…as Facebook has grown over the years, representing an ever larger fraction of the global population, it has become steadily more connected. The average distance in 2008 was 5.28 hops, while now it is 4.74.
Dorothy Espelage to present in the SONIC Speaker Series
On Monday, November 21, from 2:00-3:30 p.m. Prof. Dorothy Espelage will be giving a presentation in Room 2-107 of Frances Searle Building on the Northwestern University Evanston Campus. The talk is entitled “Understanding Adolescent Bullying Attitudes and Behaviors Through Social Network Analysis”.
Dorothy L. Espelage, Ph.D., is a Professor of Child Development and Associate Chair in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is a University Scholar and has fellow status in Division 17 (Counseling Psychology) of the American Psychological Association. She has conducted research on bullying for 18 years and more recently has examined correlates of sexual harassment, dating violence, and homophobic teasing. As a result, she presents regularly at regional, national, and international conferences and is author on over 90 professional publications. She is co-editor of four published books including “Bullying in North American Schools: A Social-Ecological Perspective on Prevention and Intervention” and “International Handbook of Bullying.” She has presented thousands of workshops and in-service training seminars for teachers, administrators, counselors, and social workers across the U.S. Her research focuses on translating empirical findings into prevention and intervention programming. Dr. Espelage has appeared on many television news and talk shows, including The Today Show; CNN; CBS Evening News; and The Oprah Winfrey Show, Anderson Cooper 360, and Anderson and has been quoted in the national print press, including Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, USA Today, and People magazine.
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Understanding Adolescent Bullying Attitudes and Behaviors Through Social Network Analysis
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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.
How to get started with p*/ERGM
What’s all this about p*/ERGM? So you’ve just experienced Prof. Noshir Contractor’s keynote, and he was all over this new-fangled technique for the statistical modeling of social networks, and you’ve never heard of it. Curious? Try one of these articles from our collaborators, generally acknowledged as excellent starting points:
- Anderson, C. J., Wasserman, S. and Crouch, B. (1999) “A p* primer: logit models for social networks.” Social Networks, 21: 37-66.
- Robins, G., Pattison, P., Kalish, Y., & Lusher, D. (2007). “An introduction to exponential random graph (p*) models for social networks.” Social Networks, 29(2): 173-191.
Read both – a slight edge to Robins, Pattison, Kalish and Lusher on the strength of their Figures which may elicit a genuine “Ah, ha!” moment, while the worked examples in Anderson, Wasserman, and Crouch are more substantial.
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:
Roger Leenders SONIC Speaker Series
On Thursday, October 27, from 1:00-2:00 p.m. Prof. Dr. Roger Leenders will be giving a presentation in Room 1-483 of Frances Searle Building on the Northwestern University Evanston Campus. The talk is entitled “Competition and the Gender of Team Creativity”. The presentation reports on several studies on the effect of interteam competition on the creativity of teams. In particular, a recent study proposing that having groups go head-to-head is stimulating to the creativity of groups composed of men but detrimental to the creativity of groups composed of women. Lab studies showed differential effects of competition on the creativity of male versus female groups, especially at the higher end of the competition spectrum. The researchers also found that, based on network theory, these effects were mediated by in-group collaboration. The effects were also replicated in a field setting involving R&D teams.
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Creativity of Teams
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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