Draft Statement of Purpose

I am interested in understanding the real and possible boundaries between technology and society, through observation and building innovative systems. I am drawn to the field of information studies for its ability to understand people and their relationship to technology in service to the public good. I distinguish a difference in the approach of the School of Information as one that explores the complex human conditions that have typically been labeled as “noise”. I am also attracted to this program for its ethos of public good and methodologically savvy approach to research

Original research requires feedback loops that allow for the process to change. Conclusions drawn without open access to review remain alchemy. For me, leaning how to do original research is similar to the agile method I use when programming. Through iterative creation steps, the process evolves through collaboration. This collaboration occurs not only with other researchers, but with all affected community members. The process of building, sharing and reevaluating allows the project to evolve with the needs of everyone involved.

Learning how to do original research also means understanding appropriate methods. I value a program, like the University of Michigan’s that brings faculty from diverse departments with mixed methodological approaches to bear on a problem. My background in design, public service, web programming and current coursework has prepared me to contribute to the scholarshop of the School of Information.

During my masters I have taken courses in design, theory, methods and technology. Courses in statistics, focus groups, network analysis and qualitative research methods have been the foundation to different ways of approaching research. Courses in telecommunication theory, computer supported cooperative, and several special topics provided a theoretical foundation with practice. I have also supplemented my core requirements with courses in rhetoric and american culture, which have prepared me to understand more completely the complexity of human motivation specifically in context of computer mediated spaces.

As part of a design and theory class I helped develop OurMichiganAve.org, which seeks to help coordinate policymakes, developers and residents in order for them to find solutions to revitalizetheir community. As both a programmer and researcher my classmates and I were able to build quick prototypes in Ruby on Rails, elicit feedback through focus groups from our stakeholders and redevelop the website quickly. The resulting website allowed people to share stories about their lives on the corridor, map areas of interest, vote on improvement ideas, and keep informed on development news. This project was an example of balancing the implicit needs of a project with the explicit goals. Building this site required learning Ruby on Rails from scratch, as well as quickly understanding the various protocols of Ruby and Subversion. Research also has layers of implicity work in preparation for the expected work. I believe projects like these have prepared me, whether building websites, working with communities of people, or analyzing data.

Balancing what has worked in the past with the potential of what might be was the incentive of my thesis. Rather than simply replicating the successful one-on-one consultations of physical writing centers online, my thesis is a case study that seeks to understand the role of a writing center online asa hub for people writing about writing at Michigan State University. The hands-on opportunity to be a part of the entire research process has been beneficial in preparing to continue at the School of Information. Exploring research that connected asynchronous, remote groupwork of students with the Writing Center required a negotiation between what the web-software allowed and the expectations of multiple audiences.

A significant part of the research process was understanding the best way to study the case itself; This was not an obvious process. I reviewed different ways to design and conduct the study, capture information, analyze and report the findings, as well as different frameworks for building the web interface. My thesis is only the beginning of what I can fulfill at the University of Michigan. I believe it demonstrates a sincere effort not to merely fix a problem, but rather, to find the appropriate means both to understand the situation and move towards a solution.

I admire the the scholarship the School of Information is producing. I am most impressed with the the community information use work of Dr. Paul Resnick and Dr. Joan Durrance. Also the online community work of Dr. Mark Ackerman, and the public policy work of Dr. Steve Jackson. I notice that the diverse topics share the common thread of work in the public interest. When talking with Dr. Ackerman, I sense that this ethos of public good is not just a research goal, but at the core of the program. I belive that my design, theory and research experience, and my background in public service would be a good fit for the School of Information at the University of Michigan.

Online groupwork across the curriculum: Using shared spaces online to support inter-class conversations

Below is the abstract of my proposal to the Writing Across the Curriculum conference this coming May.

Writing centers should play an active role in writing across the curriculum, especially online. This presentation explores recent research on supporting groupwork across the curriculum with an inter-class blogging application supported by the Writing Center at Michigan State University (WC MSU).

Many educational institutions maintain writing centers that provide students with assistance on writing in one-to-one consultations. These centers already work with students and instructors throughout the university. However, this important work remains bound by physical limitations. Rather than duplicating this face-to-face model online, the WC MSU has explored new ways to engage students and instructors in their classrooms and outside of the physical space of the writing center.

WC MSU developed an inter-class blogging tool to connect multiple courses in a shared space. This tool builds on existing course tools (Blackboard, Angel, Moodle), but emphasizes cross-course conversations in a shared space. This research explores attitudes of instructors and students who used this software over the course of one semester in 2009. My presentation will discuss the implications for writing across curriculum pedagogy, exploring the advantages and disadvantages of this type of work, specifically, issues of implementation and sustainability.

This conversation seeks to challenge expectations and practices both about writing centers and writing across the curriculum online. Online tools like the WC MSU inter-class blogging application is not meant to replace sound practices of instructors or pedagogy, rather expand and supplement already existing norms and practices in ways not before possible in physical spaces.