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Research

Charlotte Lee's Research Group Archive

The following research group descriptions are archived because they are no longer offered, the faculty member is on sabbatical, or the group is taking a break. Please contact the faculty member or an advisor to learn more about these groups.

Autumn 2023

Reading Group for Sensemaking in Organizations

Directed by Charlotte P. Lee, Professor, HCDE

For this DRG we will be reading and discussing one book: Karl Weick's landmark book "Sensemaking in Organizations". Weick is a famous organizational theorist who took and takes an approach that is different from most organizational theorists. Rather than focusing on rational decision making, Weick focuses on how a process of ongoing sensemaking shapes what people do and how they do it in organizations. This work is more important than ever as we strive to understand the limits and opportunities of automation for a world increasingly dependent on AI/ML technologies.

In this DRG we will divide up the book to read one or two chapters per week culminating during week 10. Participants are expected to attend meetings and participate actively. In addition to the readings, participants will be encouraged to occasionally bring in related research papers, media articles, or examples from pop culture (e.g. films, video games) for "show and tell" during the course of the quarter. At the end of the quarter students will turn in a 2-page reflection paper.

The DRG will be for 1-3 units and will take place via Zoom on Monday at 3:30pm. PhD student schedules will be accommodated first, followed by MS students, followed by BS students. This DRG is at capacity for Autumn 2023 and no longer accepting applications.

Winter 2023

The Production of Astronomical Knowledge in the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST)

We are seeking a small group of 2-4 doctoral, masters and/or undergraduate students interested in studying the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time. 

The Rubin Observatory in Chile is slated to come online next year and begin the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), a wide angle, decade-long survey of the southern night sky. The LSST will leverage the largest digital camera ever created to produce what has been described as a 10-year long high definition video of the cosmos. This will give scientists the ability to track changes and movement over time, and in turn ask fundamental questions about the past and future of our solar system, the composition of the universe, and much more. The telescope will produce data of unprecedented size and speed, churning out 20 terabytes of raw data nightly and hundreds of petabytes of processed data over the course of the decade. Data releases will be made available broadly within the astronomy community at regular intervals, some nightly and some annually. 

The scale, immediacy, and openness of LSST data will ostensibly obviate many of the tradeoffs that characterized the preceding era of optical astronomy by sidestepping competition for access and observing time at scarce facilities. As such, LSST has the potential to democratize the field of astronomy by dramatically increasing access to astronomical data. At the same time, LSST data can only be made useful through the collaborative development and use of novel computational tools and techniques capable of handling the volume and velocity of data produced by the Rubin telescope. As such, the LSST has been imagined and structured as a convergent endeavor involving coordination and sense-making among astrophysicists, data scientists, and software engineers. 

This DRG will be jointly led by Dr. Anissa Tanweer, Research Scientist at the eScience Institute and Will Sutherland, PhD Candidate in HCDE, with supervision and guidance from Dr. Charlotte Lee of HCDE. Our own goal in this project is to better understand the negotiation of access in this new model of big data astronomy exemplified by the LSST. 

Students in this DRG will be part of exploratory research that will kick off longer-term ethnographic inquiry into the LSST project and the communities that support it. Some of the broad questions that may be of interest include: 

  • What does the role of software in analyzing LSST mean for who gets included in the production of astronomical knowledge? 
  • How does LSST membership, access to LSST data, and access to software tools mediate the production of scientific knowledge across various kinds of teams, experts, and institutions?
  • How does the availability of LSST data open up new directions of inquiry in astronomy, and what are the implications for how the field—and society more broadly—come to understand the universe? 

We anticipate that students will benefit from the following opportunities in this DRG: 

  • Development of qualitative ethnographic research skills, including interviews, field observations, and/or documentary analysis
  • Exposure to theories about the organization of knowledge production
  • Window into the making of cutting-edge scientific research
  • Contribution to the early stages of planning for long term ethnographic research with the chance to influence the trajectory of that work
  • Possibility of longer-term collaborations

Winter 2022

Creative Reflections on Working During Covid Times

Directed by Charlotte P. Lee, Associate Professor

This studio-format DRG is meant to get your creative juices flowing by reflecting on being a human being trying to work during the Covid pandemic. By reflecting on the particulars of the emotional, practical, or social ease or difficulty of what we are doing during Covid, we learn about work, ourselves, and each other. Each week we will decide on a topic and a medium (e.g. “loss” and a photograph, or “masks” and haikus, “family” and a crayon drawing). No topic of medium will be mandatory but I asks students to try hard to stick with the program since what makes this special is the shared experience. Each meeting will begin with us sharing what we’ve made and then end with choice of the next prompt and medium. Your work does not need to be “good” it just needs to exist.

