The phenomenological research study explores the lived experience of Black first-generation college students navigating the financial aid process to understand how they experience the process of using financial aid to pay for college through degree attainment. Higher education is aligned with social and occupational mobility. Financial aid has its…

The "big data revolution" has penetrated many fields, from network monitoring to online retail. Education and learning are quickly becoming part of it, too, because today, course delivery platforms can collect unprecedented amounts of behavioral data about students as they interact with learning content online. This data includes, for…

In the last couple of years, a new aspect of online social networking has emerged, in which the strength of social network connections is based not on social ties but mutually shared interests. This dissertation studies these "curation-based" online social networks (CBN) and their suitability for the diffusion of electronic word-of-mouth…

Social networks have become more complex, in particular considering the fact that elements in social networks are not only abstract topological nodes and links, but contain rich social attributes and reflecting diverse social relationships. For example, in a co-authorship social network in a scientific community, nodes in the social network, which…

The civil rights and other social justice movements, neighborhood watches, local garden cooperatives, and so forth are examples of a grassroots context that is largely understudied in CSCW. In recent history, movements to fight child sex trafficking, end hunger in New York City, advocate for financial reform, or even overthrow governments have…

The Internet gives individuals more choice in political news and information sources and more tools to filter out disagreeable information. Citing the preference described by selective exposure theory--that people see and attend to information that supports their beliefs and avoid counter-attitudinal information--observers warn that people may use…