Academic & Research Interests
I am currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the School of Information at the University of Michigan. I successfully defended my dissertation, entitled Biography, Well-being and Personal Media: A Qualitative Study of Everyday Digital Photography Practices, in April 2011. Prior to completing my PhD, I earned an MSI with a focus on human-computer interaction from Michigan in 2004 and a BA in Interdisciplinary Humanities from Michigan State in 1997.
In my research, I employ a humanistic social science perspective in order to study the role of technology on the practices of individuals, groups and communities engaged in creative, expressive and artistic activities. I am particularly interested in informal, personal and noncommercial contexts, such as everyday media production, cultural participation and vernacular creativity. My training is interdisciplinary; I draw on methods and theory from areas such as human computer interaction (HCI), computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), social psychology, microsociology and ethnomethodology. The overall goals of my research are two-fold: a) provide rich description of existing and emergent socio-technical contexts and practices; b) contribute to theory about everyday media production and use, as mediated by technology, culture, cognition and sociality. By addressing these goals, my research contributes a deeper understanding of behavior and our socio-technical environment, as well as directing the design of new tools, new practices and new types of training.
More details can be found in my: research statement (last revision: Oct. 2011), teaching statement (last revision: Oct. 2011), and CV (last revision: Nov. 2011).
Research Activities
- Dissertation:
Biography, Well-being and Personal Media: A Qualitative Study of Everyday Digital Photography Practices. [Archived on Deep Blue]
Author: Cook, Eric Christopher
Defended: April 20, 2011
Committee Members: Research Associate Professor Stephanie D. Teasley (Chair), Professor Michael D. Cohen, Assistant Professor Steve J. Jackson, Professor Christopher M. Peterson (Psychology Dept., University of Michigan)
- Peer-reviewed publications:
Conference Paper: Beyond Promotion and Protection: Creators, Audiences and Common Ground in User-Generated Media. [pdf]
Authors: Cook, E. C., Teasley, S. D.
In Proceedings of the 2011 iConference. (Seattle, WA, USA, Feb. 8 - 11, 2011).
Book chapter: Snap, post, share: Understanding the online social life of personal photography. [pdf]
Authors: Cook, E. C. and Garduņo Freeman, C.
in Nexus: New Intersections in Internet Research (2010) (eds. Araya, D., Breindl, Y., and Houghton, T. J.) Peter Lang NY.
Conference Paper: Contribution, Commercialization & Audience: Understanding Participation in an Online Creative Community [pdf]
Authors: Cook, E., Teasley, S. D., Ackerman, M. S.
In Proceedings of ACM Group 2009, Sanibel Island, FL, May 10-13, 2009.
Book chapter: Case Studies: Three Distributed Biomedical Research Centers
Authors: Teasley, S. D., Schleyer, T., Hemphill, L., Cook, E.
in Scientific Collaboration on the Internet (2009) (eds. Olson, G., Zimmerman, A., Bos, N.). MIT Press.
- Conference presentations, posters & position papers:
Poster: Who's There? Supporting Audience Awareness in Creative Content Systems.
Authors: Cook, E. C., Teasley, S. D., Wong, P., Kolasinski, M., Waterman, B. M.
Poster to be presented at ASIS&T 2011. (New Orleans, LA, USA, Oct. 9 - 13, 2011).
Conference Roundtable: The Creativity Agenda in the iSchool Context.
Co-organizers: Cook, E. C., Luther, K. Perkel, D., Bardzell, J.
Conducted during 2011 iConference. (Seattle, WA, USA, Feb. 8 - 11, 2011).
Poster: "STOLEN!": Categories of In-Context Response to Unauthorized Reuse of User-Generated Media. [pdf]
Authors: Cook, E., Erickson, I., Thom-Santelli, J.
Presented at ACM Creativity and Cognition 2009, Berkeley, CA on Oct 27 - 30, 2009.
Workshop Position Paper: Everyday Media Creators and Projected Audiences.
Author: Cook, E.
Presented at ACM Creativity and Cognition 2009 at the 'Creative Conversations' workshop, Berkeley, CA on Oct 27, 2009.
Conference Workshop: Approaching 'Amateur'
Workshop co-organizers: Thom-Santelli, J., Cook, E., Luther, K., Bruckman, A., Bardzell, J., McDonald, D.
Conducted at ACM Group 2009 conference, Sanibel Island, FL, May 10, 2009
Workshop Position Paper: Biography Work in the Networked Home Mode
Author: Cook, E.
Presented at ACM CSCW 2008 at the Designing for Families workshop sesson, San Diego, CA, November 9, 2008.
Conference Workshop: The Missing Chapters: Learning Sciences Beyond the Classroom.