During week 10 we will each choose our favorite three products that we are willing to share and make our creative works (or digital versions of them) available to the public online.

This 1-credit CR/NC DRG will meet once a week starting week 3. We will meet via Zoom for most meetings. We may meet in-person at the end of quarter if there is a majority interest in doing so.

Spring 2021

Cooperatives and Sociotechnical Design

Directed by Scott Mainwaring, Affiliate Assistant Professor, HCDE
Co-Directed by Charlotte P. Lee, Associate Professor, HCDE

How can we design and develop technologies that foreground critical concerns of social justice and inclusion? There are no simple answers. One path forward is to take inspiration from the idea of cooperatives and cooperative principles. What traditions and histories can we draw upon for inspiration–and as cautionary tales? In this DRG, we will focus on cooperatives and cooperative principles, both inside and outside of technology domains. We will discuss what we find along the way and produce an annotated bibliography to help technology students and professionals learn about designing for (re)distribution of power, wealth, and knowledge. This is a large topic, with few scalable success stories, more than a few controversies and failures, but nevertheless powerful underlying ideas that have persisted since (at least) the 19th century. 

Cooperatives present an alternative to existing structures of capitalist exploitation and hierarchy, based on mutual aid and joint ownership. Cooperativism is a set of theories and principles (see the Seven Cooperative Principles) embodied to greater and lesser degrees in a wide range of practices, platforms, and companies, including:

Movements such as participatory design, citizen science, and platform cooperativism
Financial cooperatives such as credit unions, savings banks, and informal ROSCAs
Peer-production technology platforms like blockchain and wikis
Co-op businesses, member-owned (e.g., REI and PCC), worker-owned (e.g., WinCo Foods, Spain’s Mondragon), or citizen-owned (e.g., rural electric cooperatives and public utility districts)

This DRG will conduct exploratory research, to identify key concepts, questions, readings, and examples, as a 2-3 credit, active reading and discussion group, focused on key questions for HCDE researchers and designers. Each week students will read and write reflections on a primary reading, with one student taking the lead in presenting the reading, leading discussion, and drafting an annotation for bibliography deliverable. Secondary readings and examples will be explored throughout the quarter as well. For additional credit, students can produce materials to accompany the jointly produced annotated bibliography.

Spring 2020

The Collaborative Marine Atlas Project (CMAP): Evaluating a Data Portal for Ocean Science

Led by PhD students Andy Neang and Will Sutherland and Associate Professor Charlotte Lee

Data portals and repositories are increasingly becoming a central tool in the field of oceanography. As oceanographers increasingly share and integrate datasets from different labs (and across disciplines), such repositories become important sites of collaborative work and interdisciplinary encounters.

In this DRG we will engage a data exploration tool in the early stages of its development, and attempt to evaluate how it might facilitate early-career oceanographers in finding and making sense of unfamiliar data sets. We will conduct user studies with oceanography students and researchers with the purpose of making recommendations to the tool’s design team. We will also explore how this tool might facilitate data sharing in a large, interdisciplinary collaboration, and explore the assumptions and implications that tools like this carry with them.

Through this DRG you will gain experience with the following:

Conducting user studies
Evaluating data and developing a report for designers
Light background reading on collaborative tools and data-centric science

Knowledge of oceanography is not required!

This DRG will tentatively meet on Thursdays, from 1:30-3:30pm or Fridays, from 1:30-3:30pm. Participants can sign up for 2-3 credits.

Questions? Please contact:

Andy Neang (neanga@uw.edu), PhD Student
Will Sutherland (willsk88@uw.edu), PhD Student
Prof. Charlotte Lee (cplee@uw.edu), HCDE Faculty

Winter 2020

Reading Group on Data-Centric Approaches and the Changing Practices and Cultures of Science 

Co-directed by Will Sutherland, PhD Student and Charlotte P. Lee, Associate Professor

We will be reading Sabina Leonelli’s excellent book on Data-Centric Biology: A Philosophical Study. Science and its relation to data is co-evolving with the proliferation and increasing convergence of digital technologies. Those of us who are interested in helping develop information infrastructures, for science and for other areas of endeavor, are faced not only with changing practices and technologies “on the ground” but also a larger cultural shift taking place in organizations and institutions. This book will help us to think about new data and technology practices in the context of changing organizations and institutions. While the book focuses on biology and life sciences, many of the concerns and issues presented are applicable to a wide variety of information infrastructures.

The book addresses key concerns: what now counts as data; existing conceptions of the role and use of evidence in the life sciences and elsewhere; what counts as scientific knowledge at a time of significant technological and institutional change; how this relates to the social worlds within which data are produced, circulated, and used; and under which conditions large datasets can and should be organized and interpreted in order to generate knowledge.

