- Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Deadline Extended: "Theorizing the Web" Conference @ University of Maryland - April, 9th 2011
by PJ Rey 05 Feb '11

05 Feb '11

Final deadline for abstracts is February 20th, 2011. Please circulate widely. Date: April 9th, 2011 Keynote Speaker: danah boyd (Microsft Research New England) Participants Include: George Ritzer (U. of MD), Jessie Daniels (Hunter College, NYC), Zeynep Tufekci (U. of MD Baltimore County), Jenny Davis (Texas A&M), Katie King (U. of MD), Bonnie Stewart, (U. of Prince Edward Island), Stephanie Vineyard (Georgetown U.), Jes Koepler (U. of MD), Mark Matienzo (Yale). Call for Papers: The goal of the conference is to expand the range and depth of theory used to help us make sense of how the Internet, digitality, and technology have changed the ways humans live. We hope to bring together researchers (particularly graduate students and junior faculty) from a range of disciplines, including sociology, communications, philosophy, economics, English, history, political science, information science, the performing arts and many more. In addition, we invite session and other proposals by tech-industry professionals, journalists, and other figures outside of academia. Topics will include: • Identity and self-presentation: concerns of privacy and publicity on the Web • Surveillance, voyeurism, exhibitionism, and secrecy online • The blurring of online and offline, real and virtual, cyborgism and augmented reality • The Internet and the changing nature of capitalism • How power and inequality (e.g., the Digital Divide) manifest on the Web • Political activism/slacktivism online • Bodies and sexuality in the Digital Age • “Relationship Status” and Online dating • “Prosumption” (i.e., the convergence of production and consumption online) • Global implications of the Internet (or of the multiple Internets) • McDonaldization, rationalization and the Web • Intersections of gender, race, class, age, sexual orientation, and disability with respect to any of the above topics. Submit abstracts and/or register online at: http://www.cyborgology.org/theorizingtheweb/ For further inquiries, email: ttw2011(a)gmail.com. Hope to see you there! PJ Rey Conference Co-Chair Department of Sociology University of Maryland www.pjrey.net 2112 Art-Sociology Building University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742

1 0

Message from Egypt
by Dr. Rasha Abdulla 05 Feb '11

05 Feb '11

Dear friends and colleagues, This is a brief message from Egypt at the end of a very long and tiring day. Just to thank you for the ISOC Statement on Egypt's Internet shutdown and for your wishes and thoughts. I have been down at Tahrir Square (which means "Liberation" by the way) almost everyday this week, and I can tell you our 7000-year-old nation is being re-born. I don't have any scientific theories to back me up right this moment (maybe I will when I'm better rested and I've had time to read all your messages on the subject, this is the first day we've had Internet access since Friday morning our time), but I can tell you this has been, to a very large extent, an Internet-based revolution. Even the illiterate classes who are down on Tahrir Square say this was started "by the youth of Facebook" and I do agree with them. Please forgive my lack of scientific support for now, but it's almost 2:30 am here and I really need some sleep for another long day tomorrow. I have three books to my name on different aspects of Internet use and its effect in the Arab world, and this will probably be the topic for my fourth book; and I also am founding editor of an Egyptian book series on "Digital Literacy" so I will claim that I know my stuff to a good extent. I do have a lot of elaboration to do, I know, but I'll ask that you bear with me till I have a little more time on my hands. I'm just writing to let you know that the youth of Facebook, who have revived this great country, are hanging tight in Tahrir Square, together with hundreds of thousands, at times millions, of people who have joined them, many of them not even Internet users. There's a new momentum in the air, and we hope it will lead to a much better future for this country and its people. Your thoughts, wishes, and prayers are much needed and much appreciated. All the best. Rasha -- Rasha A. Abdulla, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Chair Journalism and Mass Communication The American University in Cairo www.rashaabdulla.com

1 1

Antw.: Virtual memorials in online-games SURVEY, please pass on!
by Tjarda Sixma 05 Feb '11

