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

Workshop on social software and SNS at C&T
by Nicole Ellison 13 Feb '07

13 Feb '07

Hi all, I hope those of you studying and thinking about social software will consider attending a workshop danah boyd, Scott Golder and I are organizing for the upcoming Communities and Technologies conference this summer. We seek to bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers studying social software, especially social network sites. We anticipate a workshop that includes many opportunities for cross-fertilization, deep thinking, and fruitful connections. More information about the workshop is available here: http:// www.ischool.berkeley.edu/~dmb/ct-sns/ The schedule for the conference is here: https://ebusiness.tc.msu.edu/ cct2007/page3.html There are many papers of interest that will be of interest to AOIR- ers – it promises to be a great conference. I hope to see many of you there! Nicole

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Online Survey Reviews
by Andrew Wat 13 Feb '07

13 Feb '07

Dear Air-l members, there is also an article about online survey which i found quite useful. Burke, LA. and KE. James (2006), Using online surveys for primary research data collection: lessons from the field, International Journal of Innovation and Learning, Volume 3, Number 1/2006, pp.16-30 Does anybody have this article and spare me a copy? Thanks, Andrew

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Web 2.0 – “the machine is us…”
by Clifford Tatum 12 Feb '07

12 Feb '07

Greetings all, This 5-minute video was recently posted on YouTube, by Michael Wesch at Kansas State University, and provides a really cool introduction to Web 2.0. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE In the run up to the Vancouver abstract deadline I talked with a number of colleagues about Web 2.0 research. Although we seemed to have an implicit agreement on the definition of Web 2.0, based on O’Reilly’s technology / functionality / commercial oriented definition, it appears that a 'formal' definition is still very much in progress. From a research definition perspective, I’m looking forward to the AoIR-8 presentations in Vancouver, where a Web 2.0 definition will surely expand and evolve. From a pedagogical perspective, I will likely use Wesch's video as an introduction into Web 2.0 discussion, and then perhaps supplement it with the O’Reilly piece. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is- web-20.html I’m interested in how others are defining/teaching Web 2.0. Also, does anyone have a favorite reference for Web 2.0? Cheers, Clifford --- Clifford Tatum Doctoral Student Dept. of Communication University of Washington clifford(a)u.washington.edu

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Couch Internet Research Award
by Mark D. Johns 11 Feb '07

11 Feb '07

SECOND CALL FOR AWARD APPLICATIONS Carl J. Couch Internet Research Award 2007 A student award competition Sponsored by the Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research http://www.cccsir.org The Carl Couch Center issues an annual call for student-authored papers to be considered for Carl J. Couch Internet Research Award. The Couch Center welcomes both theoretical and empirical papers that (1) apply symbolic interactionist approaches to Internet studies, (2) demonstrate interactive relationships between social interaction and communication technologies as advocated by Couch, and/or (3) develop symbolic interactionist concepts in new directions. Papers will be evaluated based on the quality of (1) mastery of Symbolic Interactionist approaches and concepts and Couch's theses, (2) originality, (3) organization, (4) presentation, and (5) advancement of knowledge. Evaluation will be administered by a Review Committee of four: Dr. Mark D. Johns, Luther College, Decorah, Iowa Dr. Katherine M. Clegg Smith, Johns Hopkins University Dr. Lori Kendall, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Dr. Dennis Waskul, Minnesota State University, Mankato Competition is open to graduate or undergraduate students of all disciplines. Works that are published or accepted for publication are not eligible for award consideration. Entries should not exceed 30 pages (approximately 7500 words) in length, including references and appendices. Limit of one entry per student per year. The top three papers will receive Couch Awards to be presented at the 2007 meeting of the Association of Internet Researchers (aoir.org) in Vancouver, BC. The top paper will be awarded a certificate and a cash prize of $300 US, runner up will receive a certificate and a cash prize of $200 US, and a third paper will receive a certificate and a cash prize of $100 US. All three authors will be invited to present their work at a session of the AoIR conference, October 18-20, 2007. Those interested should send a copy of their paper, with a 100-word abstract, electronically to Mark D. Johns at mjohns(a)luther.edu Application deadline is April 30, 2007. Notification of award will be sent by June 15. Those with questions or comments about Couch Award application, please contact: Mark D. Johns Dept. of Communication Studies Luther College Decorah, IA 52101 Tel: (563) 387-1347 E-mail: mjohns(a)luther.edu

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Discourse analysis
by James Whyte 11 Feb '07

11 Feb '07

Does anyone have a favorite discourse analysis software? Thanks, JW --------------------------------- Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit.

