Award Abstract #0916019
HCC: Small: The role of social network sites in facilitating collaborative processes

NSF Org:	IIS Div Of Information & Intelligent Systems
Initial Amendment Date:	August 26, 2009
Latest Amendment Date:	February 5, 2014
Award Number:	0916019
Award Instrument:	Continuing grant
Program Manager:	Kevin Crowston IIS Div Of Information & Intelligent Systems CSE Direct For Computer & Info Scie & Enginr
Start Date:	October 1, 2009
End Date:	May 31, 2014 (Estimated)
Awarded Amount to Date:	$498,358.00
Investigator(s):	Nicole Ellison enicole@umich.edu (Principal Investigator) Charles Steinfield (Former Principal Investigator) Nicole Ellison (Former Principal Investigator) Clifford Lampe (Co-Principal Investigator) Nicole Ellison (Former Co-Principal Investigator)
Sponsor:	Michigan State University Office of Sponsored Programs East Lansing, MI 48824-2620 (517)355-5040
NSF Program(s):	Cyber-Human Systems (CHS)
Program Reference Code(s):	7367, 7923, 9215, HPCC
Program Element Code(s):	7367

ABSTRACT

Collaboration, when it works, optimizes the contributions of individuals, often resulting in better decisions, outcomes, and experiences than individuals working alone. Social network sites (SNSs) offer new opportunities for collaboration due to their social and technical affordances. SNS profiles enable the display of identity information, which can act as a social lubricant and help individuals initiate conversations and find common ground. Within SNSs, contact lists lower the transaction costs associated with interaction. Finally, SNSs enable access to a larger pool of individuals (and their wider and more diverse knowledge base) while also providing a context in which social capital processes serve as a mechanism for encouraging collaboration, advice-giving and information-sharing. This project will develop and test a model of SNS-enabled collaboration motivated by the following research questions: What forms of collaboration are enabled by SNSs? How do the features of SNSs affect these processes? Who uses these sites to collaborate and why?

This study will examine SNS-facilitated collaborative instances using quantitative and qualitative data to provide insight into users motivations, perceptions, and conceptual frameworks. First, we will examine examples of ad-hoc collaboration among college undergraduates to explore how relationship initiation and collaboration occur, both in SNS and face-to-face contexts. Second, aggregate behavioral patterns on Facebook will be analyzed to discover and investigate modes of collaboration on the site.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

Lampe, C., Wohn, D. Y., Vitak, J., & Ellison, N. & Wash, R.. "Student use of Facebook for organizing collaborative classroom activities," International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning., 2011.

BOOKS/ONE TIME PROCEEDING

Ellison, N., Vitak, J., Steinfield, C., Gray, R., & Lampe, C.. "Negotiating privacy concerns and social capital needs in a social media environment", 10/01/2010-09/30/2011, , S. Trepte & L. Reinecke"Privacy Online: Perspectives on Privacy and Self-Disclosure in the Social Web",  2011, "Heidelberg and New York: Springer".

Wohn, D.Y., Lampe, C., Vitak, J. & Ellison, N.. "Coordinating the ordinary: Social information uses of Facebook by adults", 10/01/2010-09/30/2011,  2011, "In Proceedings of the 6th Annual iConference. New York: ACM.".

Vitak, J., Ellison, N., & Steinfield, C.. "The ties that bond: Re-examining the relationship between Facebook use and bonding social capital.", 10/01/2010-09/30/2011,  2011, "In Proceedings of the 44th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (CD-ROM). Computer Society Press.".

Wohn, D. Y., Lampe, C., Ellison, N., Wash, R., & Vitak, J.. "The ?S? in social network games: Initiating, maintaining, and enhancing relationships", 10/01/2010-09/30/2011,  2011, "In Proceedings of the 44th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (CD-ROM). Computer Society Press.".

Lampe, C., Ellison, N., Vitak, J., Gray, R. & Brooks. B.. "The Personal-Professional Jumble: Facebook Use at Work", 10/01/2010-09/30/2011, "Submitted to Computer-Supported Cooperative Work conference (2012)".

Lampe, C., Vitak, J. & Ellison, N.. "Users and Nonusers: Interactions between Levels of Adoption and Social Capital", 10/01/2011-09/30/2012, "CSCW",  2013, "Not available at this time.".

Gray, R., Ellison, N., Vitak, J., & Lampe, C.. "Who wants to know? Question-asking and answering practices among Facebook users", 10/01/2011-09/30/2012, "CSCW",  2013, "Not available at this time.".

Lampe, C., Vitak, J., Gray, R., & Ellison, N.. "Perceptions of Facebook's value as an information source", 10/01/2011-09/30/2012, "Proceedings of the 2012 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems",  2012, "New York: ACM Press.".

Vitak, J., Lampe, C., Gray, R. & Ellison, N.. "Why Won't You Be My Facebook Friend?: Strategies for Managing Context Collapse in the Workplace.", 10/01/2011-09/30/2012, "Proceedings of the 7th Annual iConference",  2012, "(pp. 555-557). New York: ACM. doi: 10.1145/2132176.2132286".

Jung, Y., Ellison, N., Lampe, C. & Gray, R.. "Dimensions of Social Capital and their role in social capital conversation within Facebook networks (tentative)", 10/01/2011-09/30/2012, , To be submitted to CHI 2013. 2013, "Not available at this time.".

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