Social Media &

Environmentalism
ENV 361

We’ll get started at 10:10am


In the meantime, make yourself comfortable 

and review your notes from the readings
Social Media &
Environmentalism
ENV 361
 Course Overview
Foundations

Class Overview

Introduction to Social Computing and Design Research

Causes for Concern


Environmental Consequences of Computing

Polarization and Disinformation

From Persuasion to Addiction

Sources of Hope

Sharing Knowledge

Collaboration

Activism

Ways Forward

Designing Pro-Social Media

Governing the Internet Commons

Dismantling and Withdrawal
 Today’s Agenda
• Guest speaker - Emily Jacobi, Digital Democracy

• Discussion of the readings:

• Citizen Science and Open Knowledge

• Key concepts competition

• Course feedback results

5 Minute Break

Quinn by Emily
What’s Good About Social Media?
Citizen Science
The Great Backyard Birdcount
The Great Backyard Birdcount
Other Citizen Science Projects
“Citizen science is the practice of public
participation and collaboration in scientific
research to increase scientific knowledge.
Through citizen science, people share and
contribute to data monitoring and collection
programs. Usually this participation is done as
an unpaid volunteer.”

National Geographic
Poll: Have you participated in a
citizen science project before?

• Yes

• No
 Some benefits of Citizen Science
• Helps science

• Broader range of perspectives

• Involves people in issues that they care about

• Can provide evidence of environmental pollution

• Improve science education and literacy

 Not all participation is the same!

English et al 2018
 Participatory projects differ in terms of:

•Who defines the research question?

•Who collects the data and how?

•Who conducts the analysis?

•Who has access to the data?

•How are the findings used and

communicated?
Open Knowledge
 Open Data

ENV361-2018 17
 Arguments for Open Data
• Transparency

• Government data, once opened, can support democratic decision-making

and public engagement

• Support innovations in both public and private sector

• Data is expensive to collect and maintain! Making it open will increase return
on that investment
 What makes open data open?
• Technically open: available in a machine-readable standard format, which
means it can be retrieved and meaningfully processed by a computer
application.

• Databases, CSVs, XLS, Not PDF


• Legally open: explicitly licensed in a way that permits commercial and non-

commercial use and re-use without restrictions

• Examples: Creative Commons, Canada’s Open Government License

Source: Govlab.org
 What makes open data open?
• Technically open: available in a machine-readable standard format, which
means it can be retrieved and meaningfully processed by a computer
application.

• Databases, CSVs, XLS, Not PDF


• Legally open: explicitly licensed in a way that permits commercial and non-

commercial use and re-use without restrictions

• Examples: Creative Commons, Canada’s Open Government License

Source: Govlab.org
 data.worldbank.org
• data.worldbank.org

• Global Forest Watch

globalforestwatch.org
open.canada.ca/en/open-data
 Open Access to Science?

ENV361-2018 24
 Open Access Publishing
• Traditional Scholarly Publishing:
Publishers print scholarly journals
Academics write & review papers
University libraries pay to subscribe to journals
People outside universities can’t access them
• Open Access Scholarly Publishing:
Internet publication minimizes costs
Academics write & review papers
Research grants cover publication costs
Everyone gets free access

ENV361-2018 25
ENV361-2018 26
 2 minute break

Anastasia and Tostoy- Anjali

Key Concepts Competition
-Citizen science

-Crowdsourcing

-Open source

-Open data

-Peer production

-Creative Commons License

-Slacktivism

-Ladder of participation

-API

-Right to repair

-Net neutrality
In your breakout groups:
- Decide how you are going to
compile your definitions

- Use your own words, but provide

links to further reading

- Take some time to work

independently

- Come back to discuss your

answers as a group

- Nominate one person to submit the

form for your group

 Course Feedback
• Overall people enjoying the class, like the lectures
and the assignments, the amount of interactivity

• Some reasonable complaints about the logistics (3

different websites, changing Zoom links)

• A few people said more details on the assignments

would be helpful

•Breakout sessions were better when they were smaller

groups and tasks were clearly defined
Further Reading
 Next Class
• Collaboration, Open Source, and Peer Production

• Response essays due at the start of class

• Guest Speaker - Embry Owen of Mutual Aid Philly

• Tutorial - Assignment #2

• Post your photos!

Social Media &
Environmentalism
ENV 361