Events

Join us in person, Communication Arts & Sciences Room 191 (South entrance) or via Zoom (sign up here). Event is Sponsored by the Rural Computing Research Consortium, Quello Center, American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program, and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering Rural places have experienced pernicious digital inequities for decades. Recent Pew Survey data finds that 28% of rural households in the US do not have broadband Internet access. For years, solutions to this digital divide have involved trillions of dollars invested into infrastructure that never quite bridges the gap. Instead of playing a perpetual game of technology […]

Via Zoom | So many of the debates about public policy and the digital economy revolve around issues that are social-cybernetic in nature. That is, they deal with control and communication, but not “in the animal and the machine,” as Norbert Wiener’s foundational definition of cybernetics would have it, but control and communication in social systems. AI applications are accused of reinforcing societal biases by replicating patterns that reflect past discriminatory decisions. We want to know how much of our social life can be automated or turned over to robots, and whether this increases or decreases our sense of control […]

Via Zoom | RSVP Here | or email quello@msu.edu When ignoring service terms and agreement implications, people contribute to an internet meme known as "the biggest lie on the internet" (said to be "I agree to the terms and conditions"). This talk will review research unpacking the meme. This includes survey research addressing policy ignoring behaviors, analyses of the length/complexity of service terms, and clickwrap user interface designs. Findings suggest deceptive designs like the clickwrap, and long/complicated policies contribute to ignoring behaviours. Findings also suggest privacy protective behaviors are viewed as tangential to service use goals. This is problematic as online consent processes […]

Via Zoom | Follow the link at the bottom to add to your calendar The first part of this presentation examines the emergent and sometimes paradoxical logic of the internet news ecosystem, in particular: (1) collectively, news diets have become far more concentrated in a small number of outlets; (2)  however, individuals have relatively diverse news diets-- almost certainly far more diverse than was plausible pre-Internet (as measured by number of unique content producers); (3) the social-algorithmic curation system of the Internet tends to point people to content with their preferences, sometimes in unlikely places. The greater diversity of consumption of news measured […]

Marcus Foth is a Professor of Urban Informatics in the School of Design and a Chief Investigator in the QUT Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC), Faculty of Creative Industries, Education, and Social Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. He is a founding member of the More-than-Human Futures research group. Marcus’ research brings together people, place, and technology. His current research foci include: urban media and geoprivacy; data care in smart cities; digital inclusion and participation; blockchain and food supply chains; and sustainability and more-than-human futures.

Via Zoom  RSVP Here | or email quello@msu.edu Evolving technologies are changing how young people learn and the kinds of work their parents do. These changes create uncertainty about how adults can ensure stability and mobility in the workforce today, and how to prepare for what they anticipate work will look like for their children in the future. How parents and children answer these questions is heavily influenced by their “technological timelines”: how they see their families and communities having been affected by technological changes past, present, and future. This presentation presents an in-depth view on how working-class Black and White families in […]

In Person in CAS Room 191 and Via Zoom  RSVP Here | or email quello@msu.edu A Rural Computing Research Consortium/Quello Center joint event. Responsible innovation can be helpful in the realm of developing climate-smart farming tools, where data-driven technologies, AI modeling, and localized farm data can enable climate adaptation and mitigation. However, to achieve benefits of these innovations for the public interest and for scaling up, it is imperative to cultivate trust among a range of actors and organizations across the food system value chain. This trust-building process necessitates the development of transparent pathways for converting raw data into actionable insights, a task that […]

Via Zoom  RSVP Here | or email quello@msu.edu Early in 2020, the use of telehealth for primary care exploded because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Funded by PCORI, their team launched an extensive set of quantitative and qualitative evaluations of this natural experiment and its impact on healthcare. Ancker will report on their findings about patient and provider experiences in three states on the basis of interviews and surveys, as well as a Medicare claims-based analysis of the effects of telehealth on preventable healthcare utilization. Jessica S. Ancker, MPH, PhD, is a professor of biomedical informatics and health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. […]

Via Zoom - RSVP Here  The Quello Center 2024-2025 speaking series is co-hosted by the Information Policy Workshop and presents works-in-progress on topics covered by the Information Policy Book Series of The MIT Press. The series is co-organized by Sandra Braman and Keith Hampton. Proposals for presentations (and for books!) are welcome; please contact Sandra at bramansa@msu.edu if you are interested. All talks will be recorded and will be available to those who have registered. For a copy of the recording, please reach out to Ashley Wilson at wils1620@msu.edu In the wake of the end of the USSR, the Russian Internet initially developed […]

Via Zoom – RSVP Here  The Quello Center 2024-2025 speaking series is co-hosted by the Information Policy Workshop and presents works-in-progress on topics covered by the Information Policy Book Series of The MIT Press. The series is co-organized by Sandra Braman and Keith Hampton. Proposals for presentations (and for books!) are welcome; please contact Sandra at bramansa@msu.edu if you are interested. All talks will be recorded and will be available to those who have registered. For a copy of the recording, please reach out to Ashley Wilson at wils1620@msu.edu On a planet of waste, where whole populations and regions are written off as externalities, the notion […]

Via Zoom  RSVP Here | or email quello@msu.edu A Rural Computing Research Consortium/Quello Center joint event. Between June and September of 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) accepted public comments on whether a statutory law should be established to allow an experimental use exception for products protected by utility patents. This problem has emerged because of conflicting court decisions over whether scientific research on patented products constitutes patent infringement. Agricultural crops were immune to these concerns until the 1980s, when utility patents began to be applied to living organisms. Prior to this, crops were protected by the Plant Variety Protection Act […]