November 2007 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Re: [Air-L] Why aren't more websites accessible?
by Caroline Haythornthwaite 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

You might email this person -- Jon Gunderson -- he has taught courses in our faculty (Graduate School of Library and Information Science) on designing for usability and is disability services officer at U. of Illinois. https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jongund/www/vita-long.html /Caroline ---- Original message ---- >Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 02:16:43 -0500 (EST) >From: "Glen E. Farrelly" <glensleeo(a)yahoo.com> >Subject: [Air-L] Why aren't more websites accessible? >To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org > >I’m new to academic research and to this group, so forgive me if I’m not following conventions. > > I'm in the process of submitting a master's level grant application to examine why more websites, specifically Canadian, are not made accessible for the visually impaired. > > While I believe the perceived cost and effort to make websites accessible is a significant reason, I was hoping to find research into other factors. If anyone knows of any research in this area - or in ascertaining the degree of inaccessibility - I would greatly appreciate any tips, links or advice. > > Thank you, > Glen Farrelly >Student, Royal Roads University / Web Producer >Glen.farrelly(a)yahoo.com > > > >--------------------------------- >Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail >_______________________________________________ >The Air-L(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list >is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org >Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/ listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > >Join the Association of Internet Researchers: >http://www.aoir.org/ ---------------------------------------- Caroline Haythornthwaite Associate Professor Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820

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Reminder: Yale ISP's "Reputation Economies in Cyberspace" (Dec 8)
by Michael Zimmer 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Reminder: Yale ISP's "Reputation Economies in Cyberspace" symposium is on December 8th. Details below and at http://isp.law.yale.edu/ reputation Due to popular demand, we've added a discounted student rate of $45. Registration at: https://wems.worldtek.com/RepEcon Hope to see you there, Michael Zimmer ----- Michael Zimmer, PhD Microsoft Fellow, Information Society Project Yale Law School e: michael.zimmer(a)yale.edu w: http://michaelzimmer.org ===== The Information Society Project at Yale Law School is proud to present Reputation Economies in Cyberspace. The symposium will be held on December 8, 2007 at Yale Law School in New Haven, CT. This event will bring together representatives from industry, government, and academia to explore themes in online reputation, community-mediated information production, and their implications for democracy and innovation. The symposium is made possible by the generous support of the Microsoft Corporation. A distinguished group of experts will map out the terrain of reputation economies in four panels: (1) Making Your Name Online; (2) Privacy and Reputation Protection; (3) Reputation and Information Quality; and (4) Ownership of Cyber-Reputation. See below for more detail on each panel; a current list of confirmed speakers is available at the conference website. Online registration is available now at: https://wems.worldtek.com/ RepEcon. There is a $95 registration fee, which includes lunch. Students may register for $45. Yale students and faculty and members of the press may attend for free. For more information, see: http:// isp.law.yale.edu/reputation. SYMPOSIUM ON REPUTATION ECONOMIES IN CYBERSPACE Panel I: Making Your Name Online Moderator: Jack Balkin - Director, Information Society Project and Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, Yale Law School Panelists: Michel Bauwens - Founder, The Foundation for P2P Alternatives Rishab A. Ghosh - Senior Researcher, United Nations University -MERIT Auren Hofman - CEO, Rapleaf Hassan Masum - Senior Research Co-ordinator, McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health Beth Noveck - Professor of Law and Director, Institute for Information Law and Policy, New York Law School This panel will discuss the shifts in the reputation economy that we are witnessing, largely the transition from accreditation to participatory, community-based modes of reputation management. Some of the questions the panel will address include: What are the new norms for cyber-reputation? How do these depart from offline models? How can reputation in one online system be transported to another? How do SNS and reputation connect? How do you bootstrap and cash out? Panel II: Privacy and Reputational Protection Moderator: Michael Zimmer - Microsoft Resident Fellow, Information Society Project and Post-Doctoral Associate, Yale Law School Panelists: Alessandro Acquisti - Assistant Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy, H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University Danielle Citron - Assistant Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law William McGeveran - Associate Professor, University of Minnesota Law School Dan Solove - Associate Professor, George Washington University Law School Jonathan Zittrain - Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation, Oxford University; Visiting Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies, Harvard Law School Cyber-reputation management is based on transactions in information that is often sensitive and is always contextual. This brings up many questions about the need to protect one's privacy and reputation within and outside this system. Some of the questions the panel will address: How is participation in cyber-reputation systems related to defamation and free speech? What happens when cyber-reputation spills over into offline activities and relationships like the political process, job applications, or school admissions? What happens when your second life meets your first? Requiring divulgence of real name or other personal data. Is opting out possible? Pending legislation on S495 - data security and privacy (Senator Leahy) Panel III: Reputational Quality and Information Quality Moderator: Laura Forlano - Visiting Fellow, Information Society Project Panelists: Urs Gasser - Associate Professor of Law, University of St. Gallen Ashish Goel - Associate Professor, Management Science and Engineering and Computer Science, Stanford University Darko Kirovski - Senior Researcher, Microsoft Corporation Mari Kuraishi - President, Global Giving Foundation Vipul Ved Prakash - Founder, Cloudmark Evidently, unlike traditional reputation mechanisms that relied on small group acquaintances and formal accreditation mechanisms, the cyber-reputation economy is heavily mediated by technology. This raises the risk of breaking the delicate checks and balances that are necessary for the system to ensure quality of both the informational outcomes and the participants' reputation. This panel will try to highlight the connections between the way the new systems are built, and the outcome they produce. Some of the questions the panel will address: How can we assure quality in online reputation economies? What is the connections between the system design and the quality information? How good are the alternative accreditation mechanisms and how easy are they to hijack? How can employment discrimination law adapt to the realities of online reputation? Panel IV: Ownership of Cyber-Reputation Moderator: Eddan Katz - Executive Director, Information Society Project and Lecturer-in-Law and Associate Research Scholar, Yale Law School Panelists: John Clippinger - Senior Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School Eric Goldman - Assistant Professor and Director, High Tech Law Institute, Santa Clara University School of Law faculty Bob Sutor - Vice President Open Source and Standards, IBM Corporation Mozelle Thompson - Thompson Strategic Consulting; (former FTC Commissioner) Rebecca Tushnet - Professor, Georgetown University Law Center The data and information that are collected in online reputation systems are both valuable and powerful. The ability to control this information, store it, process it, access it, and transport it are crucial to the maintenance of the reputation economy. This panel will address the important set of questions that concern the ownership of this information. Some questions the panel will address: Who owns one's online reputation? Who owns the metadata? How portable is online reputation? Should it be transportable from one system to another? How is reputation connected to the interoperability question? Should we have international standards governing reputation?

