Associate Professor and PhD Program Director

Andrea’s research is multidisciplinary and focuses mainly on social computing issues. Her work examines the ways that people interact to create things and learn in socio-technical systems like Wikipedia, online learning environments, family history sites, and social network sites. Some of her research involves designing and building new environments while other work focuses on understanding existing systems and practices.

Education

• PhD, Human-Centered Computing
  • Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Computing
  • Areas: Social Computing; Learning Sciences and Technology
  • Committee: Amy Bruckman, Chair Beki Grinter, Mark Guzdial, Janet Kolodner, (Georgia Institute of Technology); Jonathan Grudin (Microsoft Research)
• MLIS, Library and Information Science
  • University of Texas at Austin, Graduate School of Library and Information Science (now School of Information)
• BA, Foreign Language and Literature (German), Philosophy
  • Western Michigan University

Research/Teaching Interests

Social computing, human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, computer-supported collaborative learning, information literacy

Select Publications

• Forte, Andrea, Nazanin Andalibi, Thomas Park, Heather Willever-Farr (2014). Designing Information Savvy Societies: An Introduction to Assessability. Proceedings of ACM SIGCHI Conf. on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'14), Toronto, Canada.
• Forte, Andrea, Michael Dickard, Rachel Magee, and Denise Agosto (2014). What Do Teens Ask Their Online Social Networks? Social Search Practices among High School Students. Proceedings of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW), Baltimore, MD, USA. * best paper honorable mention *
• Forte, Andrea and Cliff Lampe. (2013). Defining, Understanding and Supporting Open Collaboration: Lessons from the Literature. American Behavioral Scientist 57(5): 535-547

Grant Awards

• 2013-2018 CAREER: Designing an Information Savvy Society - Assessable Participatory Information Environments
  • $491,950; National Science Foundation, Human-Centered Computing, CISE IIS-1253302 PI: Andrea Forte
  • 2014 Supplement: $11,156
• 2013-2016 Computing Education Research (CER): openHTML - Scaffolded Web Development Toolkit to Support Elementary Computational Literacy
  • $442,301; National Science Foundation, Computing Education in the 21st Century, CISE Division of Computer and Network Systems #1339344
  • PI: Andrea Forte, Co-PIs: Erin Knight, Mozilla Foundation; Brian Dorn, University of Nebraska Omaha; Michael Wagner, Drexel University
  • 2014 REU Supplement: $15,600
• 2013-2015 EAGER: Cybercrime Science
  • $188,676; National Science Foundation, CISE Division of Computer and Network Systems # 1347151.
  • PI: Rachel Greenstadt (originally Vaibhav Garg), Co-PI: Andrea Forte (originally Rachel Greenstadt)
• 2011-2014 Libraries and the Social Web: Developing the Next Generation of Youth Information Services
  • $378,014; Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Leadership Grant
  • PI: Denise Agosto, Co-PI: Andrea Forte
• 2012-2013 Research Co-op Award: Supporting Undergraduate Research Experiences
  • $7,215; Drexel University Office of the Provost and the Steinbright Career Development Center
  • PI: Andrea Forte
• 2011-2013 Planning Grant: openHTML - Scaffolded Web Development Toolkit to Support Elementary Computational Literacy
  • $199,991; National Science Foundation, Computing Education in the 21st Century, CISE CNS-1152094
  • PI: Andrea Forte, Co-PI: Susan Wiedenbeck
  • 2012 REU Supplement: $8,000

Professional Activities & Associations

• Member, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• General Chair, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW), 2015
• Editorial Board, International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (IjCSCL), 2010 – present
• Research co-leader, ExCITE Center, Drexel University