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These pages represent my research work on computers, learning, and new media. I am currently a research fellow at the Open University, working on the ShareIT project. ShareIT seeks to understand how new shareable interfaces (e.g., multi-touch tabletops, tangibles, etc.) support co-located collaboration. I am the lead developer on the project.  |
Research StatementAs we look at the way a person uses the Web, it is simplest to improve the reception of information by adding new forms of graphics and multimedia. It is more difficult to imagine how best to allow a person to interact with the information, to create and modify it. Harder still is imagining how this computer screen can be used to allow one person to interact as one of many people interacting as a group. This is the order in which development has occurred to date, and will occur in the future. (Berners-Lee, 1999, p. 160)In this excerpt, Tim Berners-Lee is reflecting pessimistically about the development of the Web. While he had always intended the Web to be a medium for normal people to publish content and collaborate with others, much of that vision was lost as web developers chose what was easy, rather than what was powerful. Similarly, Alan Kay, the father of the personal computer, feels that fundamental ideas of media authoring and sharing were lost in the commercialization of the desktop interface. My research seeks to address these shortcomings by concentrating on enabling users to move beyond consuming media to creating, sharing, and collaborating through media.  My earliest research was on collaborative websites (CoWeb), working together with Mark Guzdial. Working together with educators in architecture, English composition, mathematics, engineering, and computer science, we developed a wiki engine and corresponding uses to enable computer-supported collaborative learning in university-level classes. I am the lead designer and developer of that wiki engine, Swiki.In several domains, we saw a positive impact. Most notably, when adopting this simple technology, educators were able to go beyond using the system as we had envisioned to being able to invent their own uses to serve their needs (Guzdial, Rick, & Kehoe, 2001). In architecture, the wiki served a transformative function: It was introduced into the introductory class at the same time that the size of the class was increased from 15 to 120 students; the collaborative activities that the wiki enabled allowed the class to maintain its focus on learning by doing (Craig et al., 2000). We found that English-composition students engaged class concepts more deeply in the wiki-using class than in the newsgroup-using comparison class (Rick, Guzdial, Carroll, Holloway-Attaway, & Walker, 2002). While many of our results were positive, some were not. We discovered significant cultural barriers (e.g., a competitive atmosphere) to adoption in academic fields such as engineering and mathematics (Guzdial, Ludovice, Realff, Morley, & Carroll, 2002). Based on our understanding of these barriers, we were able to successfully apply wiki technology in an introductory computer science class to transform the normally competitive atmosphere into a more collaborative one (Rick & Guzdial, 2006). In my dissertation research (Rick, 2007), I focused on the use of personal home pages in academia. Rather than merely documenting existing practice, I investigated the future of personal home pages by improving the current state. I chose academia as the setting, since it is a prominent setting where personal home pages have a vocational purpose. Academics, particularly in computer science, publish and maintain personal home pages to present themselves to their communities of practice. I created a system, AniAniWeb, to overcome three limitations of conventional home-page tools: 1) textual content creation is not emphasized, 2) the publication cycle is awkward, and 3) interaction with others is not facilitated. I chose to build AniAniWeb on a wiki foundation, since many of these problems can be addressed through wiki technology. To make wikis more suitable for personal home pages, AniAniWeb added more support for managing the structure, designing the looks, and specifying access control. As expected, the more advanced system changed how adopters used personal home pages (see examples here). Wiki's quick editing cycle made authoring easier. Research participants using AniAniWeb created three times as many pages as a comparison group using conventional tools. In addition to using their sites to present themselves to others, many began using it for themselves (e.g., a to do list). Interactive features, such as "add to the page" fields, polling, and shared editing, created entirely new uses (e.g., collaborating on an article, coordinating a potluck dinner, etc.). Along with these new uses came new challenges. A common problem among research participants was the multiple audience problem—the same home page is seen by many different audiences with different needs and expectations. One way to address this problem is with access control. Designing a powerful and usable access-control system is one of the great challenges in making these information systems work. Based upon observed usage and interviews with users, I was able to implement a system that addressed my adopter's needs. As illustrated by these two examples, my research tends to center around systems. I design and implement advanced systems that can be used by actual users for authentic tasks of authoring and collaboration. To accomplish this goal, the system has to be useful enough and robust enough that real users will want to adopt it for an extended time. Over 300 classes at Georgia Tech have used swikis; many still currently use the technology, although the research ceased several years ago. A recent Google search on swiki turned up over one million hits. Designing a useful system requires working closely with users. I worked with faculty to evolve Swiki to better suit their needs and new uses (Guzdial, Rick, & Kerimbaev, 2000). I evolved AniAniWeb based upon observation of others' use and in-depth interviews with research participants. In addition to creating useful systems, I have a good track record of being ahead of the curve on new interactive technologies. When I began my research on wikis, many people were skeptical about wikis (e.g., where are the protections?). Wikipedia did not exist. On the Wiki Research Bibliography page, the three oldest research articles are our work. When I began my work on personal home pages, several researchers asked me whether personal home pages were not a bygone trend. Now, personal home pages, in the guise of social networking sites (e.g., MySpace, Facebook, etc.) are making a comeback. Many of the conclusions from the AniAniWeb research are currently surfacing in social networking sites. The multiple audience problem is increasingly becoming a concern. Friendster's social network broke down after new audiences, such as mothers and bosses, joined a site initially intended for dating (boyd, 2004). Many users are concerned that Facebook's expansion to audiences beyond universities will leave them vulnerable (Stutzman, 2006). Many of these sites are now instituting access controls, as I researched and developed for AniAniWeb. My broad research interest is in furthering the ability of people to author, share, and collaborate in new media. As the quote at the beginning of this statement attests, this is not an easy goal. While it is a challenge, I believe there is great opportunity for research to contribute to new understanding in this growing area. Based on my past research, I see two broad challenges ahead: GUI authoring and usable access control. Most wiki systems still use a textual mark-up language. While there are advantages to textual editing, I believe an easy to use and powerful GUI could make these systems viable for a larger audience and enable new uses, such as image annotation, tables, calendars, and interactive content (e.g., polls). Useful and usable access control will become increasingly important as these information systems become more capable and more popular. I am particularly proud of AniAniWeb's access control and would enjoy working on such multifaceted, complex design challenges in the future. References
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