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CFP: Ottawa Law & Tech Journal
by Holly Kruse 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Forwarded on request -- please do not respond to me. Holly Kruse ------- UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA LAW & TECHNOLOGY JOURNAL www.uoltj.ca <https://mail.uottawa.ca/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://mail.uottawa.ca/e xchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.uoltj.ca> Call for Papers Special Issue on Science and the Courts (submission deadline March 1, 2008) and General Issues (rolling submissions) Detailed Call for Papers and Submission Information: http://www.uoltj.ca/cfp.php <https://mail.uottawa.ca/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.uoltj.ca/cfp.p hp> Special Issue on Science and the Courts: The University of Ottawa Law & Technology Journal invites original scholarly articles for a special issue on Science and the Courts to be published in 2008. The University of Ottawa Law & Technology Journal (UOLTJ) is an open access, bilingual (English and French), faculty-run, peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to scholarly articles on law and technology. The special issue on Science and the Courts seeks to include a broad range of subject areas and perspectives and seeks representation from authors drawn from science, law (including judges, lawyers, and academics), and related disciplines. Suggested topics include electronic evidence, the role of the expert witness, novel science and the courts, the specialized court, patent litigation, nanotechnology, legal history of science and the courts, product liability, juries and science, DNA, science and mass torts, neutral science advisors to a court, and the interaction between emerging scientific research and legal precedent on cases involving science. The Journal is also open to considering submissions on any other aspect of the intersection between science and the courts. The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2008. General Issues: The Journal also continues to invite submissions of original scholarly articles in English or in French for publication in its peer-reviewed general issues, which will be considered on a rolling basis. For its general issues, the Journal is interested in work on all aspects of the field of law and technology, regardless of the type of technology, substantive area of law at issue, or theoretical or philosophical focus. The Journal considers scholarship on the intersection of law with established or emerging technologies in any field, such as computer, internet and e-commerce law; privacy; intellectual property; technology and ethics; communications, entertainment, and social media; natural sciences; traditional knowledge; evidence; cybercrime; security; internet governance; and e-government. The Journal publishes articles on law and technology written by scholars from a range of disciplines and encourages submissions of interdisciplinary work. All articles submitted to the Journal are evaluated through a peer review process before being accepted for publication. The Journal publishes two peer-reviewed issues annually and is available both in print and electronic formats. The current and past contents of the UOLTJ are freely available online on the Journal's websites, www.uoltj.ca <https://mail.uottawa.ca/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://mail.uottawa.ca/e xchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.uoltj.ca> (in English) and www.rdtuo.ca <https://mail.uottawa.ca/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://mail.uottawa.ca/e xchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.rdtuo.ca> (in French). The Journal is also carried in HeinOnline, LexisNexis, Westlaw, and LexisNexis Quicklaw, and indexed in the Index to Canadian Legal Literature, the Index to Canadian Intellectual Property Literature, and OpenJ-Gate. In addition, the full-text of the Journal is available on the Social Science Research Network, the Directory of Open Access Journals and the digital collection of the Library and Archives Canada. As a member of Open Access Law Canada, the UOLTJ has made a firm commitment to advancing the free public accessibility of legal information. The Journal's publication agreement is available for consultation on the website http://www.uoltj.ca/copyright.php <https://mail.uottawa.ca/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://mail.uottawa.ca/e xchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.uoltj.ca/copyright.php> . In addition to publishing in an open access format, the Journal supports the use of free public online sources of legislation and case law by including citations to public online sources. Submission Information: http://www.uoltj.ca/cfp.php <https://mail.uottawa.ca/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.uoltj.ca/cfp.p hp> Inquiries may be addressed to: Professor Elizabeth F. Judge Editor-in-Chief and Faculty Advisor University of Ottawa Law & Technology Journal University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law uoltj(a)uottawa.ca

