March 2008 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Lessons in Second LIfe
by jeremy hunsinger 10 Mar '08

10 Mar '08

reminder Daylight savings time happened, so in some parts in the world time is different, please adjust as appropriate. distribute as appropriate -jh Every Week on Monday (1:00-2:30pm 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 to you by: Oh no, there's a person in my classroom next week's Lessons in Second Life is brought to you by: The group that wishes they were here. 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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avatar research ethics
by William Bain 10 Mar '08

10 Mar '08

David Toews wrote "however, puppets don't interact with other puppets" - and I ask: what about games like Shame Station? what about experiments like the "virtual Reprise of the Stanley Miligram Obedience Experiments"? But my real question is what are avatars, does definition depend on context - maybe that was clear enough already :-) Best wishes, Will William Bain PhD Student Comparative Literature Department of Spanish Philology Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

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LIVEcast today at Osgoode Prof David Lametti "Appreciating Depreciation (or how I learned to love s 22 of the Trademarks Act)
by Giuseppina D'Agostino/osgoode 10 Mar '08

10 Mar '08

apologies for cross-postings **** Dear all, Please feel free to attend the following Osgoode Public PTTP lecture by Prof David Lametti on “Appreciating Depreciation (or how I learned to love s 22 of the Trademarks Act)” or tune into the LIVE webcast at 2.40 EST today! Details below. Many thanks, Pina **** Putting Theory to Practice An International Speakers Series at Osgoode Hall Law School in collaboration with the CLPE COMPARATIVE RESEARCH IN LAW AND POLITICAL ECONOMY Network (www.comparativeresearch.net) is proud to invite Students and Faculty to attend a PTTP Public Lecture by: Professor David Lametti McGill University, School of Law “Appreciating Depreciation (or how I learned to love s. 22 of the Trademarks Act)” Monday, March 10, 2008, 2:40 - 4:00 in Room 220 4700 Keele Street Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, Canada Refreshments will be served. LIVECAST: please visit Osgoode Hall Law School mainpage http://www.osgoode.yorku.ca/ under Events and Bulletins at 2.40. The talk will be archived and available on the Osgoode website and at www.ipilogue.ca David Lametti is an Associate Professor of Law, McGill University, a member of the Institute of Comparative Law, and of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy (CIPP). He teaches and writes in the areas of Civil and Common law property, intellectual property and legal theory. His most recent representative publications are “The Concept of Property: Relations through Objects of Social Wealth”, found in the University of Toronto Law Journal, and “Coming to Terms with Copyright”, in a collection published by Irwin Law. Student Coordinator: Prae Kriengwatana (PraeKriengwatana(a)osgoode.yorku.ca) Dr Giuseppina D'Agostino Assistant Professor Osgoode Hall Law School York University 4700 Keele Street Toronto, ON Canada M3J 1P3 +1.416.736.5319 gdagostino(a)osgoode.yorku.ca

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Re: [Air-L] avatar research ethics
by William Bain 10 Mar '08

10 Mar '08

Marjorie Kibby wrote: "Our review board guidelines [....] would see avatars as human subjects." Forgive if this is too simplistic, but where would this leave someone wanting to study some cartoon character? I mean, obviously any such study would have to mention the author & author's rights. But those guidelines strike me as , I don't know, too harsh? Too strict? Best regards, Will William Bain PhD Student Comparative Literature Department of Spanish Philology Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

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book launch: 'Living on Cybermind' & 'Youth Online'
by Jonathan Marshall 10 Mar '08

10 Mar '08

Apologies for multiple postings: Announcing a book launch on Friday 14th March in Sydney Australia: Jonathan Marshall and Angela Thomas Living on Cybermind & Youth Online: Identity and Literacy in the Digital Age Published by: Peter Lang To be launched by Colin Lankshear (Series Ed) Venue: Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe Time: Friday 14th March 6 for 6.30 Cost: Free RSVP: gleebooks - 9660 2333 Cybermind is an Internet mailing list, originally founded in 1994 to discuss the issues and problems of living online. It proved exceptionally fertile and is still going strong thirteen years later. This book is an ethnographic investigation which follows Cybermind members in their daily lives on the List, and explores the ways they look at the world, argue, relate online life to offline life, use gender, and build community. Perhaps the most comprehensive history of an Internet group ever published, it includes detailed analyses using List members' own words and commentary, and develops a unique theory of the relationship between culture, the problems of communication, and the ongoing processes of categorisation. Living on Cybermind illustrates how behaviour is affected by the organisation of communication, and how people deal with the paradoxes involved in resolving ambiguity and truth in a situation in which presence is always on the verge of slipping away. Jonathan Paul Marshall has an M.A. (Hons) and Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Sydney. He has been an Australian Research Council Research Fellow at the Transforming Cultures Research Centre at the University of Technology, Sydney, working on a project on online gender. He is now a QE II fellow at UTS working on the relationship between Information Technology and disorder. Youth Online chronicles the stories of young people from several countries - the US, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, and Holland - and their interactions in online communities over a seven-year period. It examines how young people construct their identities in various social contexts: social, fantasy, role-playing; and for various social purposes: leadership, learning, power, rebellion and romance. It explores the ways youth are deploying both visual and literary cues to develop a full sense of presence online and to effectively communicate with their peers. Using methods of textual, visual, and socio-psychological analysis, this book illuminates the ways in which young people are making sense of their own identities and their place within broader communities. Angela Thomas is Lecturer in English Education at the University of Sydney. She specializes in teaching new media literacies and is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on fan fiction, online role-playing, blogging, digital fiction, cyberculture, identity, and learning in virtual worlds, and is co-author of Children's Literature and Computer-Based Teaching. -- UTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099F DISCLAIMER: This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views of the University of Technology Sydney. Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects. Think. Green. Do. Please consider the environment before printing this email.

