Blau Exchange: Spring 2007 Roundtable

Participants in the Spring 2007 Roundtable

Fred Stutzman is a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science, and co-founder of ClaimID.com. ClaimID is a leading personal identity management website that helps people have a say in their online identity. Previously, he spent five years as a researcher, open source advocate, project manager and director of technology for ibiblio.org, one of the web's largest hubs of open source technology. Before ibiblio, Fred worked for The Motley Fool and Nortel Networks in systems engineering and project management roles.

Miia Akkinen started her studies in the Helsinki School of Economics in 1992, majoring in information systems science. Miia finished her master's thesis in 1997, and began focusing on the business use of online communities. She studied the content of Finnish web sites, and learned that very few companies had sophisticated systems for e-commerce.

Just before her youngest daughter was born in 2005, Miia finished a working paper (pdf) that is a comprehensive overview on websites with online communities. This research established the theoretical background for the information she has gathered from electronic focus groups. Miia has interviewed about 20 members of three online communities, asking members about their reasons and motivations for joining those online communities. Miia plans to write articles based on this interview data in the near future.

Paul K. Lawton received his undergraduate and M.A. degrees in Sociology from the University of Lethbridge (2003/2005). He has been working on a Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Calgary since 2006. Paul's research has previously centered around online communication and interaction within community blogs, with a thesis focusing on the ways in which individuals become distinct on Metafilter.

Paul's current research focuses on how these online community blogs and other online resources factor into individual health work.

Sarita Yardi is a PhD student in the Human-Centered Computing program in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is working with Professor Amy Bruckman in the Electronic Learning Communities lab within the Learning Sciences and Technology group. Sarita's current research (pdf) is exploring the design of online communities, with a focus on social networking and virtual, immersive environments, to encourage youth to become interested in pursuing computing and technical careers. She is currently designing and teaching an "Introduction to HCI for Teenagers" curriculum over the summer. Sarita's research looks to understand the intersections of new forms of digital media and technology with how people, particularly youth, learn, both inside and outside of the classroom.

Sarita received her Masters in Information Management & Systems at UC Berkeley's School of Information where she worked with the MacArthur-funded Digital Youth group studying how youth use digital media in their informal learning environments. She received her BA in Computer Engineering at Dartmouth College.

Participants in the Spring 2007 Roundtable

Topics for the Spring 2007 Roundtable