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I International Symposium on Educational Documentation
by Rosa María Merino 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

I INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON EDUCATIONAL DOCUMENTATION EDUCATIONAL DOCUMENTATION IN THE KNOELEDGE SOCIETY February 14th, 15 th and 16 th, 2007 Palma de Mallorca - Spain Objectives: To create a space for relection in which researcher, teachers, documentalists, educational entities and anyone else interested in the field of educational documentation and documentary networks can exchange experiences resources and procedures. To foster cooperation between different documentation projects and educational documentary networks in Latin America and Europe, and generate new coordinated initiatives in this field. Topic Areas: 1. Practical experiences on education databases 2. Documentation and educational innovation 3. Grey literature and educational research. Interest in documentary data collection 4. Emerging documentary areas and their processing in databases 5. New technologies applied to educational documentation Speakers: Dr. Michael Vorbeck /EUDISET (Germany), Dr. Phil Sheffield / The British Education Index. University of Leeds / The Perine Pedagogical and Educational Research information Network Project for Europe, Dra. Marisa Trigari, Instituto Nazionale di Documentazione per l! innovazione e la Ricerca Educativa. INDIRE and other. More information in: www.sidoc2007.org info(a)sidoc2007.org Regs, Rosa María Merino Directora Ejecutiva Bibliotecas Académicas y Especializadas Sistema Nacional de Bibliotecas BIBLIOTECA NACIONAL DEL PERÚ URL: www.bnp.gob.pe Teléfono: 01-428-7690 anexo 605 Fax: 01-427-7331 Móvil: 0511 -98705966 El servicio de Correo Electrónico de la Biblioteca Nacional del Perú, está normado en la Directiva Nº011-2005-BNP/ODT aprobada por la R.D.N. 095-2005- BNP.

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Patrick Purcell, RIP
by Barry Wellman 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

_____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _____________________________________________________________________ Patrick Purcell died at his home in London, February 8, 2007. Many of us met Patrick at conferences, in my case ICS conferences at Oxford in 2003 and York this past September 2006. In addition, I -- and my Connected Lives -- colleagues benefited from his incisive and enthusiastic editing of our chapter for his recent _Networked Neighbourhoods_ book (Springer, whom Patrick was always pushing to do better marketing -- quite he was, too!) Patrick was always inquisitive, charming, smart and original. At the end of the York conference, we trained down to London and spent the evening together. What a congenial partner, who's sunny side was marred only when the Goethe Institute restaurant (across from his Imperial College of Science) had not reserved his favourite table for us. His eyes sparkled and has cane flashed, because he dearly wanted me to have the best view for dinner. We had a jolly time. In his 80s, he was a lad in his 60s. Patrick had a varied career. He was proud of his family's Irish revolutionary background, and made it clear to me that he had "never become English". As a computer scientist, he was an enthusiastic convert to the social side of things, and especially to network analysis. I always felt minded encouragement from him. Not only was he a pleasure to work with editorially, he was a pleasure to be with as a person. Here is what the official Imperial College site says (with a great picture): "Purcell's, work for over four decades, has reflected an abiding interest in the application of media technology to various aspects of human affairs, both from the perspectives of the social group and the single personal user.... The underlying impetus informing this work seeks to identify how advances in the technology of the information society may be utilized most constructively in various social and personal situations.... His career as an academic researcher has included professorial appointments and/or senior research fellowships in a number of leading academic institutions, including Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine, London (1994 - to date), University of Ulster, UK (1990 - 1994), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA (1982 - 1990) and the Royal College of Art, London (1964 - 1981). During this time, he has participated as a founding member, in the establishment of four research laboratories, both in the UK & USA. His publication list extends to over seventy papers and the editing of several books in his research domain." http://www.iis.ee.ic.ac.uk/p.purcell/ Sunny Bains, Patrick's colleague, wrote to me that Patrick's death was a surprise to all. They had just lunched last week. "Although, like most people of his age, he had many health issues, he was nevertheless completely functional as far as we could tell, so his death has been a great shock among his colleagues here. He was a fantastic character to the end and we will truly miss him." There is a memorial site for people to record their thoughts: http://sunnybains.typepad.com/patrick_purcell/2007/02/patrick_purcell.html Bains further wrote to me, "He was supposed to go to a research group dinner last night. When he didn't show up (very unlike him) the administrator of the group decided to check on him on the way home. His lights were off (again unusual) and she called the police. They found him sitting in a chair. What exactly he died of we may never know...." I think it's just like Patrick: sitting in his chair, with a smile, looking forward to the future. What a way to go! Barry Wellman