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Use of Facebook for Library Instruction?
by Gerry Mckiernan 09 Mar '08

09 Mar '08

***Apologies for Receipt of Duplicate Postings*** Friends/ On Monday, April 7 2008, I will deliver a presentation at the Spring Meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans as part of a Symposium on _Using Social Networking Tools to Teach Chemistry_ [ http://oasys2.confex.com/acs/235nm/techprogram/S24696.HTM ]. The presentation is titled "Being there: Using social networking services for engaged library instruction" Gerry McKiernan, gerrymck(a)iastate.edu, Library, Iowa State University, 152 Parks, Ames, IA 50011 At colleges and universities today, a significant portion of students are members of Facebook (http://www.facebook.com) the online social networking service. Beginning in Summer 2007, we initiated a series of outreach projects using Facebook to directly promote Library programs and services to select members of the ISU community. These initiatives sought to inform students and faculty not only about the availability of core services offered by the reference and instruction department (e.g., book and journal selection, library presentations, research assistance) but also about the general library services provided by the library (e.g., interlibrary loan, library collections, reserve and media services). This presentation will report on the results of these projects and describe future outreach plans. In addition, the general nature of Facebook, and its current and potential use by educators will be reviewed. The presentation will conclude with a brief overview of key readings and Web resources about online social networks. [ http://oasys2.confex.com/acs/235nm/techprogram/P1163149.HTM ] I Would Most Appreciate Learning of Any/All OTHER Uses of _The Facebook Environment_ for Any/All Forms of _Library Instruction_ for Possible Inclusion In My ACS Presentation. >>>Please Make Any/All Comments In My Blog Entry Located At<<< [ http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2008/03/social-networking-services… ] BTW: There is a Global Facebook Group devoted to _Classroom Instruction in Facebook_ Description: Classroom Instruction in Facebook is a global umbrella Facebook group devoted to libraries that use Facebook to complement and/or supplement formal library class instruction sessions. A particular focus of the group is the use of Facebook in association with basic library skills courses. [ http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2416166855 ] Thanks For Your Assistance! /Gerry Gerry McKiernan Associate Professor Science and Technology Librarian Iowa State University Library Ames IA 50011 gerrymck(a)iastate.edu There is Nothing More Powerful Than An Idea Whose Time Has Come Victor Hugo [ http://www.blogger.com/profile/09093368136660604490 ] Iowa: Where the Tall Corn Flows and the (North)West Wind Blows [ http://alternativeenergyblogs.blogspot.com/ ]

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avatar research ethics
by David Toews 09 Mar '08

09 Mar '08

hello r and sj, and everyone, i think the puppet/avatar analogy may very well serve the urgent purpose of applied ethical analysis from the pragmatic point of view of dealing with IRBs today, and i may well use it myself :) at some point. however, there is another consideration for the long term which I think will eventually undermine the analogy. consider this: puppets are controlled by puppeteer(s), and can be considered within the world of the direct representations of the puppeteer: with this expressionistic model of the pup/pup'teer relationship the ethical considerations would be similar to anyone studying RL social interactions in a dramaturgical theoretical framework however, puppets don't interact with other puppets avatars do interact with other avatars, and because of this process and 'extra' layer of social meaning, the human operater of the avatar ceases to be analogous to a puppeteer. the puppeteer has to deal with the ethical demands of her audience and other puppeteers. the avatar operator has to deal with the ethical demands of those same constituents (except in this case not a RL-public audience but only other avatar operators in SL since human beings in RL don't interact in SL except via the medium of avatars). But ALSO the avatar operator has to deal with the ethical demands of avatars that he or she is not controlling (ie. controlled by a different avatar operator). here there could be two divergent directions in which one could interpret the consequences of this added ethical dimension: a) interpret avatar-to-avatar interaction as human-operator-to-human- operator interaction, but since the consequences of these interactions have no ethically-portentous bearing on the human operators in their RL-public-domain context (ie. insofar as what happens in SL stays in SL - i know this is not always the case but it very often is a norm for SL users), which would lead us to b) interpret avatar-to-avatar interaction as a process that constructs a sui generis kind of subjectivity that can potentially involve harm from one avatar to another avatar; the problem with this approach (b) is that IRBs truly are not ready for it, I would presume, but I think we need to educate the public and eventually IRBs about this emergent reality David Toews, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology University of Windsor, Ontario

