December 2009 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

40-minute interview on Wisconsin Public Radio about Twitter, New New Media, and Iran
by Paul Levinson 02 Aug '10

02 Aug '10

The interview was conducted at 7am this morning. You can listen to it anytime at http://clipcast.wpr.org:8080/ramgen/wpr/jca/jca090624b.rm PL

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Ranking Web of Universities: July 2009 edition
by Isidro F. Aguillo 22 Jul '10

22 Jul '10

The July edition of the Ranking Web of World Universities (http://www.webometrics.info) shows important news. Most of them are due to changes done to improve the academic impact of the open web contents and to reduce the geographical bias of search engines. As a result, the US universities still lead the Ranking (MIT with its huge Open Courseware is again the first, followed by Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley), but the digital gap with their European counterparts (Cambridge and Oxford are in the region’s top) has been reduced. Even more important, some of the developing countries institutions reach high ranks, especially in Latin America where the University of Sao Paulo (38th) and UNAM (44th) benefits from the increasingly interconnected Brazilian and Mexican academic webspaces. Several countries improves their performance including Taiwan and Saudi Arabia with strong web oriented strategies, Czech Republic (Charles), the leader for Eastern Europe, Spain (Complutense) and Portugal (Minho, Porto) with huge repositories and strong Open Access initiatives. Norway (NTNU, Oslo), Egypt could be also mentioned. On the other side, the underrated are headed by France, with a very fragmented system, Korea, whose student-oriented websites are frequently duplicated, New Zealand, India or Argentina. Africa is still monopolized by South African universities (Cape Town is the first, 405th), as well as Australian Universities are the best ranked for Oceania (Australian National University, 77th) Other well performing institutions include Cornell or Caltech in the USA, Tokyo (24th) Toronto (28th), Hong Kong (91st), or Peking (104th). On the contrary, in positions below expected we find Yale, Princeton, Saint Petersburg, Seoul and the Indian Institutes of Science or Technology. Check out also: Ranking Web of Research Centers http://research.webometrics.info/ Ranking Web of Repositories http://repositories.webometrics.info/ Ranking Web of Hospitals http://hospitals.webometrics.info/ Ranking Web of Business Schools http://business-schools.webometrics.info/ -- ************************************* Isidro F. Aguillo, HonPhD Cybermetrics Lab CCHS - CSIC Albasanz, 26-28, 3C1. 28037 Madrid. Spain Ph. 91-602 2890. Fax: 91-602 2971 isidro.aguillo @ cchs.csic.es www. webometrics.info *************************************

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Migrants and their use of Online Technology.
by EWB ICT4D Programs 02 Feb '10

02 Feb '10

Dear List Participants, This is a query to determine if you are aware of research studies that investigate the how's and why's of the migrant and / or diaspora usage of online technologies and social media (facebook, discussion lists, twitter, etc.,) ? Many thanks in advance, Sriram Reddy --- PhD Candidate, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University

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Post-doc in Spain
by Ulf-Dietrich Reips 31 Dec '09

31 Dec '09

Dear colleagues: we are looking for a Post-doc, see below. Please spread the word. Happy holidays, Ulf ********* The Universidad de Deusto, Bilbao, Spain is accepting applications for a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow position for two years, beginning March 1, 2010. The successful candidate will work with the IKERBASQUE research professorship "Internet Science and Cognition of Causality" associated with the LabPsico research group. Our mission is twofold: (1) to develop methodologies and technologies for Internet-based research and understand the psychology of the Internet and (2) research cognitive processes underlying causal induction and learning. We are interested in candidates whose research is approached using theories from cognitive science or judgment and decision making. An ideal candidate combines knowledge and experience from Experimental Psychology, Methodology, and Computer Science. Possible areas of interest include cognition, learning, categorization, measurement, social cognition, (Web-)experimental design, survey research, prediction markets, design and programming of Web applications, social Web sites, and usability. Main languages spoken in the laboratory are Spanish and English, depending on the changing structure of the international team the communication may also be possible in other languages (currently German, Dutch, French). The successful candidate will be encouraged to conduct cooperative and independent research with an emphasis on study inception, manuscript writing, and applying for grants. The Post-Doctoral Research Fellow is offered a salary of 30'000 EURO/year (the upper end of post-doc salaries in Spain). Foreigners will receive the special low tax status for foreign researchers. Additional benefits include a moving allowance of 2'500 EURO, 2'000 EURO/year for personal travel for international post-docs, access to lab facilities and other infrastructure, and university funds for other costs (congresses, training...). Health care is free in Spain, and due to recent developments in the housing sector there is an abundance of wonderful places available (sea view...). The University of Deusto and IKERBASQUE (the Basque Foundation of Science) are devoted to developing a strong standing in internationally competitive research, thus providing an excellent environment for creative and productive scientists. The location: "Bilbao is a city to dream about - vital, vibrant and culturally dynamic, yet somehow stress-free and, above all, civilised in the true sense of that overused word. ... Today, Bilbao throngs with sophisticated yet earthy locals, its cuisine is positively lip-smacking, there's nonstop partying if you want to burn out in style, and a rich Basque culture more than matches the internationalism of the Guggenheim." (Lonely Planet) Candidates are asked to submit a letter of research interests, reprints/preprints, CV, and three letters of recommendation. All requirements of the PhD degree must be completed before the Post-Doctoral Research Fellow appointment can begin. First consideration will be given to candidates whose complete applications are received by January 15, 2010, but we will accept applications until the position is filled. Please send your detailed application documents (electronically or by mail) to: Prof. Dr. Ulf-Dietrich Reips - Postdoc search - Departamento de Psicología, LabPsico Universidad de Deusto Apartado 1, 48080 Bilbao, Spain E-mail: reips(a)deusto.es Secretary & Fax: +34 944 139 085 -- Ulf-Dietrich Reips Ikerbasque Research Professor Departamento de Psicología, LabPsico Universidad de Deusto Apartado 1, 48080 Bilbao, España Secretary & Fax: +34 944 139 085 iScience portal: http://iscience.eu/

