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Week 1: Intro

Things to do this week

There is a lot to do in the first week. Much of it is prep work to get you set up for the term, so don't let this scare you away! Things get much more manageable from week 2 on.

  1. Read the syllabus. It’s our roadmap for the course and it outlines everything from how we’re going to communicate, to assignments, to how to contact me. The version posted on this blog is the latest-greatest version so even if you’ve read the version that was posted on the FIMS intranet, you’re going to want to read this one because it has been recently updated.
  2. Explore the course site and login. Take some time to look around the site and figure out what's where. For a guide to the site structure, check out this quick guide. For a rundown of how the course actually works on a week-to-week basis, read this post. I'll be setting everyone up with logins on Sunday, January 11th so once you've received your site login from me, go ahead and log in! Click on "My account" to populate your profile, add a photograph or avatar, etc.
  3. Vote for your preferred group chat time. We'll be getting together for an hour a week to chat about all things course related. This week, we're meeting on Tuesday, January 13th at 8 pm Eastern (follow the link in the header to get to the chat room and login with the password I sent out in my first email message). Starting with week 2, I'd like to schedule our chats on a day/time that works well for you, so cast your vote for your preferred chat time here.
  4. Write your first blog post. This post should be an introduction: tell us who you are, what your experience is with social software (e.g.: have you been blogging for years? Have you used an RSS aggregator before? Is all this terrifyingly new to you?), and what you hope to get out of this course. And anything else you’d like to share!
  5. Get yourself an RSS aggregator. I recommend Google Reader (there are some great videos to help you get started with Google reader here). It's a web-based aggregator that allows you to access your RSS feeds from a browser (no software to download). You need an aggregator because you will be expected to subscribe to a number of feeds during the course of term. If you already use an aggregator, you can skip this step. And if you are completely new to RSS, this video explains the concept succinctly.
  6. Sign up for an account on delicious. We will be using the tag "lis9763" in delicious to collect links to articles, resources, and anything else of interest to us as a research community. You'll find more info on the tagging assignment (which is ongoing over the course of the term) on the Course Syllabus.