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research/ers on Diaspora and brain drain?
by Charles Ess 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

Dear AoIRists, At a recent meeting on African Information Ethics (the first ever for Africa - and a wonderful conference!) in Pretoria, South Africa, a colleague raised questions about possibilities of using the Internet / Web (I've taken a liking to "the World Wide Inter-Web" from a recent movie...) vis-à-vis the problem of African scientists moving abroad in Diaspora and the brain drain that that Diaspora represents. I know that a number of AoIRists have pertinent research, experience, and suggestions for contacts (including self-nominations) that would be very useful indeed to forward to our colleague, who is working with a number of agencies to develop strategies for using the WWIW (smile) to help offset such a brain drain. We would greatly appreciate your forwarding those suggestions either to me offlist or with the list at large. I'll compile these - including possible contacts - and then send them on to our colleague in S.A. Many thanks in advance! - charles Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies <http://www.drury.edu/gp21> Drury University 900 N. Benton Ave. Voice: 417-873-7230 Springfield, MO 65802 USA FAX: 417-873-7435 Home page: http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html Information Ethics Fellow, 2006-07, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, UW-Milwaukee <http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/SOIS/cipr/ethics.html> Co-chair, CATaC conferences <www.catacconference.org> Vice-President, Association of Internet Researchers <www.aoir.org> Professor II, Globalization and Applied Ethics Programmes <http://www.anvendtetikk.ntnu.no/pres/bridgingcultures.php> Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23

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C&T program announced, registration open
by Charles Steinfield 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

Dear colleagues, We are pleased to announce that the Communities and Technologies 2007 conference program is now posted, and the conference registration system is now open. The conference includes 13 workshops on topics ranging from communities of practice in work settings, healthcare communities and technology, online social networks, digital cities, community informatics, research communities and technology, business communities, and techniques for visualizing and analyzing community data. The full list of workshops can be viewed at: http://ebusiness.tc.msu.edu/cct2007/page4.html Thirty competitively selected papers are organized into 10 sessions, with contributions from scholars worldwide. In addition, two panels are planned: one examining ICT use in everyday life, and a second exploring ethical issues raised by analyses of online communities. Three keynote sessions are featured, including Judith Donath, Director of the MIT Media Lab's Sociable Media Group, Rob Malda and Jeff Bates, the co-founders of Slashdot, and Marc Smith, Director of Microsoft's Community Technologies Group. A number of social events are planned as well to help strengthen the C&T research community. Please join us in East Lansing from June 28-30 for what is shaping up to be an excellent forum for sharing the latest research on communities and technologies. With best regards, Charles Steinfield, Brian Pentland, Mark Ackerman, and Noshir Contractor Conference Organizers Third International Conference on Communities and Technologies Michigan State University conference email: cct2007(a)msu.edu conference website: http://ebusiness.tc.msu.edu/cct2007/

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Request on studies about digital literacy and telecenters
by Dani Matielo 09 Feb '07

09 Feb '07

Dear AOIRers,, I am a researcher from the Laboratory for Digital Inclusion and Community Learning, from School of the Future, in Brazil, and I am currently focusing my research on digital literacy and how online competences develop among telecentre beginner users. I would be extremely grateful if anyone could point me to some study, preferably qualitative but also quantitative, regarding this theme, or also some study about digital competences and low income population. I have read some theoretical work about it, but couldn't find yet empirical data or descriptions of experiences. Thank you in advance for your help, Daniela Matielo -- Dani Matielo dacamat(a)gmail.com dde_carvalho(a)uoc.edu dani(a)futuro.usp.br http://digitaloging.blogspot.com/ "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say an uncommon-place thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles." ~ Jack Kerouac

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