This is a 1 credit DRG. We will read 1 chapter per week. Each chapter is about 20-25 pages. The book has many rich ideas but is also very readable. Students are welcome to bring in additional relevant readings to the group.

The approximate schedule is as follows:

Weeks 1: Introduction
Week 2-8: Discuss each chapter, one at a time. One designated person will summarize. Everyone brings 2 questions for discussion.
Weeks 9: Discussion
Weeks 10: Write a 1-page reflection to share.

Creepy technology

Winter 2019

Co-directed by Scott Mainwaring, Affiliate Assistant Professor; Charlotte Lee, Associate Professor

With the rise of infrastructures of surveillance capitalism, increasingly intimate personal technologies, security breaches and risks, and technological impersonations, a range of user experiences have been or are being termed "creepy". But what is creepiness, and what distinct varieties of creepy technologies and experiences are there?

In this DRG we will explore and critique theories of creepiness and relevant empirical data, and collect and analyze creepy technologies and technological experiences. We will survey the relevant literature with in HCI, but also draw in work from the social sciences and humanities. We will also bring in examples and stories of technocreepiness for discussion and analysis. The goal is both to arrive at a better understanding of this loaded term, and to inspire and ground follow-on research and writing by DRG participants. DRG participants will lead discussions on readings and on examples they will bring in for show-and-tell.

Developing a trajectory for collaborative cyberinfrastructure for ocean science

Autumn 2018

Co-directed by Andy Neang, PhD student; Michael Beach, PhD student; Charlotte Lee, Associate Professor

How do ocean science researchers collaborate with each other today? How do they want to be able to collaborate next year? Or in ten years? How can we support the design of increasingly complex, long-term, and multidisciplinary collaborations? How do we design information systems and tools that work for current practice while also enabling breakthroughs previously thought unattainable?

This directed research group will help develop a trajectory for an oceanographic cyberinfrastructure project that supports emergent scientific collaborations. During the first few weeks, we will dive deep into a rich ethnographic dataset that our lab has been collecting from the field in order to become familiar with the design/research space. Using design sprint methodologies to guide collaboration, we will create memos, identify key findings, and map out the connections between a multi-disciplinary group of investigators from oceanography, statistics, data science, ecology, biogeochemistry and remote sensing, and the flow of data. Mid-quarter we will synthesize what we have created and develop visualizations to present to the science community that we are designing for. The final weeks of the quarter will be used for reflective writings.

The approximate schedule for the focus of each week is as follows:

  • Weeks 1–3: Get familiar with the dataset. Create annotation, memos, key findings in a collaborative way.
  • Weeks 4–8: Synthesize what we've created. Create maps, visualizations, and other presentation materials.
  • Weeks 9–10: Reflection

Our research group is looking for four to six highly motivated group members to join us for Autumn 2018 quarter. BS, MS, and PhD students are all welcome. Participants in this research group will enroll for 3–4 credits (CR/NC) unless with special permission from the instructor through HCDE 596 (for graduate students) or HCDE 496 (for undergraduate students). We will meet for 90 minutes once per week. Meeting time is TBD and will scheduled for convenience of all participants.

 

Comics Made By You

Autumn 2017

Prof. Charlotte Lee with Jeremy Kayes

Meeting times: Wednesday or Thursday Evenings (TBD)

Comics can be a form of user experience design, of storyboarding and of technical communication. They can serve to convey complex ideas, concepts, and emotions in an accessible and sometimes profound way giving us the power to explore and tell stories. 

This is the fourth iteration of this DRG. In 2014, we drew comics describing and defining different aspects of Human Centered Design and Engineering. In 2015, we used comics to explore and explain the concept of the sociotechnical - what it means and why we study it. Last year we drew our inspiration from Vannevar Bush’s 1945 article “As We May Think” that envisions, and in some cases predicts, the future of computing. Using that article as a touchstone, we explored the themes of inspiration, time and memory. This year’s theme is TBD

The goal of this directed research group is for participants to create and ultimately publish a collection of comics related to the history and/or future of human centered design and computing. You do not need to be able to draw. If you can draw a stick figure, you can draw a comic. Depending on how fast you work, 3 to 4 complete pages is a realistic goal for the quarter. Please note that deliverables are due weekly in order to meet our production deadline. This class is fun but it also provides steady work.

This DRG will be co-taught by Jeremy Kayes, author of the book The Indies and founder and organizer of the 5-year-old, 800 member, Seattle Indie Comic and Game Artist (SICAGA) Meetup group. Jeremy has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University and works as a User Interface Developer.

