Building a Collaborative Environment

Research Personnel: Mark Chignell, Gale Moore, Monica Schrafael, Barry Wellman, Anabel Quan

Description:
Design, construction and analysis of an Internet-based collaborative working environment. Supported by Bell University Laboratories.
 

Canadian Network/Structural Analysis

Research Personnel: David Tindall (British Columbia), Barry Wellman, Jeffrey Boase (Toronto)

Description:
We are preparing a review article for a special stocktaking issue of the _Canadian Journal of Sociology_ on network and structural analytic studies in Canada during the past quarter-century
 

The Double Digital Divide

Research Personnel: Eric Fong, Barry Wellman, Jeffrey Boase, Rima Wilkes, Melissa Kew (Toronto)

Description:

Given that people learn how to use computers and the internet through hands-on mentoring, it is probable that differential access to mentors will affect the acquisition of useful computing skills. People without these skills will be especially at risk when they live and work in neighborhoods and work groups where few others have such skills. The "digital divide" describes differences in useful access to computing and the internet (by socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender, life-cycle, location, etc.). Hence the "double digital divide" refers to the particular difficulties that people without such skills may suffer if they are located in the "wrong" neighborhoods and work groups. We use already-collected, geo-coded census and survey data to investigate this.

Supported by the Office of Learning Technologies, Human Resources Canada
 

"The Internet in Everyday Life."

Research Personnel: Caroline Haythornthwaite (Illinois), Barry Wellman (Toronto)

Description:

We are preparing a special issue of the _American Behavioral Scientist_ that brings together a number of quantitative studies about how online involvement (email, the web, etc.) affects other aspects of people's domestic and community lives.

Supported by the Department of Sociology and Bell University Laboratories
 

"Living Networked in a Wired World"

Research Personnel: Barry Wellman

Description:
As the world changes from operating in groups to operating in networks, how do people's lives change at work and in the community? This project is developing integrated analyses of how networks operate in market economies, institutionally-based economies (i.e., eastern Europe), and informal economies. A book-length treatise (Personal Communities)  is being prepared. An edited collection of original articles (by Wellman and others worldwide) has been published. (Networks in the Global Village, 1999). Both books published by Westview Press. Supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
   

"Knowledge Acquistion in Loosely-Coupled Organizations: Scholarly Citation Networks Meet Social Networks"

Research Personnel: Patrick Doreian (Pittsburgh), Howard White (Drexel), Barry Wellman, Emmanuel Koku, Nancy Nazer, Anabel Quan (Toronto), Alesia Zuccala

Description:
Citation networks indicate the flow of knowledge and intellectual influence among scholars. Scholarly networks indicate friendship, colleagueship and contact among scholars. We use information collected from the Globenet, Technet, and mathmatical scholarly networks study to see the interplay between social relations and information acquisition in a loosely-coupled virtual organization of knowledge workers
 
 

Media Use in a World of Unified Communication

Research Personnel: Barry Wellman, Emmanuel Koku

Description:
Which means of communication do people use for what purposes when they have universal access to their telephone, electronic mail, fax, and pager? Supported by Bell University Laboratories.
 
 

"National Geographic 'Survey 2000': Social Networks, Geographical Mobility, and Internet Use"

Research Personnel: Keith Hampton, Barry Wellman, Jeff Boase, wenhong Chen, Kristine Klement, Anabel Quan Hasse

Description:
Design and analysis of social network, internet and community questions on the National Geographic Fall 1999 web survey of 60,000 adults worldwide: their mobility, connectivity, Internet activity, civic involvement, social networks, attitudes and tastes. Principal Investigator of larger study: James Witte (Clemson). Supported by The National Geographic Society.
 
 

"Netville: The Wired Suburb"

Research Personnel: Keith Hampton, Alexandra Marin, Barry Wellman

Description:
Ethnographic and survey-based study of how living in a new Toronto-area suburban development ("Netville") with excellent broadband connectivity affects women's and men's relations of work and community online and offline in the home, neighbourhood, and non-locally. Supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Bell Canada University Laboratories, and Communications and Information Technology Ontario.
 
 

"The Place of Computer-Supported Communications in Work and Community: Cavecat and Telepresence"

Research Personnel: Laura Garton, Caroline Haythornthwaite, Barry Wellman

Description:
Studies of how computer mediated communication  -- electronic mail and desktop videoconferencing -- affects interactions and organizational structure at two spatially-dispersed research and development oganizations. Supported by the TeleLearning Network, the Ontario Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
 
 

"Scholarly Networks as Loosely Coupled Organizations On and Off Line"

Research Personnel: Emmanuel Koku, Nancy Nazer, Barry Wellman

Description:
Studies of how computer mediated communication affects scholarly interaction at two invisible colleges: an international human development research group ("GlobeNet") and a Toronto-based network ("TechNet") of computer scientists, social scientists, and advanced creators of computer applications. Uses survey, ethnographic and bibliometric analyses. Supported by the TeleLearning Network, Bell Canada University Laboratories, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
 
 

Survey2001: The Impact of the Internet on the Networked Society

Research Personnel: James Witte (Clemson), Wendy Griswold (Northwestern), Barry Wellman, Jeffrey Boase (Toronto).

Description:

We use (a) a web survey of visitors to the _National Geographic Society's_ website and (b) and a phone survey of users/non-users of the Internet to understand how the experience of being online is affecting people's domestic, community and work relations, and the nature of the networked society in which they are embedded.

