History of social software

 

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Social software. (Discuss)

Brief History of Social Software

Social software is defined broadly as any web-based software tool that supports or fosters group interaction.

Christopher Allen supports this definition and traces the core ideas of this concept back through Computer Supported Cooperative or Collaborative Work (CSCW) in the 1990s, Groupware in the 1970s and 80s, to Englebart’s “augmentation” (1960s) and Bush’s “Memex” (1940s). Although he identifies a “lifecycle” to this terminology that appears to reemerge each decade in a different form, this does not necessarily mean that social software is simply old wine in new bottles.

Early manifestations of social software in early Internet apps for communication and collaboration such as email, newsgroups, groupware, virtual communities and the like and point out its augmentation capabilities. In the next phase, influences of academic experiments, Social Constructivism, and the open source software movement. In the current phase, these collaborative tools add a capability “that aggregates the actions of networked users”. This points to a powerful dynamic that distinguishes social software from other group collaboration tools and as a component of Web 2.0 technology. Capabilities for content and behavior aggregation and redistribution present some of the more important potentials of this media.

Pre-1960s

1945

• Vannevar Bush describes a hypertext-like device called the "memex"

1960s

1962

• Douglas Engelbart publishes his seminal work, "Augmenting Human Intellect: a conceptual framework". In this paper, he proposes using computers to augment training. With his colleagues at the Stanford Research Institute, Engelbart started to develop a computer system to augment human abilities, including learning. The system was simply called the oNLine System (NLS), and it debuted in 1968.

• The initial concept of a global information network should be given to J.C.R. Licklider in his series of memos entitled "On-Line Man Computer Communication”, written in August of 1962. However, the actual development of the internet must be given to Lawrence G. Roberts of MIT.

1970s

1971

• The MITRE Corporation begins a year-long demonstration of the TICCIT system among Reston, Virginia cable television subscribers. Interactive television services included informational and educational demonstrations using a touch-tone telephone. The National Science Foundation refunds the PLATO project and funds MITRE's proposal to modify its TICCIT technology as a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) system to support English and algebra at community colleges. MITRE subcontracts instructional design and courseware authoring tasks to the University of Texas at Austin and Brigham Young University.
• Ivan Illich describes computer-based "learning webs" in his book Deschooling Society ^[1]. Among the features of his proposed system are
  • Reference Services to Educational Objects — which facilitate access to things or processes used for formal learning.
  • Skill Exchanges — which permit persons to list their skills, the conditions under which they are willing to serve as models for others who want to learn these skills, and the addresses at which they can be reached.
  • Peer-Matching — a communications network which permits persons to describe the learning activity in which they wish to engage, in the hope of finding a partner for the inquiry.
  • Reference Services to Educators-at-Large — who can be listed in a directory giving the addresses and self-descriptions of professionals, paraprofessionals, and free-lancers, along with conditions of access to their services.

1980s

1980

• Seymour Papert at MIT publishes "Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas". (New York: Basic Books). This book inspired a number of books and dissertations on "microworlds" and their impact on learning.

• BITNET, founded by a consortium of US and Canadian universities, allowed universities to connect with each other for educational communications and e-mail. At its peak in 1991, it had over 500 organizations as members and over 3000 nodes. Its use declined as the World Wide Web grew.

1986

• Tony Bates publishes "Computer Assisted Learning or Communications: Which Way for Information Technology in Distance Education?", Journal of Distance Education/ Revue de l'enseignement a distance, reflecting (in 1986!) on ways forward for e-learning, based on 15 years of operational use of computer networks at the Open University and nine years of systematic R&D on CAL, viewdata/videotex, audio-graphic teleconferencing and computer conferencing. Many of the systems specification issues discussed later are rehearsed here. (http://cade.athabascau.ca/vol1.1/bates.html)

• First version of LISTSERV is written by Eric Thomas, an engineering student in Paris, France. It was first used in the BITNET network for electronic mailing lists among universities.^{[citation needed]}

• First version of CSILE installed on a small network of Cemcorp ICON computers at an elementary school in Toronto, Canada. CSILE included text and graphical notes authored by several kinds of users (students, teachers, others) with attributes such as comments and thinking types which reflect the role of the note in the author's thinking. Thinking types included "my theory", "new information", and "I need to understand". CSILE later evolved into Knowledge Forum

1989

• Tim Berners-Lee, then a young British engineer working at CERN in Switzerland, circulated a proposal for an in-house online document sharing system which he described as a "web of notes with links". After the proposal was grudgingly approved by his superiors, he called the new system the World Wide Web.

• Scardamalia, M., Bereiter, C., McLean, R. S., Swallow, J., & Woodruff, E. (1989). Computer supported intentional learning environments. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 5, 51-68. Paper discusses CSILE project and related software.

1990s

1992

• CAPA (Computer Assisted Personalized Approach) system was developed at Michigan State University. It was first used in a small (92 student) physics class in the Fall of 1992. Students accessed randomized (personalized) homework problems through telnet.

2000

2002

• Jonathan Abrams creates his profile on Friendster (April).

2003

• Launch of Hi5.
• Launch of LinkedIn (May).
• Launch of MySpace (July).

2004

• Levin (in Allen 2004, sec. 2000s) acknowledges that many of characteristics of social software (hyperlinks, Weblog conversation discovery, and standards-based aggregation) “build on older forms”; nevertheless, “the difference in scale, standardization, simplicity, and social incentives provided by Web access turn a difference in degree to a difference in kind.” Key technological factors underlying this difference in kind in the computer, network, and information technologies are: filtered hypertext, ubiquitous Web/computing, continuous Internet connectivity, cheap, efficient and small electronics, content syndication strategies (RSS), and others. Additionally, the convergence of several major information technology systems for voice, data, and video into a single system makes for expansive computing environments with far reaching effects.
• Launch of FaceBook (February).

References

1. ^ Illich, Ivan (1971). Deschooling Society.New York, Harper & Row ISBN 0-06-012139-4

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