bowling Together: SocioTechnical Capital” HCI in the New Millenium, Ed. John M. Carroll. Addison-Wesley. 2002. (pp. 247-272). (http://www.si.umich.edu/~presnick/papers/stk/index.html).
Citizenship and Democracy
• Walzer, M. “The Idea of Civil Society: A Path to Social Reconstruction” Community Works: The Revival of Civil Society in America. Ed. E. J. Dionne. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1998. (pp. 123-143)
• Boyte, H. C. and N. N. Kari. Building America: The Democratic Promise of Public Work. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996. (pp. 1-32, 164-178)
• Resnick, Paul. “A Preliminary Classification Scheme for Public Information Work. (http://www.si.umich.edu/~presnick/papers/civicextension/PublicInformationWorkClassification.doc)
Nov. 30: CIC Students present about their internships [brownbag]
Dec. 7: WRAP-UP [potluck] students talk about their reflection papers
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