Hey! My name is Sam the socialite, if you have any questions about the LSC, I can help you out!

I am a big fan of social computing and can help you out whenever you need me. Common questions that people ask when they come to the Lab for Social computing website are about the following topics:

If you have a question and can't seem to find an answer by looking through the page, try a quick search. If you still can't find an answer, why don't you just 'Ask Sam' and I will get back to you as soon as possible!

Enjoy your stay!

Name: Elouise Oyzon

Title: Faculty

Homepage:
http://weez.oyzon.com
http://it.rit.edu/~ero

Blurb: Elouise Oyzon is a professor of Information Technology. She comes to IT by way of fine arts and computer animation. She holds a bachelors degree in Fine Arts, printmaking (etchings, lithography, woodcuts), and her masters degree in Fine Arts, Computer Animation. Her work has been shown in exhibitions and shows internationally. Current work utilizes technologies to enhance interactive performance works. Additionally she is exploring the creation of virtual collaborative spaces. While her route to information technology has been unusual, she brings as her primary interest the goal to use interactive multimedia to make rich aesthetic experiences, and to explore its communication and creative potential.

Name: Tim Engstrom

Title: Faculty

Homepage: http://www.rit.edu/~692dept/Engstrom.htm

Blurb: Tim Engström is a New York stater who studied initially in New York, then in Sweden, Britain, and Germany - Tübingen and Göttingen - then went back to Edinburgh, Scotland, for his Ph.D. When not inside, he’s outside; when not teaching, reading or writing, he tinkers with an old house or old stuff or travels to avoid having to fix the old stuff; he taught first at the University of Hawaii before coming to RIT, where he's been since 1988. He prefers the Adirondacks to strip malls, skiing to faculty meetings, fictional truth to logical truth, old vehicles to new vehicles, some philosophy books to other philosophy books.

Name: Christopher Egert

Title: Faculty

URL: http://www.it.rit.edu/~cae

Blurb: Christopher Egert is an Assistant Professor in the Information Technology Department at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo and received his M.S. and B.S. in Computer Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Along with his interests in computer science and information technology, Dr. Egert has worked in the area of media studies and new media. Dr. Egert's research interests include the development of collaborative online learning spaces, the development of alternative user interface and interaction experiences for collaborative desktop virtual reality, and the development of "edutainment" gaming systems. Dr. Egert is also a contributing member of the "Innovations in Computing Education" virtual research group and also contributes to tiltFactor, a virtual research group that focuses on game and digital culture. Dr. Egert teaches courses in multimedia programming, human-computer interaction, and web database integration.

Name: Jonathan Schull
Title: Faculty
URL: http://it.rit.edu/~jis/

Blog:http://jonschull.blogspot.com

Most Mesmerizing Social Computing project:MultiChat

Blurb: Jonathan Schull received a BS in psychology from Reed College in1975, and a Ph.D. in Biological Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1980. He taught at Haverford College until 1992, when he gave up tenure, wrote some seminal patents on digital rights management, and founded an internet-based digital commerce company called SoftLock Services, aka DigitalGoods. The company peaked during "The Great E-book boom of March 2000" when Steven King published his e-novella Riding the Bullet, at which time the company numbered 75 employees, received 25 million dollars in investment, and was listed on NASDAQ. Two years later, the "internet bubble" burst and the company closed its doors and sold its patents to a major media company, for whom Schull now consults. In 2003, Schull joined the faculty in Information Technology at RIT where he teaches Interface Design.

Throughout this period Schull has been concerned with the co-evolution of biological and informational social ecologies. Past research efforts have concerned metacognition in human, animal, and artificial systems, the application of evolutionary theory to the design of digital rights management systems, and authorship of the Open Ebook Forum's ontology document "Framework for an E-publishing Ecology". His current research has to do with self- organizing computer networks, and communication systems that augment human abilities, with special attention to deafness and information visualization.