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IBM patents LOL and IMO
by live 31 Dec '09

31 Dec '09

No, really. IBM was just given a patent for cultural shorthand notations such as LOL? "These factors have fostered the evolution of shorthand notation, wherein users abbreviate words and phrases to communicate using fewer keystrokes. For example, typing abbreviations like LOL ("laughing out loud") and IMO ("in my opinion") shorten the number of characters required in messages and expedite the communication process. However, as with any nonverbal communication, the effectiveness of text communication is often limited. The use of shorthand in conversational writing can make it difficult for people to understand one another. A complicating factor is that individual users commonly develop their own jargon, so that the shorthand notation of one user does not always agree with shorthand notation of another user." "The present invention provides a method of electronic communication and a machine-accessible medium containing instructions which, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform the method. The method comprises receiving a text communication from a sender, selecting a target term from the text communication, searching a plurality of databases for one or more alternative terms for the target term; and selectively displaying one or more of the alternative terms. The plurality of databases may include, without limitation, one or more of a sender database, a recipient database, a service provider database, and a public database. Typically, the target term is a shorthand term, and the one or more alternative terms include one or more longhand terms defined with respect to the shorthand term. Optionally, the text communication may be displayed with one of the alternative terms substituted for the target term. In a further option, the alternative terms may be displayed along with a name of the database in which each of the alternative terms was found." http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=… in case that url breaks, here it is in a short url: http://bit.ly/53J56s ------------------------- Sharon Greenfield Marylhurst University http://www.sharoncountry.com @SharonG

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More BETA Testers Sought for PCAT
by Stuart Shulman 30 Dec '09

30 Dec '09

We are seeking hundreds of new BETA testers to load test the Public Comment Analysis Toolkit: http://pcat.qdap.net 200+ users have joined the system since October 30th. Why would you try PCAT? http://pcat-help.qdap.net/doku.php?id=why_would_i_use_this_system It also works well for categorizing blog posts and other text datasets. Five sample PCAT-ready blog post datasets are available at: http://www.umass.edu/qdap/data.html I think you will find the search, peer, credential, memo and coding nexus in this software enables unique research opportunities. PCAT also carries internal measurement tools for inter-rater reliability and adjudication of coding decisions or pre-tests. It is a uniquely useful research tool if you have large digital text datasets. Best of all, PCAT is a free, Web-based platform that enables collaboration across space and time. ~Stu -- Dr. Stuart W. Shulman Assistant Professor Department of Political Science University of Massachusetts Amherst 200 Hicks Way Amherst, MA 01003 http://people.umass.edu/stu/ stu(a)polsci.umass.edu 413-545-5375 Editor, Journal of Information Technology and Politics http://www.jitp.net Director, QDAP-UMass http://www.umass.edu/qdap/ Associate Director, National Center for Digital Government http://www.umass.edu/digitalcenter/

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Invitation to Participate in a Research Study
by Jeffrey Keefer 30 Dec '09

30 Dec '09

Anybody want to participate in a small research study exploring how people develop as researchers with social media? http://bit.ly/6jEKiZ Appreciate any possible consideration, and wish all a Happy New Year! ----- Jeffrey Keefer jeffrey(a)silenceandvoice.com Blog: http://silenceandvoice.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/JeffreyKeefer Website: http://www.jeffreykeefer.com LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreykeefer

