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By Rebecca Sparenberg<br /> “What Makes A Fan: Analysis of Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture & Technology Student Network:”<br />

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My Original Hypothesis<br />Who Makes up your CCT Student Network?<br />Short Time Frame to Establish Ties<br /> Students Many Never Meet Everyone In Their Class, Much Less Everyone In the CCT Program<br />Homophily based on academic cluster<br />Based on Cross & Parker’s definition and Easley and Kleinberg’s Research<br />Noteworthy Part Time Students on Peripheral <br />Real World Ties Can Translate into Online Interactions<br />The Problem<br /><ul><li>Weak vs. Strong Ties

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Students May Miss Out on Opportunities </li></li></ul><li>Student Status<br />Solid Triangles: Full-Time, First Year<br />Empty Triangles: Part-Time, First Year<br />Solid Squares: Full-Time, Second Year<br />Empty Squares: Part-Time, Second Year<br />Black Circles: Alumni <br />Clusters by Color<br />Red: Cultural Studies<br />Yellow: Globalized Studies<br />Green: Art, Media & Representation <br />Blue: Media and Politics<br />Purple: Technology & Society<br />Pink: Technology, Business & the Economy<br />Orange: Technology, Information & Innovation Policy<br />CCT Students’ Social Ties By Academic Concentration, Year, and Status<br />

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The Data Collection Method<br />A two-stage combination of sociometric questioning, observational research, and analysis of archival records.<br />Survey, Followed By Sociometric Questioning: <br />Survey, similar to what we saw in practice in Valente, Unger, and Johnson’s study “Do Popular Students Smoke.”<br /><ul><li>Identify the 5 students whom they consider their “closest friends, ” 5 students they have the most classes, and 5 students whom they have or would like to collaborate with on a class project, research, and/or a conference paper

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Identify their year (first or second+), status (full-time or part-time), and which of the seven CCT cluster’s they most alight with.

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Lastly, I asked them if where fans of CCT’s Facebook site and/or followed CCT on Twitter; if no, why?</li></li></ul><li>By The Numbers<br />Two Weeks, 52 Responses<br />Named an additional 61 CCTers<br /><ul><li>Network of 113 Nodes, 231 actual edges out of 12,656 possible

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Degree range from 1 to 11, with an average node degree of 4

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Slightly skewed and not a true representation of the actual CCT network </li></li></ul><li>Follow Up Questioning 20 Students : 10 First Years and 10 Second Years<br />Second Years<br />2 0f 10, “close” vs. “best” would have answered different<br />3 of 10 seeking certificates outside of the CCT <br />Awareness and Access for collaboration<br />“Surrounding Factors as mentioned by Easley and Kleinberg<br />Boundary Spanner between departments<br /><ul><li>7 0f 10 named individuals they had not worked with previously on a project but based on their observations shared similar academic interested

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Majority did not name friends as possible partners for projects</li></ul>First Years<br />7 of the 10 first-years students made the majority of the “close” friends<br />62% did not respond to the who you would collaborate with question.<br />

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The Power of <br />Weak Ties<br />Homophily<br /><ul><li> 103 out of the 113 nodes in the network had a Facebook account

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60 are fans of CCT

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Only 10 students did not have accounts

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11 others are fans of other Georgetown programs

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Class of 2011 and Class of 2012 pages but not the CCT page

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29 CCT students are on Facebook, they are not fans of the CCT page or affiliate Georgetown sites</li></ul>Popularity of Facebook<br />Blue – Fans of CCT Program on FacebookYellow - Fans of Georgetown University or another Georgetown Program on Facebook, but not CCTRed – On Facebook, but not fans of CCT or affiliated sitesBlack – Info Unknown/ Not Found on Facebook<br />

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From Real World Connections to Online Ties<br /><ul><li>Three said they are not of anything “fans”

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Three replied that they are fans of other pages and get their news from those sites or their peers

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The majority - seven students - answered that they were not aware that CCT had a fan site

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Ultimately, both knowledge and access must be present for information sharing to be effective (Cross & Parker, 40).</li></ul>- Since beginning my research four students that declared they were not fans of the CCT’s page<br />

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If everyone CCT was a CCT fan…..<br />Apparent Nodes<br /><ul><li> 8 active adjunct full-time faculty

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4 staff members

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776 registered alumni that have ties with the CCT program

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Lots of unmeasurables</li></li></ul><li>During the initial survey 39 of 52 students responded that they did not follow CCT on Twitter<br /><ul><li> 32 Responded “I do not have a Twitter account”

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4 replied that they felt there was no reason to follow CCT on Twitter. </li></ul> Life's a Tweet……well, maybe not<br />

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In Conclusion! <br />