The SocialWorlds research group focuses on social-technical systems design and collaborative technologies (including computer-supported cooperative work and social computing). We prefer to think of these fields writ broadly, thinking not only about the systems but also about their social context. In general, we look at expertise and knowledge sharing.

Our current research projects look at different topics where these themes play out, including online misinformation, health, crowd-sourcing, and collaborative memories. In the past, we have also examined online communities and other forms of social computing, privacy, and information access.

The SocialWorlds group includes people who do social analytical studies as well as people who are technical. We do both because we're interested in co-design spaces - places where you need to consider how to incorporate elements of the social world within software systems (such as with collaborative systems) and also consider how those systems will affect their social settings in return.