Workshop co-organizers: Teasley, S., Wulf, V., Cook, E., Hemphill, L. & Yew, J.
Conducted at International Conference of the Learning Sciences in Utrecht, NL on Thursday,
June 26, 2008.
Poster: Many-to-Few: Expanding the Model of User-Generated Media Production.
Author: Cook, E.
Presented at ACM Group 2007, Sanibel Island, FL on Nov 4-7, 2007
Doctoral symposium paper: The Knot of Amateurs & Professionals: Untangling Social Roles in Creative Practice
Authors: Cook, E.
Presented at ACM Creativity and Cognition 2007, in Washington, D.C. on June 13-15, 2007
Poster: Socio-technical Factors of Practice Transmission in an Online Creative Tool Community
Authors: Cook, E., Teasley, S. D., Ackerman, M.
Presented at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, ICLS 2006, in Bloomington, IN on June 27-30, 2006
Workshop Position Paper: Socio-technical Factors of Practice Transmission in an Online Creative Community
Author: Cook, E.
Presented at ACM CHI 2006, at the About Face: Interface Creative Engagment in New Media Arts and HCI workshop sesson, in Montreal, ON on April 22-23, 2006.
Poster: Heterogeneity in Harmony: Practice and Preferences of a Multimedia Arts Collective
Authors: Cook, E., Teasley, S. D., Olson, J.
Presented at ACM Group 2005, Sanibel Island, FL on Nov 6-8, 2005
- Grants/Awards:
NSF CreativeIT grant, Learning from creativity in the wild: Leveraging the success of Creative Content Systems. Proposal co-authored with Dr. Stephanie Teasley. Grant awarded Fall 2009, NSF Grant #IIS0855865.
University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School, Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor award, 2008-2009
University of Michigan School of Information Outstanding GSI award, 2007 - 2008.
ICOS small awards grant 2005-2006, awarded January 2006.
Proposal: Facilitating Innovation in an Open/Closed System: Socio-technical Factors of Practice Transmission in an Online Creative Community
Margaret Mann Award in recognition of "academic abilty and professional potential," awarded Dec. 2004.
- Teaching & Service activities:
Student Participant, Oxford Internet Institute Summer Doctoral Program 2009. Held at QUT, Brisbane, Australia, July 6 - 17, 2009.
Guest lecturer, University of Michigan, SOC/SI100: Intro to Information Studies, Fall08. Lecture, Week 13: Privacy.
Graduate Student Mentor, 2008 - 2009, Univ. of Mich. School of Information, Ann Arbor, MI
Planned and oversaw SI GSI orientation and training sessions, Fall and Winter terms. Conducted midterm observation and student feedback sessions for all SI GSIs.
Graduate Student Instructor, Fall 2007, taught two discussion sections of SI 500, Information in Social
Systems: Collections, Flows and Processing (Profs. Michael Cohen, Jeff MacKie-
Mason and Gary Olson), Masters' level foundations course.
Teaching ratings:
"Overall, the GSI was an excellent teacher": section medians of 4.77 & 4.88 (5
point scale).
Graduate Student Instructor, Fall 2006, taught two discussion sections of SI 504, Social Systems and
Collections (Profs. Michael Cohen and Paul Edwards), Masters' level
foundations course.
Teaching ratings: "Overall, the GSI was an excellent
teacher": section medians of 4.75 & 4.83 (5 point scale).
Founder and co-organizer, FIRST: Featured Information Research Student Talks.
Twice-monthly series of invited public presentations of student research at the
School of Information, Univ. of Michigan. 2007 - 2008.
Guest speaker, School of Information Doctoral Development Seminar.
Featured
student speaker for sessions on pre-candidacy papers, and the field prelim process. 2007 - 2008.
Co-president, School of Information Doctoral Student Organization, 2007 - 2008 .
Graduate Student Research Asst. for Prof. Stephanie Teasley
2006 - 2008: Assist in the study and facilitation of distributed scientific collaboration, Gates Foundation Grand Challenges for Global Health project:
Nanoemulsions as Adjuvants for Nasal-Spray Vaccines.
2003 - 2005: Assisted in the study and facilitation of distributed scientific collaboration within the GLRCE, the Great Lakes Regional Center of Excellence
for biodefense and emerging infectious disease research.
Doctoral Student representative, SI North Quad Planning Committee, 2005 - 2007.
Co-organizer, 1st Annual University of Michigan ICOS (Interdisciplinary Committee on Organizational Studies) Retreat planning committee (co-chairs, Michael Cohen & Jane Dutton), Fall 2005.
Paper Reviewer: ACM CSCW 2006 - 2008, 2012; ACM CHI 2006 - 2011; ACM Creativity and Cognition 2009; ACM Group 2009; ICSWM08; CSCL 2007.
Last update: November 18, 2011.