Students will be responsible for buying their own art supplies and for getting access to Adobe Photoshop through UW resources, such as Odegaard Learning Commons, or by purchasing a license. We will discuss art supplies during the first class.

BS, MS, and PhD students are all welcome. Students will enroll for 3 or more credits (CR/NC) through HCDE 596 (for graduate students) or HCDE 496 (for undergraduate students). 

Developing the Model of Coordinated Action (MoCA)

Winter 2017

Andrew Neang, PhD Student
Prof. Charlotte P. Lee

As computerized technologies and the practices they support continue to grow in diversity, ubiquity, complexity, and scale, the number and type of research topics related to the study of collaborative systems simultaneously continue to proliferate. It has become increasingly urgent to find ways to describe the problem space of practitioners and researchers in the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). If we are designing to support coordinated action we should know more about what coordinated action is and have better ways to talk about the variations among them.

In this DRG, students will be introduced to the Model of Coordinated Action or MoCA (Lee & Paine, 2015) and help the team further develop ordinal measures for the seven dimensions of this conceptual framework. This work contributes to Prof. Lee’s on-going efforts to further develop the overall theoretical framework and to build bridges between the framework and providing design guidance. As a group, we will conduct a retrospective content analysis of CSCW publications from over the past decade. Students will also work on identifying and presenting relevant literature for group discussion to help advance select dimensions of MoCA.

To get some background and details about the project, check out the HCDE Seminar Series talks here: http://www.hcde.washington.edu/seminar-series/lee

Our research group is looking for up to to 2 responsible and highly motivated individuals to join us for Winter 2017. In this project, successful students have generally had an interest in collaboration and organizations, a general interest in theoretical ideas and concepts, and are self-motivated. BS, MS, and PhD students are all welcome. However, given limited space we will be interviewing applicants. Students will enroll for 2-3 credits (CR/NC) unless with special permission from the instructor through HCDE 596 (for graduate students) or HCDE 496 (for undergraduate students). This research group will meet once per week during the winter quarter for 1 hour and there will be one all-meeting that might be held on a weekend. Time and date is TBD. Students interested in this research group should contact Andrew Neang (neanga@uw.edu) with a statement about their interests and relevant background and/or qualifications.

Paper on Model of Coordinated Action (MoCA)

Comics Made By You: Reflecting on Vannevar Bush’s “As We May Think” 71 Years Later 

Autumn 2016

Prof. Charlotte Lee with Jeremy Kayes
 
Mondays, 6:30-8 p.m.
420 Sieg Hall
 
Comics can be a form of user experience design, of storyboarding and of technical communication. They can serve to convey complex ideas, concepts, and emotions in an accessible and sometimes profound way giving us the power to explore and tell stories. 

This is the third iteration of this DRG. In 2014, we drew comics describing and defining different aspects of Human Centered Design and Engineering. In 2015, we used comics to explore and explain the concept of the sociotechnical - what it means and why we study it. This year, we will draw our inspiration from Vannevar Bush’s 1945 article “As We May Think” that envisions, and in some cases predicts, the future of computing. Using that article as a touchstone, we will explore what it means to look forward, both then and now.

The goal of this directed research group is for participants to create and ultimately publish a collection of comics about the history and/or future of human centered design and computing. You do not need to be able to draw. If you can draw a stick figure, you can draw a comic. Depending on how fast you work and how many units you sign up for, 3 to 4 complete pages is a realistic goal for the quarter.
This DRG will be co-taught by Jeremy Kayes, author of the book The Indies and founder and organizer of the 5-year-old, 800 member, Seattle Indie Comic and Game Artist (SICAGA) Meetup group. Jeremy has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University and works as a User Interface Developer.

Students will be responsible for buying their own art supplies and for getting access to Adobe Photoshop through UW resources, such as Odegaard Learning Commons, or by purchasing a license. We will discuss art supplies during the first class.

BS, MS, and PhD students are all welcome, but we are limiting participation to 10 students. Students will enroll for 2-3 credits (CR/NC) through HCDE 596 (for graduate students) or HCDE 496 (for undergraduate students). 

Dealing with People Coming and Going: Turnover in Coordinated Action

Autumn 2016

Thursdays, 2 p.m. or 2:30 p.m.

425 Sieg Hall

We are looking for students for Fall 2016 to participate in a reading group/workshop that will help develop a part of a conceptual framework for the field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), the Model of Coordinated Action or MoCA (Lee & Paine, 2015).

We will focus on one of the seven dimensions of MoCA: turnover. Turnover characterizes the rapidity and ease with which people enter and leave and leave a collaboration. Collaborations with low turnover may be characterized by stability, closed boundaries, and perhaps formally defined participant roles (e.g. student project groups). Situations of high turnover are found in more emergent collaborations characterized by mass participation, porous boundaries, and tolerance for rapidly changing membership (e.g. crowdsourced disaster response).

