CS473: Introduction to Social Computing

Human-computer interaction no longer only concerns a single user in front of their computer. An increasing number of modern systems are inherently social, involving a large group of users to collaborate, discuss, ideate, solve problems, and make decisions together via social interaction. This course focuses on crowdsourcing and social computing, two of the most important concepts in the era of interaction at scale. This course will cover major design issues and computational techniques in building crowdsourcing and social computing systems.

This is a highly interactive class: You’ll be expected to actively participate in activities, projects, assignments, and discussions. There will be no lectures or exams. Major course activities include:

• Reading Response: You'll read and discuss important papers and articles in the field. Each week, there will be 1-2 reading assignments, for which you'll write a short response to.
• Topic Presentation: Once a semester, you'll lead the class by summarizing the readings and peer students' critiques, and spurring the in-class discussion. You’ll also get a chance to design your own activity that best captures the topic of a class.
• Design Project: In a semester-long team project, you'll design, build, and test your own crowdsourcing / social computing system. If you have an ongoing research project that might benefit from having a crowdsourcing / social computing component, connecting to your research is encouraged.
• In-class Activities: Each class will feature activities that will help you experience and practice the core concepts introduced in the course.