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CFP -- Artifact!
by Ken Friedman 27 Nov '07

27 Nov '07

Call for Papers ---> Artifact <--- The journal Artifact is an international peer-reviewed academic journal dealing with design. Artifact addresses topical themes and issues relevant to design researchers, practising designers, organizations, and manufacturers. It reflects the broad field of design today by giving researchers from different disciplines the opportunity to debate and exchange ideas. Artifact is open to many kinds of discourse, with an emphasis on human and cultural issues. Our goal is to promote transdisciplinary design research, encourage cross-fertilization, interconnections, and crossbreeding among different scientific disciplines, the design industry, and the arts. Artifact embraces experimental research approaches to design, with a basis in, or view to applied design practice. Articles from the first issue of Artifact are available free on the journal web site: http://www.informaworld.com/artifact Recent authors include: Lev Manovich, Jonas Lowgren, Adrian Miles, Mattias Arvola & Henrik Artman, Greg Van Alstyne & Robert K. Logan, Owen F. Smith, Pascal Béguin, Klaus Krippendorff, Susan M. Hagan, Johan Redström, John Chris Jones,Per Mollerup, and John Shiga. Please visit our web site -- and consider a contribution to Artifact. The Editors Charlie Breindahl University of Copenhagen and IT University of Copenhagen Ken Friedman Norwegian School of Management, Oslo, and Denmark's Design School, Copenhagen Bonnie Nardi School of Information and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine Erik Stolterman Indiana University School of Informatics, Bloomington -- Associate Editors: Ida Engholm Judith Gregory Lisbeth Thorlacius -- Advisory Board: Thomas Binder Jeanette Blomberg David Durling Lars Dybdahl Pelle Ehn Susan M. Hagan Marius Hartmann Steve Jones Klaus Krippendorff Lev Manovich Jannie Nielsen Christiane Paul Sharon Poggenpohl Johan Redström Kristoffer Aaberg

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[Softwareandculture] lessons in second life
by Jeremy Hunsinger 27 Nov '07

27 Nov '07

distribute as appropriate -jh Every Week on Tuesday (1:30-3pm SLT) join us for Lessons in Second Life, an open table forum centering on what can be learned in sl in both formal and informal settings. The forum is open to faculty, students, and interested parties of all kinds. We meet at the _blacklibrary hyperborea 91, 30, 26 im buridan simon for more information. Come share your ideas for learning in Second Life http://slurl.com/secondlife/hyperborea/92/30/26/ this week's Lessons in Second Life is brought you by: Typed Oratory is not Oratory next week's Lessons in Second Life is brought to you by: The Consortium for the Wearing of Canada Hats while Making Funny Faces jeremy hunsinger Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (www.cipr.uwm.edu ) wiki.tmttlt.com www.tmttlt.com () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments http://www.stswiki.org/ sts wiki http://cfp.learning-inquiry.info/ Learning Inquiry-the journal http://transdisciplinarystudies.tmttlt.com/ Transdisciplinary Studies:the book series