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Re: [Air-L] facebook ethnic diversity?
by Gonzalo Bacigalupe 29 Dec '09

29 Dec '09

This digital divide data is from a report dated 2005 (www.civilrights.org/publications/nation-online/digitaldivide.pdf) It has been cited in later reports. Digital divide has decreased but what may be more interested to analyze is the digital literacy levels. Access does not mean use or access to the information. Does anyone knows of new reports? Gonzalo Bacigalupe @bacigalupe Associate Professor University of Massachusetts Boston On Dec 18, 2009, at 6:00 PM, air-l-request(a)listserv.aoir.org wrote: > Message: 7 > Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:27:12 +0200 > From: gustavo <gustavo(a)soc.haifa.ac.il> > To: <air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org> > Subject: Re: [Air-L] facebook ethnic diversity? > Message-ID: <dca47d810f3bcd2f6b31d68db3239b13(a)soc.haifa.ac.il> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > More on this issue, selection bias is present. > According to the 2009 Report for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights > Education Fund by > Robert W. Fairlie University of California, Santa Cruz and > National Poverty Center, University of Michigan > > "The Digital Divide in the US is large and does not appear to be > disappearing soon. Blacks and Latinos are much less likely to have access > to home computers than are white, non-Latinos (50.6 and 48.7 percent > compared to 74.6 percent). They are also less likely to have Internet > access at home (40.5 and 38.1 percent compared to 67.3 percent). > ? Asians have home computer and Internet access rates that are higher than > white, non-Latino rates (77.7 and 70.3 percent), and Native Americans have > lower rates (51.6 and 40.9 percent)." > >> From here the study of Facebook has an implicit sample selection bias. > Minorities are less likely to have access. Individuals that belong to > minorities groups and have access are a selected group of highly skilled > and educated that are not different in their social characteristics to the > whites having access. Facebook results do not reflect the state of social > and digital inequalities in the population. Furthermore, is blurres the > real divisions in society. > > Gustavo Mesch, Associate Professor > University of Haifa. > Chair, Communication and Information Technologies Section > American Sociological Association

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CFP: The Computational Turn (with website)
by David M. Berry 29 Dec '09