Name: Susan Barnes

Title: Associate Director

URL: http://www.rit.edu/~sbbgpt/ecomm/

Blurb: Susan B. Barnes, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She is the author of Online Connections: Internet Interpersonal Relationships (Hampton Press, 2001), Web Research:Selecting, Evaluating, Citing (with Marie Radford and Linda Barr, Allyn & Bacon, 2002), and Computer-Mediated Communication: Human-to-Human Communication Across the Internet (Allyn & Bacon, 2003). Dr. Barnes has presented and published numerous articles and book chapters on computer related topics, including interpersonal computing, computers in organizations, virtual communities, and the history of graphical user interfaces. Her book chapters have appeared in _Real Law @ Virtual Space, Communication and Cyberspace, Emerging Issues in Cyberculture, and Computers and Education. Presently, Dr. Barnes is the Visual Communication Series editor for Hampton Press.

Name: Elizabeth Lawley

Title: Director

URL: http://www.mamamusings.net

Blurb: Elizabeth Lane Lawley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Technology at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. She received her Ph.D. in Information Studies from the University of Alabama in 1999, her Master's in Information and Library Studies from the University of Michigan in 1987, and her B.A. in History from the University of Michigan in 1984. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Library and Information Technology Association, and has authored two books on libraries and technology. In addition to teaching classes on web technologies, and the social impacts of information technology, she is the principal investigator on an NSF-sponsored research project investigating the underrepresentation of women in information technology degree programs. Her current research and curricular interests focus on the use of technology to foster social and professional interaction, particularly in academic contexts.

Name: Deborah Coleman

Title: Faculty

URL: http://www.rit.edu/~dgcics/foundations

Blurb: Deborah is currently an assistant professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York. Her resume includes a BS degree in Computer Science, an MS degree in Software Development and Management, and 25+ years industry experience. Deborah is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, in Information Systems. Deborah has held numerous software development, data management, and leadership positions in several public and private sector industries. Deborah’s research interests include requirements engineering, enterprise architecture and data management, software development methodologies, and social computing in knowledge management. She strives for excellence in satisfying requirements and believes that requirements don’t change as frequently as they are missed.

Name: Andy Phelps

Title: Faculty

URL: http://andysgi.rit.edu/

Blurb: Andrew Phelps is an Assistant Professor in the Information Technology Dept. at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is also a Research Director for the Laboratory for Graphical Simulation, Visualization, and Virtual Worlds within the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences. He is the founding faculty member of the Game Programming Concentration within the College of Computing, and his work in games programming education has been featured in The New York Times, CNN.com, USA Today, National Public Radio, IEEE Computer and several other articles and periodicals. He regularly publishes work exploring web-based games and their culture, as well as their technical implementation. He maintains a website at http://andysgi.rit.edu/ featuring his work as an educator, artist, programmer, and game addict, as well as a blog on the intersection of games and academic at http://www.corante.com/gotgame, and currently teaches courses in multimedia programming, game engine development, games history, 2D and 3D graphics, and information technology theory.

Name: Amit Ray

Title: Faculty

URL: http://honors.rit.edu/~wiki/index.php/User:ProfRay


Blurb: Amit Ray received his Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His areas of specialization are literary and cultural theory, colonial and postcolonial literatures and cultures, and cultural globalization.
Awarded the Paul and Francena Miller Fellowship for the 2005-06 academic year, Professor Ray has recently completed his book, Negotiating the Modern: Orientalism and Indianness in the Anglophone World, for Routledge Press.

Dr. Ray has been conducting research on wikis, authorship and authority since 2004. He has presented work on the cultural impact of wikis on the production and dissemination of knowledge, as well as on the pedagogical potential of wikis in the classroom. His interest in wikis has grown out of collaborations with students in the RIT Honors program. Along with Erhardt Graeff, he is currently working on a project that serves as a clearing house for information and research dealing with the social and cultural impact of wikis. In February he, along with several students, will be presenting an interactive lecture on wikis, authority and the public sphere as part of the Wallace Library Faculty Scholars Series. In addition, he has been working with a group of students and faculty from around the Institute to develop an online publication that queries the intersection between technology, aesthetics and culture: condu.it will be debuting in 2006.

Course Wikis in Action

Wiki Research

Condu.it