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U of Ottawa law and technology podcast.
by Peter Timusk 27 Nov '07

27 Nov '07

I hope some of you are like me, more novice researchers who consumer the research of others. From my school there is a law students of technology lecture series. You may have heard of DR. Micheal Geist from this law school. I study in the systems science program not the law program. This series is on podcasts I just found out here http://web5.uottawa.ca/techlaw/en/podcasts/techlaw-podcast- technojuridique/ Peter Timusk, B.Math statistics (2002), B.A. legal studies (2006) Carleton University Systems Science Graduate student, University of Ottawa. just trying to stay linear. Read by hundreds of lurkers every week.

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Specify. Then Build. Seeking round two Knight News Challenge in-kind University partners - From E-Democracy.Org
by Steven Clift 26 Nov '07

26 Nov '07

E-Democracy.Org is into round two for the Knight News Challenge - http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/127 . With our round two "Specify. Then Build." proposal we are looking for universities interested in partnering to host (in-kind) citizen media and engagement open source programming sprints. The partner would agree to provide space, bandwidth, and use of high speed (Internet 2) IP video conferencing equipment on a in-kind basis likely over a long weekend. We will likely be connecting a site in the U.S. to a U.K. site for virtual developer teams (typically 4 to 6 teams with 4 or 5 programmers at each site). We would also need discounted or in-kind on-campus lodging within reason for up to 20 to 30 people. We will be providing transportation to the site for the selected participants. If we win the grant, we expect to hold at least four programming sprints - two in 2009 and two in 2010. I want be up front and note that the tight $500,000 US proposal does not allow us to share funding to cover the physical space for hosting the sprints assuming we find appropriate in-kind offers. Also, we are interested in learning about existing or proposed research that might be connected to this initiative. Prior to the programming, sprints, we will be hosting very public citizen media and engagement module/plug-in software specification efforts. Instead of developing stand alone modules or modules/plug-ins for one open source tools used for locally-oriented citizen media/online engagement efforts, we are proposing an open specification process that will lead to the competitive build out of modules for key open source content management platforms (Drupal, Plone, etc.). Finally, we may be able to leverage our evaluation budget to support some research based on this rather experimental initiative. If this effort matches your project's existing mission or goals we might have a match and your endorsement will increase our chances of winning the News Challenge. For a copy the draft application, drop me an e-mail ASAP - clift(a)publicus.net - because the final deadline for submission is Nov. 30. Cheers, Steven Clift E-Democracy.Org P.S. For a short description of our round one proposal see - http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/127 and below is information about the scope of the Knight News Challenge: THE KNIGHT NEWS CHALLENGE INITIATIVE SEEKS • New ways for people to communicate interactively to help people better understand one another in geographic communities, share know-how and generate passion in solving local problems; • New ways for people to use information, news and journalism in geographic communities to imagine their collective possibilities as communities, and to set and reach common community goals; • New ways to dig for news and act on it in geographic communities, including new ways to collect, prepare and distribute information, news and journalism that reveals hard-to-know facts, identifies common problems, clarifies community issues or points out practical courses of action. Keep in mind the purpose of the contest is to develop digital communication projects that will help better connect people in physical space, in the communities in which they work, live and vote. In the words of Jack Knight: Thus we seek to bestir the people into an awareness of their own condition, provide inspiration for their thoughts and rouse them to pursue their true interests.

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Immigrant internet use refs request
by Andrew Whelan 24 Nov '07

24 Nov '07

Hi all, We have a project at Trinity starting, researching immigrants' internet use here in the Irish context. In particular, we're interested in how immigrants are accessing local government and social services online, but also how the internet is used for political activity, including political activity related to the country of origin. I'd be very grateful if anyone could suggest useful reading in this area (somewhat to my surprise, an archive search yielded few results). Best, Andrew -- http://231074.blogspot.com/ http://www.tcd.ie/sociology/ http://www.tcd.ie/iiis/

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Re: [Air-L] Air-L Digest, Vol 40, Issue 19
by Jason Gallo 23 Nov '07

