About
I am a PhD Student in the Computer Science and Communications departments at Northwestern University. I study collaboration within large online communities, with a specific interest in peer production communities. I am advised by Darren Gergle, and Aaron Shaw, Aaron Halfaker (WikiMedia Foundation), and Ed Cutrell (Microsoft Research) sit on my dissertation committee. I have worked or interned as a researcher at Microsoft Research India, Google, Mozilla, and WikiMedia. My work is supported by the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
I am Human Computer Interaction (HCI) researcher, though I work collaborators from a variety of disciplines, including computer science, communications, and computational social science. My research leverages both qualitative and quantitative methodologies in order to understand and support complex human interactions and relationships. I tend to start with a problem space or a question, and I learn methodologies in order to address that problem.
View my publications online, download my CV, or download Resume.
In my non-academic life I am a cyclist, a trail runner, a skier, and a climber. Check out my Instagram or my blog to see where I'm currently exploring or my plans for my next adventure.
Current Projects
Collaboration in Multi-Language Online Communities
Project Summary: This project aims to develop a broader, more general view of coordination and conflict in social computing across different language speaking communities. Using trace data of editing behavior, we quantify differences in coordination and conflict activity across the 24 largest language editions of Wikipedia.
In future work I aim to investigate how differences in the way editors communicate may bias content production, to explore how multilingual users currently span boundaries to mitigate content asymmetries, and to design tools that intelligently facilitate collaboration across existing linguistic and cultural boundaries.
Collaborators: Darren Gergle and Aaron Shaw
Uncertainty During Crisis
Project Summary: This project classifies and analyzes expressed online uncertainty during the Paris Attacks of 2016. Prior work indicates that expressed uncertainty is closely tied to the initial formation and subsequent crystallization of rumors. Though rumors are an inevitable component of crisis events, they pose a risk to both emergency responders and affected individuals who rely on complete and correct information for decision making.
We make two primary contributions towards understanding the role of uncertainty in rumoring and collective sensemaking. First, we expand on existing coding frameworks in order to categorize uncertainty both outside the scope of specific rumors and across multiple platforms. Second, we apply our framework to Twitter, Reddit, and Wikipedia to illustrate differences and similarities in the sensemaking process on all three platforms.
Collaborators: Kate Starbird and Tom Wilson
Communication in Citizen Science Communities
Project Summary: This project investigates the role of communication between amateur (volunteers) and professional scientists (scientists) in citizen science communities using data from the Zooniverse platform. Currently, the platform provides guidelines to science teams on how best to engage volunteers, but these guidelines have never been evaluated empirically, and the specific impacts of particular kinds of interactions between science team members of volunteers remain somewhat unclear.
We aim to test whether more involvement by professional scientists, moderators, and Zooniverse employees on Zooniverse community forums results in increased volunteer contributions and decreased rates of volunteer attrition throughout different points during a project’s timeline. These findings will refine and inform design recommendations for citizen science platform designers, project creators, volunteers, and science team members
Collaborators: Aaron Shaw and Darren Gergle
Teaching
I am an instructor for Northwestern’s Computing Everywhere workshop series, which aims to provide non-technical undergrads with an introduction to computer science topics. I developed a seminar titled “the structure of the web”, which I’ve co-taught in both two and four hour formats. The workshop website and slides, as well as a Javascript tutorial I developed for the course, are available online.
Publications and Posters | CV | Resume
Publications, Reviewed in Full
Starbird, K., Spiro, E., Edwards, I., Zhou, K., Maddock, J., and Narashimhan, S. 2016. Could This Be True? I Think So! Expressed Uncertainty in Online Rumoring. 2016 SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2016). ACM.
Robinson, J., Maddock, J., Starbird, K. 2015. Examining the Role of Human and Technical Infrastructure in Improvisation during Emergency Response. 2015 Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management Conference (ISCRAM 2015). (PDF)
Maddock, J., Starbird, K., Al-Hassani, H., Sandoval, D., Orand, M., & Mason, R.M. 2015. Characterizing Online Rumoring Behavior Using Multi-Dimensional Signatures. 2015 ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2015). ACM. (PDF)
Starbird, K., Maddock, J., Orand, M., Achterman, P., & Mason, R.M. 2014. Rumors, False Flags, and Digital Vigilantes: Misinformation on Twitter after the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. iConference 2014. (Best Note award) (PDF)
Non-Archival Publications, Posters, and Workshops
Maddock, J., Shaw, A., and Gergle, D. 2017. Talking about Talk: Coordination in Large Online Communities. 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2017 Late Breaking Work). ACM.
Maddock, J., Shaw, A., and Gergle, D. 2017. Talking about Talk: Coordination in Large Online Communities. 67th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA 2017).
Maddock, J., Gergle, D., and Starbird, K. 2016. Two is Better than One: A Mixed Methods Approach to Human Centered-Data Science. Presented at CSCW ’16 Workshop on Human Centered Data Science at Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2016). (PDF)
Walls, L., Maddock, J., Starbird, K., and Spiro E. 2015. What Should Count?: A Quantitative Approach to Scoping Rumors in Social Media. Social Media & Society Conference 2015. (PDF)
Starbird, K., Emma, S., Ahmer, A., Fang-Ju C., Narisimhan, S., Maddock, J. Shanahan K., and Robinson, J. (2015). Expressed Uncertainty and Denials as Signals of Online Rumoring. Collective Intelligence 2015. (PDF)
Maddock, J., Starbird, K. 2015. Using Historical Twitter Data for Research: Ethical Challenges of Tweet Deletions. Presented at CSCW ’15 Workshop on Ethics at the 2015 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2015). (PDF)
Maddock, J. 2014. Characterizing Online Rumoring Behavior: Multi-Dimensional Signatures. Poster presented at 2014 University of Washington Human Computer Interaction and Design Retreat.
Maddock, J. 2014. Misinformation on Twitter after the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing: Qualitative and Quantitative Signature Analysis. Poster presented at 2013 University of Washington Undergraduate Research Symposium.
Maddock, J. 2014. Misinformation on Twitter after the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. Poster presented at 2013 University of Washington Human Computer Interaction and Design Retreat.
Munson, S,. Chung, C., Maddock, J. 2013. Swellness: Social Software for Wellness. Poster presented at 2012 University of Washington Human Computer Interaction and Design Retreat.