SONIC lab director Dr. Noshir Contractor was interviewed on 3 Comms – Commerce, Communication and Communities. MYRA School of Business, India. Watch the full video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SySMmpgSe0
Edward Smith SONIC Speaker Series
On Monday, February 6, from 9:30-11:00 a.m. Dr. Edward (Ned) Smith will be giving a presentation in room 1-483 of the Frances Searle Building on the Northwestern University Evanston Campus. The talk is entitled “Identity and Network Activation”.
About the talk
In his talk Ned will focus on his research on Identity and Network Activation. Using a dynamic cognitive model of network activation, Ned and his colleagues experimentally test two com peting hypotheses on the link between identity and network activation. On one hand, affirming people’s power might enable agency. On the other hand, if such power affirmations conflict with people’s more stable status characteristics, this could create tension. These hypotheses were tested experimentally by priming people at varying levels of status with power
(high/low) and social change (significant/none) and asking them to recall their social networks. Results suggest that stable, confirmed identities, and not feelings of power, are the foundation from which people can exhibit greater network responsiveness.
About Ned Smith
Ned Smith is an Assistant Professor of Strategy at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business prior to joining the faculty at Ross in 2010. His research focuses on the construction and consequences of organizational identity, with an emphasis on financial markets. He draws on sociological and network theories to develop and test new identity-based models of organizational behavior and investor decision-making. He also studies how people mentally construct their social worlds -i.e., their social networks- according to situational and environmental variations. Ned’s research has been published or is forthcoming in leading journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Management Science, and Organization Science.
The flyer for the talk can be downloaded here.
Contractor Presented at Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore
Noshir Contractor presented Using Multi-theoretical Multilevel Models to Understand and Enable Communities at the Workshop on Network Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, on January 11th, 2012. This workshop is part of a special year on network science organized by the Indian Institute of Science Mathematics Initiative in conjunction with the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research, Mumbai. For more information, see: http://www.icts.res.in/
Ryan Whalen to present at Complenet 2012
SONIC lab PhD researcher Ryan Whalen will present a paper titled “Modeling annual Supreme Court influence: The role of citation practices and judicial tenure in determining precedent network growth” at Complenet 2012. The paper offers a unique way to understand and analyze the development of legal citation systems. Subsequent to the conference, the paper will be published as part of a Studies in Computational Intelligence series book.
SONIC Alumnus Zach Johnson ranked #8 by Empact100
Syndio Social co-founded by SONIC alum and Northwestern graduate, Zachary Johnson, was ranked #8 on the 2011 Empact100 list of top companies run by entrepreneurs age 30 and under. For more information see: http://empact100.com/list.php
CSCW Paper on MTML Model of Wikipedia Coauthorship
A paper coauthored by Brian Keegan, Noshir Contractor, and assistant professor Darren Gergle examining the coauthorship networks of Wikipedia articles was accepted to the 2012 ACM conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). Abstract:
Prior scholarship on Wikipedia’s collaboration processes has examined the properties of either editors or articles, but not the interactions between both. We analyze the coauthorship network of Wikipedia articles about breaking news demanding intense coordination and compare the properties of these articles and the editors who contribute to them to articles about historical airline accidents. Using p*/ERGM methods to test a multi-level, multi-theoretical model, we identify how editors’ attributes and editing patterns interact with articles’ attributes and authorship history. Editors’ attributes like prior experience have a stronger influence on the self-organization of the collaboration, but article attributes also play significant roles. Finally, we discuss the implications our findings and methods have for understanding the socio-material duality of collective intelligence systems beyond Wikipedia.
Professor Contractor featured in NCA Communication Scholar video
Professor Contractor is one of four communication scholars featured in a video titled Grantseeking Basics: A Guide for the Communication Scholar prepared by the National Communication Association (NCA) and to be showcased at the NCA annual convention in New Orleans on Friday November 18 from 12:30-1:45 pm in LaGalerie 1 on the second floor of the Marriott Hotel, New Orleans. Video can be viewed at: http://www.natcom.org/Default.aspx?id=2147484475&libID=2147484475
Contractor Delivers keynote at ACM Conference on Recommender Systems
SONIC Lab director Noshir Contractor delivers opening keynote address titled “From Understanding to Enabling Networks: Using Web Science to Enhance Recommender Systems” at the 5th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, Chicago IL on October 24th For more information see:
Wikipedia Work Featured on PBS Idea Lab
Our Wikisym paper on the dynamics and structure of Wikipedia’s coverage of the 2011 Japanese earthquake was featured in a blog post at the PBS Idea Lab.
Contractor to present at Chicago Humanities Festival
Contractor presented “Traces in a Tangled Web” on October 16 at the Chicago Humanities Festival. For more information follow the link: http://www.chicagohumanities.org/en/Profile/Bio.aspx?userid=24eddb81-05b3-4cbf-b95c-79a9d00a8d69