23 Nov '07

D-train- Check this out. Don't know if this is up your alley. -j On Nov 23, 2007 3:33 PM, <air-l-request(a)listserv.aoir.org> wrote: > Send Air-L mailing list submissions to > air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > air-l-request(a)listserv.aoir.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > air-l-owner(a)listserv.aoir.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Air-L digest..." > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Coding Analysis Toolkit - A new resource for researchers with > large text annotation tasks (Stuart Shulman) > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: "Stuart Shulman" <stuart.shulman(a)gmail.com> > To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org > Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 08:37:40 -0500 > Subject: [Air-L] Coding Analysis Toolkit - A new resource for researchers with large text annotation tasks > Members of the list may be interested in this narrated slide show about the > Coding Analysis Toolkit developed by QDAP. It is viewable through a web > browser at: > > http://www.qdap.pitt.edu/catshow.htm > > The Coding Analysis Toolkit, colloquially known as "CAT", was developed in > the summer of 2007. It was designed by QDAP Director Dr. Stuart Shulman and > created in collaboration with Mark Hoy, a Senior Programmer in the Carnegie > Mellon University School of Computer Science. It is maintained by UCSUR > Technology Director James Lefcakis. CAT is is hosted on UCSUR servers and > made available on the web at: http://cat.ucsur.pitt.edu/. The system > consists of a web-based suite of tools custom built from the ground-up to > facilitate efficient and effective analysis of text datasets that have been > coded using the commercial-off-the-shelf package ATLAS.ti (www.atlasti.com) > We have recently posted a narrated slide show about CAT online. > > The Coding Analysis Toolkit was designed to use keystrokes and automation to > clarify and speed-up the validation or consensus adjudication process. > Special attention was paid during the design process to the need to > eliminate the role of the computer mouse, thereby streamlining the physical > and mental tasks in the coding analysis process. We anticipate that CAT will > open new avenues for researchers interested in measuring and accurately > reporting coder validity and reliability, as well as for those practicing > consensus-based adjudication. The availability of CAT can improve the > practice of qualitative data analysis at the University of Pittsburgh and > beyond. > > Currently about 50 beta testers located in several countries have accounts > on CAT. They have been given free access to the system for the rest of the > calendar year. Systematic user feedback will be gathered via a beta tester > web survey and will shape the future development of CAT. The capabilities of > CAT and its reliability as a software tool may be sufficiently robust to > merit commercial licensing to users starting in 2008. The CAT system allows > a user to register for an account to log on, upload exported coded results > from ATLAS.ti into the system, and run comparisons of inter-rater > reliability measured using Fleiss' Kappa and Krippendorff's Alpha. The user > can also choose to perform a code-by-code comparison of the data, revealing > tables of quotations where coders agree, disagree, or overlap. For any > comparisons, the user can view the data on the screen, or alternatively, > download the data file as a rich-text file (.rtf). > > CAT's core functionality allows for the adjudication of coded items by an > "expert" user who is a sub-account attached to the primary account holder of > the system. The website and database itself resides on a Windows 2003 UCSUR > server and the programming for the website is done using HTML, ASP.net > 2.0and JavaScript. An expert user can log onto the system to validate > the codes > assigned to items in a dataset. While the expert user is validating codes, > the system also keeps track of which codes are valid and which coders > assigned those codes. This information is used to keep a historical track > record of coders for assessing coder accuracy over time. It also allows the > account holder to see a rank order list of the coders most likely to produce > valid observations, report the overall validity scores by code, coder, or > entire project, and end up with a 'clean' dataset consisting of only valid > observations. > > In a newly developed CAT module, which is being beta tested internally > during the fall 2007 semester by five QDAP coders, the project manager is > able to upload raw datasets and have users code those datasets directly > through the CAT interface. As is the case with the original adjudication > toolkit, this new module features automated loading of discrete quotations > and requires only keystrokes, instead of mouse clicks and drags, to apply > the codes to the text. We estimate coding tasks using CAT are completed 2-3 > times as fast as identical coding tasks conducted using ATLAS. While this > high-speed "mouse-less" coding module would poorly serve many traditional > qualitative research approaches, it is ideally suited to annotation tasks > routinely generated by computer scientists. > > ~Stu > > > > -- > Dr. Stuart W. Shulman > Director, Sara Fine Institute > School of Information Sciences > Director, Qualitative Data Analysis Program > University Center for Social and Urban Research > http://qdap.ucsur.pitt.edu > University of Pittsburgh > 121 University Place, Suite 600 > Pittsburgh, PA 15260 > 412.624.3776 (v) 412.624.4810 (f) > http://shulman.ucsur.pitt.edu > Editor, Journal of Information Technology and Politics > http://www.jitp.net > > > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ > -- Jason Gallo PhD Candidate Media, Technology and Society Program School of Communication Northwestern University Project Coordinator WebUse Project http://www.webuse.northwestern.edu/