Turnover is an under-researched area. We will look at turnover as it has been analyzed in CSCW, HCI, and other fields such as organization studies, sociology, human resource management, churn prediction, and software development. We will also looked at related concepts such as barriers to entry, churn monitoring and prediction, turnover consequences, ethical leadership, change management, and emergent organizations.

The first part of the the DRG will involve a reading group and the second part of the course will involve students identifying and presenting relevant primary (e.g. informal interviews) or secondary materials (e.g. newspaper or journal articles) for group discussion. At the conclusion of the class we will synthesize our findings.

Paper on Model of Coordinated Action (MoCA) can be accessed these two ways:

Conducting a User Study of Farmer's Markets

Come join us as we conduct a user study of low-income women with children who frequent a farmer’s market in King County. This study will inform potential designs that will facilitate connections between small, local food producers and local consumers who want and need access to fresher, healthier foods. Our goal is to help promote small, local farms, and to encourage a local food system that is environmentally responsible and promotes food justice.
 
For Spring quarter, we will begin with a crash course on the qualitative research methods where students will learn how to interview people and how to conduct participant-observation research, such as shadowing people as they shop. Students will gain practical experience collecting, transcribing, and organizing qualitative research data. We are looking for motivated BS, MS, and PhD students.
 
In the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), the area of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is increasingly looking at larger and more complex systems. But one type of system that seems to deserve more attention is the food system. Food systems include an amazing variety of things from seeds and soil, to tractors, to farmers and their communities, to consumers and their communities, to people, businesses and factories that grow, package, process, distribute, or consume food. More abstract things like culture and policies can be part of a food system too. Farmer's markets are one part of a larger food system, but are a promising place to start working towards improving sustainable and healthy food practices.
 
Participants in this research group will enroll for 3-5 credits (CR/NC) through HCDE 596 (for graduate students) or HCDE 496 (for undergraduate students). This research group will meet once per week during the Winter quarter. Time is TBD but it will be sometime Monday through Thursday between 10am and 4pm. Students interested in this research group should email Prof. Charlotte Lee (cplee@uw.edu) by March 17. In your email, please tell me what your interest is in the topic and what experience you may have conducting user studies.
 
Prerequisite: Students should read the first 5 chapters of Oran Hesterman's book Fair Food: Growing a Healthy Sustainable Food System for All by the end of the first week of Spring quarter. It is a quick read.
Comics Made By You: Human Centered Design & Engineering for Everyone
 
Prof. Charlotte P. Lee, Computer Supported Collaboration Laboratory
(with Jeremy Kayes)
 
Comics can be seen as a form of user experience design. In 2006, Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics gave the closing plenary talk for the ACM SIG CHI Conference on Human-Computer Interaction to talk about the purpose, visual formats, and structure of comics. Comics can be used as a way to convey complex ideas, concepts, and emotions in an accessible and sometimes profound way giving us the power to explore and to tell stories. For this DRG we will tell stories about what it means to do Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE).
 
The goal of this directed research group is for the members of the group to create and ultimately publish a collection of comics about HCDE broadly construed. For example, we might expect BS students to draw comics about their experiences learning about HCDE and doing internships, MS students to draw about their favorite projects or professional experiences, and PhD students to take on the grand challenge of turning their research in to comics. You do not be able to draw. If you can draw a stick figure, you can draw a comic. Depending on how fast you work and how many units you sign up for, 3 to 6 complete pages is a realistic goal for the quarter.
 
We will be joined this quarter by Jeremy Kayes, author of the book The Indies and Founder and Organizer of the 3-year-old, 520 member, Seattle Indie Comic and Game Artist (SICAGA) Meetup group. Jeremy has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University and works as a User Interface Developer.
 
Students will be responsible for buying their own art supplies and for getting access to Adobe Photoshop through UW resources, such as Odegaard Learning Commons http://www.washington.edu/itconnect/learn/technology-spaces/odegaard-learning-commons or by purchasing a license. We will discuss art supplies during the first class.
BS, MS, and PhD students are all welcome, but we are limiting participation to ~10 students. Students will enroll for 2-3 credits (CR/NC) through HCDE 596 (for graduate students) or HCDE 496 (for undergraduate students). This research group will meet once per week during the Fall 2014 quarter on Thursday evenings from 6 to 7:30pm starting October 2. Location is TBD.
 
Interested students should email Prof. Charlotte Lee (cplee@uw.edu) no later than Tuesday, September 24th, 2014. Please write a short paragraph about why you want to be invited to join this group and jot down at least 2 ideas about what you might like to do a short comic about (You can change your mind later).  We anticipate that admission will be competitive.
Designing a User Study of Farmer's Markets: What do Growers and Eaters Want?
 
