About Jeff
Jeff Ginger is the founder of the Facebook Project and also a graduate student in the PhD program in Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He spent several years previous at UIUC in Sociology and also studied Computer Science as an undergraduate. Jeff's current interests revolve around Social and Community Informatics.
- You can find out more about Jeff on his personal-professional website, JAG-wire.net
- See Jeff's Facebook-related essays, papers, and presentations
- Find much of his research data and references online
- Learn more about affiliate people and groups at UIUC
Jeff's Facebook Research
2006 : It Begins...
The Facebook Project actually has its roots set in Jeff Ginger's career as an undergraduate where he had a chance to take a senior seminar graduate course with Andy Pickering, a well recognized professor in science and technology studies sociology. The first revision of the project contained a rather simple but effective explanation of Facebook.com, snowball sample and survey, ethnographic analysis, and groundwork for future research. This initial work provided a good introduction to the tasks to be taken on during Jeff's trek through graduate school.
2007 : Revision 2
As Jeff moved on into graduate school he kept up the Facebook Project, working on it as he could in various classes. By the end of his first year he had released a research proposal for his Masters paper (and more, really, it was very broad!). At the same time he designed and distributed a rather extensive survey to a moderate-size, random student sample, the data for which was collected and analyzed over the course of the summer. He then put this data to use in two studies in the first semester of his second year, both focused on themes of Race and Ethnicity. This data, collected and analyzed over the course of the summer, would ultimately feed into his nasters paper as well, a work on digital identity, Facebook, and sharing of information online.
2008 : Case Study and Beyond
After coming to grips with the insufficiency of his data Jeff committed to finalizing a masters paper and conducing a series of interviews and mock digital ethnography in 2008. Over the course of the summer he developed the Facebook Project Wiki and Interview Excerpt guide.