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Coding Analysis Toolkit - A new resource for researchers with large text annotation tasks
by Stuart Shulman 23 Nov '07

23 Nov '07

Members of the list may be interested in this narrated slide show about the Coding Analysis Toolkit developed by QDAP. It is viewable through a web browser at: http://www.qdap.pitt.edu/catshow.htm The Coding Analysis Toolkit, colloquially known as "CAT", was developed in the summer of 2007. It was designed by QDAP Director Dr. Stuart Shulman and created in collaboration with Mark Hoy, a Senior Programmer in the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science. It is maintained by UCSUR Technology Director James Lefcakis. CAT is is hosted on UCSUR servers and made available on the web at: http://cat.ucsur.pitt.edu/. The system consists of a web-based suite of tools custom built from the ground-up to facilitate efficient and effective analysis of text datasets that have been coded using the commercial-off-the-shelf package ATLAS.ti (www.atlasti.com) We have recently posted a narrated slide show about CAT online. The Coding Analysis Toolkit was designed to use keystrokes and automation to clarify and speed-up the validation or consensus adjudication process. Special attention was paid during the design process to the need to eliminate the role of the computer mouse, thereby streamlining the physical and mental tasks in the coding analysis process. We anticipate that CAT will open new avenues for researchers interested in measuring and accurately reporting coder validity and reliability, as well as for those practicing consensus-based adjudication. The availability of CAT can improve the practice of qualitative data analysis at the University of Pittsburgh and beyond. Currently about 50 beta testers located in several countries have accounts on CAT. They have been given free access to the system for the rest of the calendar year. Systematic user feedback will be gathered via a beta tester web survey and will shape the future development of CAT. The capabilities of CAT and its reliability as a software tool may be sufficiently robust to merit commercial licensing to users starting in 2008. The CAT system allows a user to register for an account to log on, upload exported coded results from ATLAS.ti into the system, and run comparisons of inter-rater reliability measured using Fleiss' Kappa and Krippendorff's Alpha. The user can also choose to perform a code-by-code comparison of the data, revealing tables of quotations where coders agree, disagree, or overlap. For any comparisons, the user can view the data on the screen, or alternatively, download the data file as a rich-text file (.rtf). CAT's core functionality allows for the adjudication of coded items by an "expert" user who is a sub-account attached to the primary account holder of the system. The website and database itself resides on a Windows 2003 UCSUR server and the programming for the website is done using HTML, ASP.net 2.0and JavaScript. An expert user can log onto the system to validate the codes assigned to items in a dataset. While the expert user is validating codes, the system also keeps track of which codes are valid and which coders assigned those codes. This information is used to keep a historical track record of coders for assessing coder accuracy over time. It also allows the account holder to see a rank order list of the coders most likely to produce valid observations, report the overall validity scores by code, coder, or entire project, and end up with a 'clean' dataset consisting of only valid observations. In a newly developed CAT module, which is being beta tested internally during the fall 2007 semester by five QDAP coders, the project manager is able to upload raw datasets and have users code those datasets directly through the CAT interface. As is the case with the original adjudication toolkit, this new module features automated loading of discrete quotations and requires only keystrokes, instead of mouse clicks and drags, to apply the codes to the text. We estimate coding tasks using CAT are completed 2-3 times as fast as identical coding tasks conducted using ATLAS. While this high-speed "mouse-less" coding module would poorly serve many traditional qualitative research approaches, it is ideally suited to annotation tasks routinely generated by computer scientists. ~Stu -- Dr. Stuart W. Shulman Director, Sara Fine Institute School of Information Sciences Director, Qualitative Data Analysis Program University Center for Social and Urban Research http://qdap.ucsur.pitt.edu University of Pittsburgh 121 University Place, Suite 600 Pittsburgh, PA 15260 412.624.3776 (v) 412.624.4810 (f) http://shulman.ucsur.pitt.edu Editor, Journal of Information Technology and Politics http://www.jitp.net

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