Supported by the (US) National Science Foundation
 
 

"Teleworkers: Work, Organizational, Domestic and Community Relations"

Research Personnel: Dimitrina Dimitrova, Janet Salaff, Barry Wellman

Description:
Study of teleworkers in a large Canadian high-technology organization. What kinds of professional and managerial jobs are amenable to teleworking [telecommuting]? How does teleworking affect involvements at work and after work? Principal Investigator, Janet Salaff. Supported by Bell Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
 
 

"Community Ties and Support Systems"

Research Personnel: Barry Wellman

Description:
Analysis of the structure of urban networks of Torontonians and how these ties provide assistance in dealing with contingencies. Primary data source is 845 interviews with adult residents of the Borough of East York. Additional fieldwork and participant - observation in the use of network resources at the Neighbourhood Information Centre, East York. Supported by the Ontario Ministry of Health, the Laidlaw Foundation, the Canada Council and Bell Canada.

"High-Rise, Low-Rise, Community Ties"

Research Personnel: Barry Wellman

Description:
Analysis of the East York data, investigating differences between inhabitants of high-rise apartment buildings and of single-family dwelling on a number of measures of social relations and health. The analysis used partial correlation techniques to differentiate between effects related to the different social characteristics of the residents of the two types of dwelling units and effects related to the housing context itself. Supported by the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

"Latino and Anglo Families in the Los Angeles Area"

Research Personnel: Dean Behrens, Barry Wellman, Charles Wetherell

Description:
Comparison of the household and kinship relations. Principal Investigator: Charles Wetherell (Univ. of California-Riverside). Supported by U.S. National Institute of Mental Health.
 
 

"National Alcohol and Drug Study"

Research Personnel: Barry Wellman, Scot Wortley

Description:
Literature review of how community social networks affect alcohol and drug use.

Literature review and principal data analysis of the Canadian National Alcohol and Drug Survey: the prevalence and social correlates of using alcohol and illicit drugs. Supported by Canadian Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Univ. of Toronto.
 
 

"Networks, Community and Ethnicity in Bulgaria"

Research Personnel: Barry Wellman

Description:
Investigations of community in Sofia and interethnic relations throughout Bulgaria. In cooperation with the Inst. of Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

"Personal Rules for Relationships"

Research Personnel: Emmanuel Koku, Nancy Nazer, Barry Wellman

Description:
Studies of preferences for different types of interactions -- online and offline -- with various types of people. Uses data collected for work and community interactions. Development of design criteria for personalized, tailorable computer supported interactions. Supported by Bell Canada University Laboratories.
 
 

"Public Participation in Transportation Decision-Making"

Research Personnel: Barry Wellman

Description:
Policy review of strategy and tactics of new process of wider decision-making in transportation planning in North America and a catalogue of cases of recent experiences of public involvement. Supported by the Ontario Ministry of Transport.

Reciprocity in Real Life

Research Personnel: Dean Behrens, Barry Wellman (Toronto)

Description:
The East York studies provide unique data on who provides what kinds of support to whom in personal networks. We use statistical and qualitative analysis to understand specific exchanges, generalized reciprocity, and network balancing.
 
 

"Social Networks of Alcohol and Drug Users"

Research Personnel: Barry Wellman, Scot Wortley, Stephanie Potter

Description:
Interview-based study of the socially-close ties of users of alcohol and illicit drugs. How social networks affect the use of such substances. 225 respondents interviewed in 1993. Supported by Canadian Ministry of Health and Welfare.
 
 

"School Integration Research"

Research Personnel: Barry Wellman

Description:
Relationship of integration experience to selected sociological variables. Advisor on research philosophy and design; contributor to preparation of questionnaire and codebook; construction of intensive interview and codebook concerned with perception of self, school and race; supervisor of interviewing and coding. Construction of "Who Am I Dictionary" for the computer-based content and analysis of self-conceptions. Principal Investigator: Nancy St. John, Harvard Graduate School of Education. Supported by the Carnegie Corporation, and the National Science Foundation.
 
 

"Self-Concepts and Urban Participation of Black and White Adolescents"

Research Personnel: Barry Wellman

Description:
Computer-based analysis of the relationship of social positions, social contexts and reference groups with self-conceptions and attitudinal, spatial and relational cosmopolitanism. Further analysis of School Integration Research Project. Supported by the Canada Council.

Social Support as Social Capital in Personal Communities: "The East York Study"

Research Personnel: Kenneth Frank, Barry Wellman

Description:
Follow-up study of "Community Ties and Support Systems" (below).  In-depth qualitative interviews of subsample of original respondents. Multi-level statistical analysis of both large-scale survey and in-depth interviews.Information on the structure and dynamics of community ties. Supported by the Univ. of Toronto, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Manpower and Immigration,the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the (U.S) Center for the Study of Metropolitan Problems, the Joint Programme in Transportation of York Univ. and the Univ. of Toronto, and the Gerontology Program of the Univ. of Toronto.
 
 

"Structural Analysis Programme"

Research Personnel: Barry Wellman

Description:
The Programme was a collaborative effort by a research group of Univ. of Toronto sociologists. Its approach emphasized the discovery of underlying structural patterns, and how these patterns affected behavior. The Programme sponsored research from this common structural approach into a wide range of substantive areas. A book of articles principally derived from the programme was published by Cambridge University Press in 1988: Social Structures: A Network Approach.

"The Yorklea Study of Mental Health in the Community"

Research Personnel: Barry Wellman

Description:
Principal responsibility for the design, conduct and analysis of an 845- respondent survey. Effects of social characteristics (e.g., gender, socioeconomic status), socially-close interpersonal ties and social network structure on the prevalence of stress and mental distress and the use of formal and informal supportive resources. The sociological data formed the basis for the "Community Ties and Support Systems" study (see above). Principal Investigator: D.B. Coates, MD. Supported by the Clarke Inst. of Psychiatry.