James M. Hudson
I have recently finished my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. While there, I worked with Amy Bruckman in the Electronic Learning Communities (ELC) research group.
My research focuses on understanding how media influence interaction, so that we can design better technology to support group processes. In particular, I focus on two related questions: How is it that various communication technologies change the ways that we interact with one another? How can we use that knowledge to design new technologies, new interfaces, and new social environments that support desired communication practices? In thinking about how to design technological systems to support communication, my research draws on, and contributes to, many disciplinary areas, including human-computer interaction (HCI), computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), social psychology, computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), and management.
Specific Research Projects
- Methodological Approach: Although I draw on both ethnographic and experimental techniques as appropriate, I often use quasi-experimental designs. In this approach, I control many factors, as in a typical laboratory experimenta, but I also do this research in naturalistic settigs with their inherent messiness.
- Chatrooms for Small Group Learning: My dissertation research looked at how small group discussions for educational purposes change when they move from the face-to-face classroom into an online chat environment. This research looked at two learning domains--foreign language learning and professional ethics education. Findings illustrate many changes in the process of the conversation, but only limited change in the content of the discussion.
- Ethics and Privacy: As a member of Georgia Tech's IRB for several years, I often found myself drawn to questions of research ethics. In studying consent (or lack thereof), I have begun to explore some of the ways that new technology can lead people to have inapporpriate notions of privacy.
- Interruption at Work: In a study of corporate managers, I have examined the ways that interruption plays an important and vital role among knowledge workers. In the future, I want to explore the ways that these knowledge workers manage work and home demands as they encroach on one another.
- Interruption at Home: In collaboration with Kris Nagel, I have looked into how we can develop technologies that can support interruption in the home.
- Safety-Critical Environments: In some early work, I explored the trade-offs that make the design of communication systems for firefighters challenging. More recent research has focused on collaboration across task boundaries in a hospital setting.
Contact Information
GVU/College of Computing
85 Fifth Street, NW
Atlanta, GA 30332-0760
jhudson@cc.gatech.edu