LIS course in Social Software

Remember that LIS course I mentioned that I’d be teaching on social software this Fall? Well, it’s now become priority #1, the next few months will be devoted almost exclusively to developing the content and getting it in shape for the Fall term. Here’s the syllabus, slightly modified since I first submited it to the faculty (it’s still very much a work-in-progress):

Proposed Course Title
Social Software and Libraries

Course Description
The term “social software” has been applied to Web-based software tools that facilitate communication, collaboration, and network/community-building. The course will explore social software applications such as weblogs, rss, wikis, and social tagging and folksonomies within the context of public services and discuss questions such as:

• does social software have a place in library service provision?
• what social software applications can be harnessed by information organizations?

While hands-on experience with social software tools will be an important component of the course, the focus will be on public service uses and implications of social software tools, rather than the technology itself.

Course Objectives
Students who take this course will:

1. gain an understanding of social software principles;
2. with hands-on experience, develop proficiency in creating and maintaining social software tools such as blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, and social tagging/folksonomy development applications;
3. examine the range of use of these tools in libraries and information organizations;
4. explore the impact of social software on library services.

Possible Topics (1-2 weeks per topic)

• week 1-2: Introduction to social software
• week 3-4: Blogs – introduction to terminology and software, hands-on, case studies, content, design, usability
• weeks 5-6: RSS – technology, tools, hands-on, case studies
• weeks 7: Wikis – technology, tools, hands-on, case studies
• weeks 8-9: Social book marking, tagging & folksonomies – theory, tools, case studies
• week 10: Online social networks: theory, case studies
• weeks 11-12: Other social software tools, e.g.: Instant Messaging applications, Podcasting
• week 13-14: best practices, discussion, evaluation

You can bet you’ll be hearing more about this over the next few weeks as I continue with the research and flesh out how it will be delivered (I’m still not 100% happy with the topic/week breakdown, but I’m hoping that will fall into place as I write the content).

I think the course content sounds very interesting. I would have loved to take a course like this when I was in library school (Western. Are you going to have students create their own blogs/wikis/podcasts? Have you developed the class assignments yet?

WOW! This course sounds so cool! I’m WAY jealous!

While writing my book, I’ve realized how utterly impossible it is to really separate these social tools and talk about them on their own. So many of these technologies blend together. If you talk about blogs, you need to talk about RSS and tagging (which is difficult when you discuss RSS and social bookmarking in later chapters, but you can’t exactly discuss them BEFORE blogs either — ARRGGH!). I haven’t really thought of a better way to organize things; my chapter organization is quite similar to yours (though obviously with more topics and chapters).

I think as you get more in-depth with lesson plans and choose readings, you will see which technologies require more explanations and which should be discussed together. But what a great start!

I think as long as your class is grounded in practical applications of the technologies, you can’t go wrong. Let me know you need any help or resources. I’ve got a ton of things that I tagged when researching my book http://www.blinklist.com/librarianmer/ (they’re not super-organized, but there’s a lot of good stuff there).

The course outline looks fantastic! I am UWO grad from 1996 (back when it was still GSLIS) and always found that they were innovative with their course offerings. It looks like you will be more than living up to that tradition. Keep us posted on the course and how it goes.

Somebody at Superconference in February was talking about tagging and ontology, etc. I suggested that it would be interesting to look at cataloguing practices in China and Japan, since kanji are made up of “bits” ( a man standing beside a word means “integrity”). (Personal names are “bits” put together.) She thought the analogy between tagging and kanji worked well too. Are you interested in that aspect of tags, Amanda? I’d love to see a comparison of Eastern & Western practice.

Thanks, all!

Meredith – you’re an angel! thanks for your insight and sharing your blinklist. you’ll be hearing from me soon!

Kathy – that is so cool! note to self: add “kanji + tags” to list of things to research.

[...] Blog without a library posts about a LIS course in social software. It looks awesome! It’s a lot like what I was thinking of when I wrote about a library 102 class. It’d also be a great workshop for professional development. [...]

YOU RULE! I want to do this at Dominican someday…so let’s talk sometime!!!

Contrast this with the posting on the ALA blog and attempts to stop web surfers from accessing social software in school and public libraries! Libraries really are the last line of defense for the public’s right to information access.

I would love to take this course. I’m currently a library student, and my school offers many classes on technology — but nothing with this much meat in it! Please keep us posted on how this progresses.

First I’ve heard of it. I hope to sign up next term.

this sounds well interesting…….i’m doing a course in London (uk). Wish we had something like this. Best of luck and be interested to see how it goes……..

Hi:

I think the course sounds great. Is there any way you could do this as a live DE course for professionals in the field? It would be great if you could broadcast it, and use some of the same technology to enable collaboration by people outside of the classroom?