#SMSociety Conference Day 1 Recap

Vanessa and I are having a great time in Toronto!  Yesterday was Day 1 of the Social Media and Society Conference.  Here's a little recap of our day at the conference:

We arrived at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University at 8:30am.  One of the sponsors of the conference is Starbucks, so our coffee/breakfast spread was pretty amazing.  I digress...

Our morning session was titled "Augmenting Social Media through Data Linkage."  It was presented by Dr. Luke Sloan (Cardiff University, UK), Dr. Anabel Quan-Haase (Western University, Canada), Dr. Dhiraj Murthy (University of Texas at Austin), and Dr. Frauke Zeller (Ryerson University, Canada).  Data linkage is, essentially, using different sources to connect data about individuals/groups/events/etc.  Researchers use data linkage for validation, corroboration, discrimination, and evaluation.  The presenters discussed using data linkage to evaluate virtual identities, such as:

• Discrimination based on differential disclosure of information on social media
• Understanding the creation (and curation) of online profiles
• Are people what they say they are?
• Behavior patterns (taking risks, trolling, talker/lurker)

This session was collaborative and we had small and large group discussions.  One of the primary conversations was ethics.  We were presented with the following ethical concerns of data linkage:

• Consent
• Context
• Data usage (REB, ToS)
• Anonymization of tweets
• Storage
• Access
• Individual (data ownership)

It was really interesting to discuss ethical concerns with scholars from other cultures and backgrounds.  

Our afternoon session was titled "Uncovering Deep Context in Social Media Preferences: Analyzing Social Media Use Using Free Pile Sort and UX Methodologies."  It was presented by Dr. Jaigris Hodson (Royal Roads University, Canada), Dr. Brian Traynor (Mount Royal University, Canada), and Dr. Gilbert Wilkes (Mount Royal University, Canada).  Pile sorting (or card sorting) is usually used to design and/or construct a website or training module.  Participants use cards (you may be more familiar with sticky notes for this!) to organize topics that make sense to them.  Most of the session was exploring an online card sorting tool.  It was really interesting!