The impact of local ICT initiatives on social capital and quality of life

This paper reviews the evidence for the effects of local ICT initiatives (‘community networks’) on neighbourhood social capital and quality of life and has been developed from the public SOCQUIT D11 report (Anderson et al, 2006)

Wooster Magazine: Spring 2021

The spring issue of Wooster magazine showcases The College of Wooster’s new Pathways Programs which bring together interdisciplinary courses, experiential learning, and ongoing reflection for current students. Alumni working in the areas of Public Health, Global Impacts, Museum & Archival Studies, Entrepreneurship, Activism & Social Change, Digital & Visual Storytelling, and Data Exploration & Communication comment on how they have applied their liberal arts education in today’s world. The issue also features an update and renderings of the planned renovation and expansion of the student center. Oak Grove includes an update on diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings taking place College-wide as well as Mentoring Matchup with Andy Zidron, head men’s soccer coach and Andreas Xenofontos ’21 and Why Wooster with Hamed Goharipour, assistant professor of Urban Studies. Tartan Ties includes a map that illustrates the engagement with virtual alumni events this fall as well as profiles on alumni Joe Vardon ’02, NBA journalist, and Wayne Cornelius ’67, who advised on the presidential campaigns of Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden.https://openworks.wooster.edu/wooalumnimag_2011-present/1039/thumbnail.jp

Wooster Magazine: Spring 2022

The spring 2022 issue of Wooster magazine recognizes the legacy of Black voices and student activism at The College of Wooster. While founded on principles of equity and inclusion, throughout history reality has not always met these ideals and the work to ensure that every individual thrives on the Wooster campus, free from bias, harassment, and discrimination remains ongoing. This issue of the magazine outlines Black history and some of the student activism that has driven needed change at the College. It also features the stories of some of the many Wooster alumni who have gone on to make powerful change for justice in the world including LeRoy Reese ’88, Ayesha Bell Hardaway ’97, Joy E. Bronson ’07, and Samuel Kitara ’14. Oak Grove highlights some new Wooster faculty and staff and how they are settling in at the College. Tartan Ties includes class notes, recent alumni books, and profiles on Wooster alumni Antwan Chambers ’14 and Diane Brown-Young ’87.https://openworks.wooster.edu/wooalumnimag_2011-present/1042/thumbnail.jp

The net effect: using social media data to understand the impact of a conference on social networks

The research uses social media data from Twitter to develop a methodology for understanding the effects of events and conferences. Key findings: Social media data offers a rich source of information to understand the effects of events on networking. Attending events is associated with a much higher rate of growth in Twitter connections among event participants than with people outside the event. Many of the connections formed at events are between people who already have a mutual connection on Twitter, indicating that they are more likely to have met in the longer-term. However, there are also connections between people that are further apart in the Twitter network before the event. This is particularly true for international connections. Within conferences one can see social networking behaviour consistent with commercial incentives e.g. consultants connecting with potential clients (but not with each other), or people connecting along language lines

Fixed, Tethered or Free: The Role of Space and Place in Online Home-Based Businesses

Online businesses were heralded as being ‘anytime, anyplace, anywhere’ businesses, allowing the entrepreneurs who run them to be free of locational constraints. In contrast, entrepreneurs who operate home-based businesses have made a conscious choice to operate their business from home. This study explores the role of space and place for entrepreneurs who have brought these two types of business together, that is, entrepreneurs who are operating online home-based businesses. Such businesses are important as the have been identified as offering a unique opportunity for experimentation and innovation are hence a source of business diversity. The also offer economic benefits both at the individual micro level and at the macro-economic level. The study, which is exploratory in nature, is undertaken by means of key informant interviews with 42 entrepreneurs who are operating online home based businesses. The study finds that whilst certain factors allow such businesses to be location independent, other factors constrain the location of the businesses, usually to the home. The study findings suggest that there is a more subtle third alternative we term ‘tethered’ businesses, that lies between these two extremes of location dependent or independent, which is more appropriate for many online home-based businesses

The Nonprofit Quarterly Study on Nonprofit and Philanthropic Infrastructure

Examines trends in the nonprofit sector's support network and financing system and their capacity to address the impact of the financial crisis on small and midsize nonprofits, share organizational survival strategies, and connect them to resources

Link communities reveal multiscale complexity in networks

Networks have become a key approach to understanding systems of interacting objects, unifying the study of diverse phenomena including biological organisms and human society. One crucial step when studying the structure and dynamics of networks is to identify communities: groups of related nodes that correspond to functional subunits such as protein complexes or social spheres. Communities in networks often overlap such that nodes simultaneously belong to several groups. Meanwhile, many networks are known to possess hierarchical organization, where communities are recursively grouped into a hierarchical structure. However, the fact that many real networks have communities with pervasive overlap, where each and every node belongs to more than one group, has the consequence that a global hierarchy of nodes cannot capture the relationships between overlapping groups. Here we reinvent communities as groups of links rather than nodes and show that this unorthodox approach successfully reconciles the antagonistic organizing principles of overlapping communities and hierarchy. In contrast to the existing literature, which has entirely focused on grouping nodes, link communities naturally incorporate overlap while revealing hierarchical organization. We find relevant link communities in many networks, including major biological networks such as protein-protein interaction and metabolic networks, and show that a large social network contains hierarchically organized community structures spanning inner-city to regional scales while maintaining pervasive overlap. Our results imply that link communities are fundamental building blocks that reveal overlap and hierarchical organization in networks to be two aspects of the same phenomenon.Comment: Main text and supplementary informatio

Better Together

Calls for a nationwide campaign to overcome civic apathy and outlines the framework for sustained, broad-based social change to restore America's civic virtue

The Networked Question in the Digital Era: How Do Networked, Bounded, and Limited Individuals Connect at Different Stages in the Life Course?

We used in-depth interviews with 101 participants in the East York section of Toronto, Canada to understand how digital media affects social connectivity in general--and networked individualism in particular--for people at different stages of the life course. Although people of all ages intertwined their use of digital media with their face-to-face interactions, younger adults used more types of digital media and more diversified personal networks. People in different age-groups conserved media, tending to stick with the digital media they learned to use in earlier life stages. Approximately one-third of the participants were Networked Individuals: In each age-group, they were the most actively using digital media to maintain ties and to develop new ones. Another one-third were Socially Bounded, who often actively used digital media but kept their connectivity within a smaller set of social groups. The remaining one-third, who were Socially Limited, were the least likely to use digital media. Younger adults were the most likely to be Networked Individuals, leading us to wonder if the percentage of the population who are Bounded or Limited will decline over time