James M. Hudson

I'd be overwhelmed, but it's just one more thing to do: availability and interruption in research management

Many CSCW projects dealing with individual availability and interruption filtering achieve only limited success. Perhaps this is because designers of such systems have limited evidence to draw upon; most data on interruption management is at least a decade old. This study uses an empirical sampling method and qualitative interviews to examine attitudes toward availability and interruption. Specifically, we analyze how corporate research managers spend their time and look at how their attitudes toward interruption relate to their various activities. Attitudes toward interruption are marked by a complex tension between wanting to avoid interruption and appreciating its usefulness. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for design, suggesting that the notion of socially translucent systems may be a fruitful approach

“Go Away”: Participant Objections to Being Studied and the Ethics of Chatroom Research

In this article we present an empirical study aimed at better understanding the potential for harm when conducting research in chatrooms. For this study, we entered IRC chatrooms on the ICQ network and posted one of three messages to tell participants that we were recording them: a recording message, an opt-in message, or an opt-out message. In the fourth condition, we entered the chatroom but did not post a message. We recorded and analyzed how subjects responded to being studied. Results of a regression analysis indicate significantly more hostility in the three conditions where we said something than in the control condition. We were kicked out of 63.3% of the chatrooms we entered in the three message conditions compared with 29% of the chatrooms in the control condition. There were no significant differences between any of these three conditions. Notably, when given a chance to opt in, only 4 of 766 potential subjects chose to do so. Results also indicate significant effects for both size and the number of moderators. For every 13 additional people in a chatroom, the likelihood getting kicked out was cut in half. While legal and ethical concerns are distinct, we conclude by arguing that studying chatrooms constitutes human subjects research under U.S. law, but that a waiver of consent is appropriate in most cases as obtaining consent is impracticable.

IRC Francais: The Creation of an Internet-Based SLA Community

Research into text-based chat environments for foreign language learning has shown that discussions online have a significantly different character from those in the classroom. In this paper, we begin with a brief design history of one of these environments: IRC Français. Our experience both illustrates the challenges involved in moving these chat environments from the language lab to the Internet and offers insight into some of the causes of these changes in conversation. The initial challenges we encountered ranged from ethical difficulties in doing research in Internet-based chat environments to bootstrapping a synchronous community. After exploring these challenges, we present a study taking a closer look at the interactions online and in the classroom over the course of a semester. During this semester, classroom interaction was largely teacher-oriented, despite the best efforts of the teachers involved. Even though teachers initiated online conversations in the same way, however, online interaction was student-driven and significantly more interactive. These observations lend credibility to the language ego permeability theory and its emphasis on inhibition. Quantitative findings of this study mirror a number of other studies. Qualitative findings suggest that important features of the medium lead students to feel more comfortable in the online environment. In particular, the “almost realtime” nature of this medium seems to offer a blend of benefits that arise in both face-to-face conversation and asynchronous interaction. In doing so, however, some new challenges are introduced. We conclude with some suggestions for new research directions into both these challenges and more general issues in second language acquisition in online environments.

The Bystander Effect: A Lens for Understanding Patterns of Participation.

A number of studies have shown that students are often more willing to participate in educational conversations online than in the classroom. However, other studies have shown that online environments have poor student participation Why is this the case? What causes participation to vary from one environment to another? To explore these phenomena, we borrow a concept from social psychology, the bystander effect, which explains why individuals are less likely to help in an emergency if others are present. Although the bystander effect specifically applies to helping behavior in emergency situations, we use this construct as a lens through which to view nonemergency situations such as educational environments. The bystander effect has 4 key components: self-awareness, social cues, blocking mechanisms, and diffuse responsibility. Focusing on these mechanisms can help us more fully characterize participation patterns observed in different educational environments and leverage this knowledge in the design of such systems. We present a case study of two students in both classroom and online French learning environments and show how the psychological mechanisms of the bystander effect help us understand observed behavioral changes.

Supporting communication and collaboration practices in safety-critical situations

In this paper, we present the Firefighter Communication System -- a system designed to enhance and improve firefighter communication during a crisis situation such as a structural fire. The system we present is a half-duplex communication system with an audio horizon for officers and a full-duplex system for standard firefighters. We also address the design for the company commander who simultaneously participates in both systems. These initial designs are the result of ethnographic-style investigations into firefighting practice combined with iterative design.

Disinhibition in a CSCL environment

In this paper, we explore the IRC Francais foreign language learning environment. This environment offers little more than a text-based chat system with a few features to make writing in a foreign language easier. Despite the limited structure, conversations online exhibit strong differences from conversations in the classroom, even when the teachers and students remain constant. We offer some explanations for these findings based on interviews conducted with a number of the teachers and students.

Effects of CMC on student participation patterns in a foreign language learning environment

In this paper, we describe a study examining how communication patterns compare between a traditional foreign language learning classroom and a synchronous, text-based CMC environment. We present suggesting that conversation patterns change significantly when discussions move online. The slight time delay in composing replies and the development of a sense of community seem to be important mechanisms leading to this change.