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Fw: avatar research ethics
by Rhiannon Bury 09 Mar '08

09 Mar '08

----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Rhiannon Bury <rcbury(a)rogers.com> To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org Sent: Sunday, March 9, 2008 11:42:49 AM Subject: Re: [Air-L] avatar research ethics ----- Original Message ---- From: jcu <jcu(a)execulink.com> To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org Sent: Saturday, March 8, 2008 8:42:47 PM Subject: Re: [Air-L] avatar research ethics you wrote, "That said, anything said on a forum that does not require special permission or passwords to access is generally fair game in my books." PhD or not, how does this differ from a paparazzi agenda? As long as there are living human beings creating text or speech, in whatever for(u)m, isn't it, at the very least, common decency to simply ask for permission? So my question is, fair game for what? Sounds like research has become target practice to me. Me again: The metaphor I chose was probably not the best; I'm not suggesting that we lurk about in online forums or in SL ready to "pounce" on unsuspecting participants just because we can! Obviously, there has to be a set of research questions that inform the decision to study a particular set of interactions, identities, communities. We don't go through the Ethics Review process to be "decent" to our subjects. It is a quasi-legal process (the legal beagles might want to jump in here) that offers the subjects, the researcher and the institution certain protections and responsibilities. Of course, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be "decent" to our subjects. :) Feminist methodologies are all about addressing unequal power relationships between researcher and researched etc. My point is that not all research that studies online communication involves human subjects in a direct enough way to issue a formal contract. Not all research even constructs the producer of certain utterances as a "human subject". I don't have to ask a published author permission to analyze their writing and copyright law allows me to quote passages directly within limits. I understand that this is not necessary a clear or fixed distinction with CMC. Certainly grad students or people early in their research career shouldn't be making these decisions in isolation. Upthread, Ted offered good advice for that context: ask your board, ask your Chair and ask the internet research community! And for the record, I have no problem with the paparazzi. ;) Rhiannon

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Re: [Air-L] avatar research ethics
by dddumitr＠ucalgary.ca 09 Mar '08

09 Mar '08

The relation between an avatar and a human being can be as simple as "this is my puppet and I am its puppeteer"; or as complicated as "this avatar is actually me, free of any constraints, able to be and do whatever I want". Measuring this relation is hard if not impossible. I have certainly met both, not only in other people, but also in myself; I guess I have not 'invested' too much in it. My yahoo avatar is of extremely little significance to me. Should my SL or MUD avatar be killed or raped, I would have to deal with more complex emotions and it would affect me in many ways (the 2007 book "Second Life Herald" by Ludlow and Wallace is an interesting read from this perspective, also raising the economic perspective on the relation avatar-human, at least in SL). The problem in my view is the fact that we tend to think of avatars (and the technology behind them) as independent of the human element. How do things change when they are perceived as 'extensions of the self' or when the boundary between human and technological gets undermined? On the other hand then, everything - including this post - may be approached and studied as extensions of the self. So, like one participant said, does that mean one cannot look at cartoons without ethics boards' approval? I do not have a solution to propose; it only seems to me that both arguing that everything online is susceptible to ethics - and arguing that avatars or blog posts or forums are only instruments and tools used by human beings (and therefore not requiring ethics approval) - both are simplistic. Delia Dumitrica PhD Candidate Faculty of Communication and Culture University of Calgary

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Re: [Air-L] Online research ethics - SL
by William Bain 09 Mar '08

09 Mar '08

The whole discussion, not only the puppet analogy,is quite interesting. I was thinking as I looked around for ideas about personae and similar concepts that the role play is more to the point in the case of SL. I don't SL, so I can't really speak with a great deal of autohroity sorry authority on that. But then of course you start getting into the idea of (Radhika noted this, I think) the construct of our personalities and what came first to mind was different takes on the Greek agon in _Homo Ludens_ which I think has been discussed here several times. There is, apparently, something termed the ludic fallacy, which is described in Wikipedia as "the misuse of games to model real life situations". But then: is life constantly being "mis-modelled"? That question "Would you write about a puppet separately from the puppeteer?" brings to mind Yeats's last line in the poem _Among School Children_ "How can we know the dancer from the dance?" And I would say that regardless of the (art) form, we can't, which makes the puppet analogy bear out. Except to the extent that once the performance (dance, puppet play, film) is staged, then interpretation takes place and the performer no longer possesses every aspect of the performance. In perhaps Foucauldian terms, different fields and domains come into play (!) and copyright lawyers (for example) need to be consulted, often along with film critics, sociiologists, internet researchers...... Perhaps the main difference between my interpretation and the puppet(eer) analogy is that I think both the (arguably) inert puppet and the living breathing puppeteer can be interestingly viewed and discoursed. Cheers, Will William Bain PhD Student Comparative Literature Department of Spanish Philology Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.

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