Samuel Lazerow Memorial Lectures to examine online communities and how human needs shape new technologies

Samuel Lazerow Memorial Lectures to examine online communities and how human needs shape new technologiesSeptember 22, 2003Edward Byrnesedbyrnes@syr.edu

Ever wonder whether your online computing experience can actually influence your offline life in a positive way? Or whether using a computer would get any easier if you could stop wasting so much time figuring out how to use it? The ISI Samuel Lazerow Memorial Lectures aim to answer these questions and many more on Sept. 23 at Syracuse University. The lectures, sponsored by the SU School of Information Studies, are free and open to the public. They will be held in the Kilian Room, 500 Hall of Languages.

At 10 a.m., Jenny Preece, professor of information systems at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, will deliver her presentation, “Interaction in an Online Community: A multilevel analysis of sociability, usability, and community dynamics.” Preece will discuss her research of the dynamics of group interaction online and the relationship between participation in an online community and an individual’s offline life.

Preece, author of several books, including “Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability” (John Wiley & Sons, 2000), focuses her research on online communities with particular interest in improving social interaction online. The results of her study and earlier work have broad implications for the development and management of successful online support communities.

At 2 p.m., University of Maryland at College Park computer science professor Ben Shneiderman will give his lecture, “Leonardo’s Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies.” Shneiderman will detail what he believes are the three goals shaping the future of computing: reducing user frustration, promoting universal usability through “tailorable” interfaces, and envisioning a future in which human needs more directly shape technology evolution.

Shneiderman is the author of several books, including “The Craft of Information Visualization” (Morgan Kaufmann, 2003), which he co-authored with Benjamin B. Bederson. He is the founding director of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory and a member of the Institutes for Advanced Computer Studies and Systems Research, both at the University of Maryland at College Park. He is a fellow of the ACM and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001.

Officially chartered in 1870 as a private, coeducational institution of higher education, Syracuse University is a leading student-centered research university. Syracuse’s 11 schools and colleges share a common mission: to promote learning through teaching, research, scholarship, creative accomplishment and service while embracing the core values of quality, caring, diversity, innovation and service. The 680-acre campus is home to more than 18,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and 90 countries.