Our research group is looking for highly motivated group members! BS, MS, and PhD students are all welcome but this group is limited to 6 students. This research group is a follow-on to a Fall Directed Research Group in which we read the book Fair Food: Growing a Healthy Sustainable Food System for All by Oran B. Hesterman. As a group, we have decided to undertake a user study of growers and eaters who frequent farmer’s markets in King County. This study will inform potential designs that will facilitate connections between small, local food producers and local consumers who want and need access to fresher, healthier foods. Our goal is to help promote small, local farms, and to encourage a local food system that is environmentally responsible, and that benefits local communities.
 
However, before we can collect data, we must first design the study and fulfill institutional requirements to conduct research at the University of Washington. For Winter quarter we are going to design and set up a user study. This Winter quarter we will do some literature review, negotiate entrée, design the study, and submit the required paperwork to the University of Washington's Human Subjects Review Board.
 
In the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), the area of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is increasingly looking at larger and more complex systems. But one type of system that seems to deserve more attention is the food system. Food systems include an amazing variety of things from seeds and soil, to tractors, to farmers and their communities, to consumers and their communities, to people, businesses and factories that grow, package, process, distribute, or consume food. More abstract things like culture and policies can be part of a food system too. Farmer’s markets are one part of a larger food system, but are a promising place to start working towards improving local access and awareness.
 
Participants in this research group will enroll for 1-2 credits (CR/NC) through HCDE 596 (for graduate students) or HCDE 496 (for undergraduate students). This research group will meet once per week during the Winter quarter. Time is TBD but it will be sometime Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday between 10am and 4pm. Students interested in this research group should email Prof. Charlotte Lee (cplee@uw.edu) by January 4, 2013. In your email, please tell me what your interest is in the topic and what experience you may have conduct user studies.
 
Priority will be given to students who indicate an interest in continuing on with the group Spring quarter to participate in data collection and preliminary analysis. You need not have participated in the previous, Fall, research group to participate but students should have read the first 5 chapters of Oran Hesterman's book Fair Food by the end of the first week of Winter quarter.
Food! Reading Group on Sustainable Food Systems
 
In the research group we will talk about food and food systems and read and discuss one book over the course of the quarter: Fair Food: Growing a Healthy Sustainable Food System for All by Oran B. Hesterman. Our goal is to acquire a basic understanding of what food systems are and to think about food systems as a potential design space for our field.
 
In the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), the area of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is increasingly looking at larger and more complex systems. For example, a lot of recent research has focused on larger scale information infrastructures used by a lot of different people with a lot of different priorities—different stakeholders. In related areas such as Ubiquitous Computing, much attention has been paid to power systems, especially local consumption, for example electricity use in the home. But one type of system that seems to deserve more attention is the food system.
 
Food systems include an amazing variety of things from seeds and soil, to tractors, to farmers and their communities, to consumers and their communities, to people, businesses and factories that grow, package, process, distribute, or consume food. More abstract things like culture and policies can be part of a food system too. Food systems are everywhere! We need food to survive and we also enjoy it for pleasure. Food is a part of our lives. In order to have food in our lives, almost all of us rely on a food system or multiple food systems. What might be some ways that HCDE could get involved in food system? Maybe we can come up with some ideas!
 
After the first week, two students will lead discussions of chapters of the book. Discussion leaders will be expected to write and share a half to three-quarters page, single-spaced text discussion prompt including a brief summary of that week's reading and 3 prompts for discussion and one other discussion prompt that could be a website for an organization, flier, photograph, food, or some other object.
 
Our research group is looking for highly motivated group members that are committed to doing the reading every week and committed to learning about food! BS, MS, and PhD students are all welcome but this group is limited to 7 students. Participants in this research group will enroll for 2-3 credits (CR/NC) through HCDE 596 (for graduate students) or HCDE 496 (for undergraduate students). This research group will meet once per week during the Fall 2012 quarter on Mondays at 4 PM. Students interested in this research group should email Prof. Charlotte Lee (cplee@uw.edu) by September 24, 2012.
Creating a Resource to Map the HCDE Design Theory Landscape
 
One of the defining elements of any field is the body of theory on which it relies. Our Department name, Human Centered Design & Engineering, is not directly affiliated with a particular field. However, HCDE is affiliated with a number of fields such as HCI and the area of study called Sociotechnical Systems. What might a body of theory for HCDE look like?
 
