The ICIR held a colloquium on the topic of Social Media and Mobile Computing, which involved a variety of professors from across the CIS departments.
SLIS Associate Professor and colloquium organizer Dr. Steven MacCall presented “We are all Geeks now: A networked context for the 21st century academy.” MacCall’s presentation provided background on the impact of social media research including such various approaches as networking, collaboration, publishing, and feedback. He also presented two questions for audience consideration: Is Social Media Research A Fad? and, Are We All Geeks Now?, both of which set the tone for the presentations which followed.
CIS faculty and doctoral students then presented their ongoing research that dealt with a variety of social media technologies across different academic domains. The first three presentations involved professors from the Journalism department. Associate Professor Jennifer Greer compared demographic preferences for news delivery between traditional news media and social media. Associate Professor Wilson Lowery discussed his research examining the flattening structure of ‘big’ media organizations and the sustainability of traditional news production in light of emerging democratic news practices in online social networks. Dr. Chris Roberts spoke about the internal workings of news organizations, and highlighted how social media has altered the work processes of journalists in news organizations. Dr. Laurie Bonnici from SLIS presented her research focusing on the design of new mobile technologies for special needs populations. Journalism professor Dr. George Daniels and first year doctoral student Natalie Brown discussed the impact of social media platforms Facebook and Twitter have had on diversity communications. Ph.D. Candidate Mia Long and second year doctoral student Yan Yan then discussed their respective social media studies. Long is focusing on how the social networks Twitter and Facebook are facilitating parasocial interactions between TV stars and audiences; while Yan is examining social networks as an alternative mode of news content delivery.
New ideas were shared and prospective research collaborations fostered as participants identified similar research interests. A statement was read from APR Assistant Professor Kristin Heflin which invited colloquium participants to collaborate on funded inter-disciplinary research examining security and privacy issues pertaining to social-networked mobile computing technologies.
In short, the session brought forth new questions on the complexities of the ubiquitous social media environment. The end conclusion was that social media research is not a fad, and in fact, and only continues to proliferate.
IRB Colloquium
– September 17, 2010
The ICIR's initial Fall 2010 colloquium brought together the faculty and students of the College of Communication and Information Sciences (CIS). The session highlighted new developments in the ICIR laboratories, as well as addressed additional research issues.
The theme of the session was to address existing concerns surrounding the IRB application process. ICIR Director Dr. Kim Bissell answered questions pertaining to the various IRB requirements. She also discussed the allotted time expectation for project feedback and approval, and reviewed the actual steps within the IRB process. Participants suggested ideas that would help the ICIR to improve the application process. The issue of faculty peer review was also discussed during the session as well.
Doctoral student Charles Meadows introduced the enhanced capabilities of the latest Biopac system installed in the psychophysiology lab. Improvements were also noted concerning the common pooling research participants' resource (CARP) which is managed by the ICIR. Lab manager/Doctoral student Cui Zhang elaborated current online procedures used to track and allocate research of interested participants. An update followed listing ongoing ICIR research by the Ph.D. candidates from the College of Communication and Information Sciences.
The colloquium was instrumental in addressing the concerns related to the IRB processes. It also allowed established, as well as budding, researchers to become better acquainted with the ICIR personnel and the lab facilities.
