Further nonsense
Yesterday research notes!
<awesome>
What is a system? A system is a network of interdependent components
that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system. A
system must have an aim. Without an aim, there is no system. The aim
of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must
include plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment.
—W. Edwards Deming, of whom more below…
</awesome>
<nonsense!>
This week I more or less finished my contribution to the Turkopticon
paper. I say ‘more or less’, because Lilly is reworking it
substantially now (I think I went a little off-track…surprise
surprise :-/) and I am sure there will be substantial back-and-forth
before we submit to CHI in September.
I also read Joel et al.’s papers about Mechanical Turk, which I liked
a lot, and Aniket Kittur et al.’s increasingly-frequently-cited CHI
note about “Crowdsourcing user studies on AMT”, which is probably a
Good Thing to have read if I am writing about AMT to CHI. Reading
these three papers made me think about ‘alienation’ and ‘quality’, and
since I have been reading W. Edwards Deming lately, who is a pretty
towering figure when it comes to thinking about ‘quality’ and how to
‘get it’, I thought it might be interesting to try, at some point
(CSCW?) to write up something about ‘alienation’, ‘quality’,
‘crowdsourcing’, ‘peer production’ (Benkler), ‘human computation’,
‘economic design’, and ‘systems thinking’ (Deming). Maybe throw in a
little Marx to irritate the review^W^W^W^Wfor variety? O:-)
(There is actually a pretty clear link here to the stuff on
‘ecological evaluation’—through Deming and ‘systems thinking’—I
think.)
(While I’m on the theme: Kittur et al. mention ‘ecological validity’
in their note. This is totally not related to ecological evaluation,
as far as I can tell, but I had never heard of this phrase before and
it made me go ‘wha?’.)
I also read Marisa Cohn’s paper with Susan Sim and Charlotte Lee on
“What counts as software process?”, which in some ways is ‘about’
agile software development, but also about much more than that (in
particular, about how the boundary between ‘what counts as software
process’ and what doesn’t is negotiated in an ongoing basis, as part
of a “Conversation” [a term that the developers she studied themselves
used]). This made me think a bit about the point that I was trying to
get to in the Turkopticon paper about ‘design as discourse’, which I
think there is a rich literature to draw on for (even within CHI; for
example, the stuff on ‘action research’) but which (for now) has been
shelved. I’m excited to take it up again post-CHI-deadline, however
(hmmmm…CSCW again?).
<omg angst!>
This week I also found out that I can be a 3rd year PhD student
instead of a 1st year PhD student. Bill and I decided this was a fine
idea, logistically and financially and probably research-ly as well.
Then Thursday night I panicked because I realized that instead of
having five years to do my PhD and publish and think and roll randomly
around ze knowledge space I should really be getting my sh!t together
and, like, trying to submit a Phase II paper and give an advancement
talk by the end of this year, and probably submit a dissertation
proposal shortly thereafter, as opposed to submitting random papers to
random conferences and papers like I was planning to do. Also, I
realized that instead of being a 1st year PhD student with no
publications, I am now going to be 3rd year PhD student with no
publications, which is a less comfortable sort of thing to be. On the
plus side, I imagine I will have to take fewer classes, and certainly
fewer classes that are not likely to help with researchy things.
Anyway, I imagine Wednesday these things will all be figured out to
everyone’s satisfaction.
</omg angst!>
This weekend (and a bit of today) was a bit of a loss in terms of
formal output of researchy things, as I mostly cleaned house in
preparation for moving, hopefully in the next couple weeks, and spent
some time apartment hunting (so that I can have somewhere to
move…hopefully in the next couple weeks). I did however spend a lot
of time thinking about advancement paper and dissertation
proposal-type things, so I think I am ready to have that chat with
Bill on Wednesday…
And now! Mysterious things that I haven’t explained yet, without
complete sentences!
Check this out!
- Autofocus markforster.net/autofocus-system
Stuff I did today!
- Fixed Turkopticon Rails app
- Chat w/ Kolya
Stuff I will do tomorrow!
- AGEP CE workshop (9 AM, argh)
- Submit forms for 1-credit 299 w/ Bill through Extension so I can get
my MS conferred
- RWJF grant (all day, one day only, submit to Kolya at end of day)
This week…
- 800-word DRS abstract (aiming to [start and] finish Weds 8/19,
deadline is Fri 8/21)
- Figuring out my classes and research and advancement and
dissertation life (with Bill, Weds 8/19)
- DAC paper (aiming for Wed 8/26, deadline is Tue 9/1)
- AGEP CE stuff (I haven’t looked yet, hopefully won’t be more than a half-day)
- Apartment hunting!
</nonsense!>