This group will be partly a reading group, although our mission for this quarter is to produce a useful reference for the HCDE community and beyond. Our research group will survey the landscape of design theory readings that are currently most relevant to HCDE and to develop a general understanding of the relationships among them. We will produce annotated bibliographies and information structures that will help motivate and contextualize the larger undertakings of HCDE and related research from the standpoint of theory. The depth and breadth of our survey will be partially determined by the number of research group participants.
 
The approximate schedule for the focus of each week is as follows:
Weeks 1–5: Read far and wide. Assemble lists and agree upon a desirable level of annotation.
Weeks 6–7: Synthesize and structure what we've read. Create structure such as timeline.
Weeks 8: Design the online reference
Weeks 9–10: Execute design
 
Our research group is looking for highly motivated group members to join us Spring of 2012. Students at the PhD, MS, and BS level are welcome to contact the instructor to be considered for enrollment.
 
Participants in this research group will enroll for 3-4 credits (CR/NC) through HCDE 596 (for graduate students) or HCDE 496 (for undergraduate students). This research group will meet once per week for 1 hour. Time and date is TBD. Students interested in this research group should email Prof. Charlotte Lee (cplee@uw.edu) by Thursday, March 8. Please note that admittance to the group is competitive and we ask that applicants submit a formal application including a resume or CV and a brief cover letter with a description of their background, interest in the research topic, and particular skills and experience.
Reading Group on Scientific Cyberinfrastructures and Emergent Systems
 
Science is often at the forefront of technological use and development. New technologies and practices that start within the milieu of scientific research often propagate to industry and to everyday users. Looking at new technology and development issues in science is a way to peek into the future.
 
The study of large-scale advanced computational infrastructures (cyberinfrastructure) development and use for scientists, also known as e-Science and e-Research, is a growing area of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). The advent of new technologies ranging from simple social media applications to high performance computation have changed the landscape of how research can be conducted and what research questions are now answerable. This changing landscape is challenging for CSCW. How do scientists collaborate with each other today? How do scientists want to be able to collaborate next year? Or in ten years? How can we support the design of increasingly complex, long-term, and multidisciplinary collaborations? How do we design information systems and tools that work for current practice and that can also enable previously unachievable breakthroughs.
 
This group will be a reading group focused primarily on the budding cyberinfrastructure literature, but may also include related literature on topics that may or may not be specifically scientific in nature such as social media and crowdsourcing, data sharing, collaboration and teamwork, scientific computing, and emergent or complex systems.
After the first week, students will lead discussions Our primary goal for this group is to have a grasp on the latest cyberinfrastructure literature and to have developed a solid conceptual understanding of some of the pressing issues in the field. We will produce annotated bibliographies and literature reviews that will help motivate and contextualize the larger undertakings of the CSC Lab.
 
Our research group is looking for highly motivated group members to join us autumn of 2010. Reading groups being what they are, you should not sign up for this research group unless you are committed to doing the reading every week, participating in discussion, and providing deliverables on time. This research group is geared towards doctoral students. However, highly motivated MS and BS are welcome to contact the instructor to be considered for enrollment.
 
Participants in this research group will enroll for 2-4 credits (CR/NC) through HCDE 596 (for graduate students) or HCDE 496 (for undergraduate students). This research group will meet once per week during the Fall 2011 quarter on Tuesdays from 4:00 – 5:00pm.  Students interested in this research group should email Prof. Charlotte Lee (cplee@uw.edu) by September 16, 2011. Please note that admittance to the group is competitive and we ask that applicants submit a formal application including a resume or CV and a brief cover letter with a description of their background, interest in the research topic, and particular skills and experience.
Investigating the Role of Online Calendar Use in the Cultivation and Maintenance of Relationships
 
Modern OCS, such as Google Calendar, evolved from early groupware systems used in organization-specific, professional environments. Today, software supporting all manner of collaboration has been adopted for use in non-professional settings. Our earlier exploratory research investigated how activities and relationships are supported and constrained by OCS. We found that, as with other types of work, relationship work entails particular concerns and practices that are very much reflected in both the motivations and use of OCS.
 
However, too little is known about the role of calendaring in the cultivation, maintenance, and dissolution of friendships and romantic relationships. This research group will focus on exploring this topic with a demographic survey and semi-structured interviews. Using a grounded theory approach, we will generate a conceptual framework that accounts for our research questions. Data collection will be undertaken at subjects' homes, in our laboratory, and in areas around the UW campus.
 
This is a hands-on research group where students will help the Director and Research Assistants (RAs) with conducting interviews, analyzing data sets comprised of interviews and observation notes, coding data, and more. As students will be conducting with study participants and working with actual interview research data, discretion is a requirement for participation.
 