29 Dec '09

CFP: The Computational Turn http://www.thecomputationalturn.com/ SWANSEA UNIVERSITY 9TH MARCH 2010 Keynote: N. Katherine Hayles (Professor of Literature at Duke University). Keynote: Lev Manovich (Professor, Visual Arts Department, UCSD). The application of new computational techniques and visualisation technologies in the Arts & Humanities are resulting in new approaches and methodologies for the study of traditional and new corpuses of Arts and Humanities materials. This new 'computational turn' takes the methods and techniques from computer science to create new ways of distant and close readings of texts (e.g. Moretti). This one-day workshop aims to discuss the implications and applications of what Lev Manovich has called 'Cultural Analytics' and the question of finding patterns using algorthmic techniques. Some of the most startling approaches transform understandings of texts by use of network analysis (e.g. graph theory), database/XML encodings (which flatten structures), or merely provide new quantitative techniques for looking at various media forms, such as media and film, and (re)presenting them visually, aurally or haptically. Within this field there are important debates about the contrast between narrative against database techniques, pattern-matching versus hermeneutic reading, and the statistical paradigm (using a sample) versus the data mining paradigm. Additionally, new forms of collaboration within the Arts and Humanities are emerging which use team-based approaches as opposed to the traditional lone-scholar. This requires the ability to create and manage modular Arts and Humanities research teams through the organisational structures provided by technology and digital communications (e.g. Big Humanities), together with techniques for collaborating in an interdisciplinary way with other disciplines such as computer science (e.g. hard interdisciplinarity versus soft interdisciplinarity). Papers are encouraged in the following areas: - Distant versus Close Reading - Database Structure versus Argument - Data mining/Text mining/Patterns - Pattern as a new epistemological object - Hermeneutics and the Data Stream - Geospatial techniques - Big Humanities - Digital Humanities versus Traditional Humanities - Tool Building - Free Culture/Open Source Arts and Humanities - Collaboration, Assemblages and Alliances - Language and Code (software studies) - Information visualization in the Humanities - Philosophical and theoretical reflections on the computational turn + Participation Requirements + Workshop participants are requested to submit a position paper (approx. 2000-5000 words) about the computational turn in Arts and Humanities, philosophical/theoretical reflections on the computational turn, research focus or research questions related to computational approaches, proposals for academic practice with algorithmic/ visualisation techniques, proposals for new research methods with regard to Arts and Humanities or specific case studies (if applicable) and findings to date. Position papers will be published in a workshop PDF and website for discussion and some of the participants will be invited to present their paper at the workshop. Deadline for Position papers: February 10, 2010 Submit papers to: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tct2010 Workshop funded by The Callaghan Centre for the Study of Conflict, Power, Empire, Swansea University. TheResearch Institute in the Arts and Humanities (RIAH) at Swansea University. + References + Clement, Tanya E. (2008) ‘A thing not beginning and not ending’: using digital tools to distant-read Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans. Literary and Linguistic Computing. 23.3 (2008): 361. Clement, Tanya, Steger, Sara, Unsworth, John, Uszkalo, Kirsten (2008) How Not to Read a Million Books. Retrieved 10/11/09 from http://www3.isrl.illinois.edu/~unsworth/hownot2read.html Council on Library and Information Resources and The National Endowment for the Humanities (2009) Working Together or Apart: Promoting the Next Generation of Digital Scholarship. Retrieved 10/11/09 from http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub145/pub145.pdf Hayles, N. Katherine (2009) RFID: Human Agency and Meaning in Information-Intensive Environments. Theory, Culture and Society 26.2/3 (2009): 1-24. Hayles, N. Katherine (2009) How We Think: The Transforming Power of Digital Technologies. Retrieved 10/11/09 from http://hdl.handle.net/1853/27680 Kittler, Fredrich (1997) Literature, Media, Information Systems. London: Routledge. Krakauer, David C. (2007) The Quest for Patterns in Meta-History. Santa Fe Institute Bulletin. Winter 2007. Retrieved 10/11/09 from http://www.intelros.ru/pdf/SFI_Bulletin/Quest.pdf Latour, Bruno (2007) Reassembling the Social. London: Oxford University Press. Manovich, Lev (2002) The Language of New Media. MIT Press. Manovich, Lev (2007) White paper: Cultural Analytics: Analysis and Visualizations of Large Cultural Data Sets, May 2007. Retrieved 10/11/09 from http://softwarestudies.com/cultural_analytics/cultural_analytics_2008.doc McLemee, Scott (2006) Literature to Infinity. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 10/11/09 from http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee193 Moretti, Franco (2005) Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History. London: Verso. Robinson, Peter (2006) Electronic Textual Editing: The Canterbury Tales and other Medieval Texts. Electronic Textual Editing. Modern Language Association of America. Retrieved 10/11/09 from http://www.tei-c.org/About/Archive_new/ETE/Preview/robinson.xml Schreibman, Susan, Siemens, Ray & Unsworth, John (2007) A Companion to Digital Humanities. London: WileyBlackwell. Organised by Dr David M. Berry, Department of Political and Cultural Studies, Swansea University. d.m.berry(a)swansea.ac.uk --- Dr David M. Berry Department of Political and Cultural Studies School of Arts and Humanities Swansea University. Swansea SA2 8PP Wales, UK Tel: 01792 602633 Web: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/academic/Arts/berryd/

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Re: [Air-L] Air-L Digest, Vol 65, Issue 26
by Steven Epstein 28 Dec '09

28 Dec '09

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/a-day-in-the-life-of-nytimescom/?p… link to videos Steven L. Epstein, Ph. D. Associate Professor of Communications Coordinator - Honors & Early College Programs Grant Campus Suffolk Community College Crooked Hill Road Brentwood, NY 11711 631.851.6318 epsteis(a)sunysuffolk.edu www2.sunysuffolk.edu/epsteis <http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/epsteis> SUFFOLK: The choice for the hard working student who has both academic talent and family financial wisdom. ________________________________ From: air-l-bounces(a)listserv.aoir.org on behalf of air-l-request(a)listserv.aoir.org Sent: Sat 12/26/2009 6:00 PM To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org Subject: Air-L Digest, Vol 65, Issue 26 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. Online Data Visualization (Yosem Companys) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sat, 26 Dec 2009 11:02:12 -0800 From: Yosem Companys <ycompanys(a)gmail.com> To: AIR <air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org> Subject: [Air-L] Online Data Visualization Message-ID: <def432400912261102v6a58d784ja1c9a7fe12bd540f(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 A nice visualization of New York Times site visits from around the world via various computing devices: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/a-day-in-the-life-of-nytimescom/?p… [image: crop of nytimes data visualization]The New York Times R&D LabsA snapshot of site traffic to NYTimes.com on June 25, 2009. ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ The Air-L(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org <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/ End of Air-L Digest, Vol 65, Issue 26 *************************************

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