Our research group is looking for highly motivated group members to join us Winter and Spring quarter of 2011. Top candidates will have experience coding qualitative data, conducting interviews, and acquaintance with the field of CSCW (computer supported cooperative work). There is a minimum commitment of 2 consecutive quarters of participation; exceptions may be made for graduating students who can commit to a minimum of 3 credits in 1 quarter.
 
Participants in this research group will enroll for 2-5 credits (CR/NC) through HCDE 596 (for graduate students) or HCDE 496 (for undergraduate students). This research group will meet once per week during the Winter 2011 quarter on Wednesdays from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM.
 
Students interested in this research group should contact Charlotte Lee (cplee@u.) and Alex Thayer (huevos@u.) by December 17, 2010. Please note that admittance to the group is competitive and we ask that applicants submit a formal application including a resume and a cover letter with a description of background, interest in the research, and particular skills. Alex or another RA will follow up and conduct a phone interview to assess your interest and skill set.
Scientific Cyberinfrastructures and e-Research: Surveying the Literature
 
Science is often at the forefront of technological use and development. New technologies and practices that start within the milieu of scientific research often propagate to industry and to everyday users. Looking at new technology and development issues in science is a way to peek into the future.
 
The study of large-scale advance computational infrastructures (cyberinfrastructure) development and use for scientists, also known as e-Science and e-Research, is a growing area of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). The advent of new technologies ranging from simple social media applications to high performance computation have changed the landscape of how research can be conducted and what research questions are now answerable. This changing landscape is challenging for CSCW. How do scientists collaborate with each other today? How do scientists want to be able to collaborate next year? Or in ten years? How can we support the design of increasingly complex, long-term, and multidisciplinary collaborations? How do we design information systems and tools that work for current practice and that can also enable previously unachievable breakthroughs.
 
This group will be a reading group focused on the budding cyberinfrastructure literature. The first few weeks will be designated for assigned readings that all students will read. During the remaining weeks students will lead discussions. If there are enough participants, we may split up into topical subgroups. Our primary goal for this group is to have a grasp of the latest cyberinfrastructure literature and to have developed a solid conceptual understanding of the pressing issues in the field. We will produce annotated bibliographies and literature reviews that will help motivate and contextualize the larger undertakings of the CSC Lab.
 
Our research group is looking for highly motivated group members to join us autumn of 2010. Reading groups being what they are, you should not sign up for this research group unless you are committed to doing the reading every week, participating in discussion, and providing deliverables on time. This research group is geared towards doctoral students. However, highly motivated MS and BS may contact the instructor to be considered for enrollment.
 
Participants in this research group will enroll for 2-5 credits (CR/NC) through HCDE 596 (for graduate students) or HCDE 496 (for undergraduate students). This research group will meet once per week during the Winter 2010 quarter on Wednesdays from 4pm to 5pm.
 
Students interested in this research group should contact Charlotte Lee (cplee@uw.edu) by September 15, 2010. Please note that admittance to the group is competitive and we ask that applicants submit a formal application including resume and a cover letter with a description of their background, interest in the research, and particular skills.
Computer Supported Collaboration
 
How do we cooperate through computerized tools? How does computerization change the way we interact with our workmates and our friends? How does computerization change the way science is done? This research group will look at particular instances of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) to understand aspects of how our lives as social beings interweave with our technology-filled world.
 
This research group will focus on topics in Computer Supported Cooperative Work. This is a hands-on research group where students will help the Director with ongoing research projects including: studying the social aspects of online calendar sharing, evaluating and analyzing the adoption and use in a Amazon Kindle DX pilot study for the academic environment, and analyzing data sets comprised of interviews and observations. Data sets that need to be analyzed may include interviews with biologists, ecologists, bioinformaticists, computer scientists, engineers, or astronomers. As students will be working with actual interview research data, discretion is a requirement for participation.
 
Our research group is looking for highly motivated group members to join us winter of 2010. Students with experience coding qualitative data; a background in social science, computer science, or biology, skilled at analyzing texts, interested in the social study of science and technology; experience submitting IRBs, or who are Google Calendar or Kindle DX users are particularly encouraged to apply. There is a minimum commitment of 2 consecutive quarters of participation. Exceptions may be made for graduating students who can commit to a minimum of 3 credits.
 
Participants in this research group will enroll for 2-5 credits (CR/NC) through HCDE 596 (for graduate students) or HCDE 496 (for undergraduate students). This research group will meet once per week during the Winter 2010 quarter on Wednesdays from 4:30pm to 5:30pm.
 
Students interested in this research group should contact Charlotte Lee (cplee@u.) or Alex Thayer (huevos@u.) by December 14, 2009. Please note that admittance to the group is competitive and we ask that applicants submit a formal application including resume and a cover letter with a description of their background, interest in the research, and particular skills.