05 Feb '11

To Anna, I found the screenshots from the Virginia Tech memorial monument in Second Life I wrote you about earlier. They are from April 2007 right after the shooting took place. The memorial wall contains pictures of the RL victims. As for my copyright: I haven't published them in a paper, but did use them in a lecture at Utrecht University. You can use them for your PhD paper if you mention my name (for other publications please ask permission again). Furthermore I have a chat log involving a player/avatar who was present when I visited the Virginia Tech monument. She also posted a notecard at the memorial site with a declaration about the disaster. If you are interested I can ask her permission (if she is still in SL) to pass on the log file and notecard to you. Lastly there are some general questions about the publication of in- world logs and screenshots I’d like to ask to all on this email list. To all on the AIR list, I’m interested in knowing if any of you have ideas on how to deal with privacy issues such as the publication of screenshots involving RL portraits and notecards on virtual memorial sites (like described above). Linden Lab has published some general information about these issues on the web. 1) Snapshot and Machinima policy: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Snapshot_and_machinima_… LL writes that Land Owners (in some cases e.g. when not on main land) also have to consent for screenshots taken on their land. Would this apply to the screenshots from the memorial? Screenshots of avatars seem to be allowed (2b). 2) Sl Community Standards: http://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php LL forbids disclosure of RL information and publication of conversation logs. What about the RL pictures of the victims? They have been published in newspapers. Does this mean that a screenshot involving their RL pictures can be published as well? Can a message left behind at the memorial site be considered as part of the public domain and thus published without prior consent? Lastly I wonder if there are any guidelines from within the field of research. Best wishes, Tjarda Sixma (SL resident from September 2006)

1 0

Re: [Air-L] Technology related pictures and tweets from Tahrir Square in Cairo
by Carmel L. Vaisman 05 Feb '11

05 Feb '11

Good morning AoIRs, As I am glued to the #jan25 twitter feed for a week now, I thought I'd share with you some of the technology related photos and tweets that drew my attention. I wondered how Egyptian bloggers and tweeps keep updating from the square without their phone battery dying. It seems they found a solution to charge their phones on site, this picture was tweeted yesterday: http://yfrog.com/h4qeebnj Another tweep mentioned that many of the protest signs in Tahrir square carry the logos of Facebook and Twitter as Egyptians are aware of the role of these platforms in the protest. I haven't seen a picture of such a sign and if anyone has it I'd love the reference, but this was tweeted yesterday: http://www.mylinksmyads.com/link/ag1teXR3ZWV0c215YWRzcisLEgRMaW5rIiE3Mjk0MD… Apparently it says "we thank you facebook youth of Egypt". I've heard this reference to the new generation of Egyptian youth as "the facebook youth" on a few occasions during this week. To those of you interested in language, discourse and humor: twitter saw around 5 fake accounts of Hosni Mubarak, some are really very funny and kept the humor going even in the darkest hours of the clashes on Wednesday and Thursday. See: @TheReal_Mubarak @GMubarak @HosniMobarak @NotHosniMubarak @presidenthosni Also, some of tweets that were retweeted during the first days of the uprising were using the language of social media to express the events. The ones I collected were: @samihtoukan: The People just ousted Mubarak as the mayor of Egypt on @foursquare #jan25 (via @Mayousef) @tsweden: BREAKING: Hilary Clinton 'unfriends' Hosni Mubarak on Facebook. @kshaheen: Mubarak to change his facebook relationship status with egypt to "it's complicated" @SarahZaaimi: a twitter user: Are they any anti-mubarak apps available for the iphone? Enjoy, Carmel Vaisman http://www.absolutecarmel.com Twitter @carmelva

1 0

Jonathan Stern invited you to Dropbox
by Dropbox 04 Feb '11

04 Feb '11

Jonathan Stern wants you to use Dropbox to sync and share files online and across computers. Get started here: http://www.dropbox.com/link/20.2p2hQfVmJy/NjY0ODg1ODAyNw?src=referrals_bulk9 - The Dropbox Team ____________________________________________________ To stop receiving invites from Dropbox, please go to http://www.dropbox.com/bl/7e435b619805/air-l%40listserv.aoir.org

1 0

Fwd: BBC E-mail: Cyber war Geneva Conventions call
by nativebuddha 04 Feb '11

04 Feb '11

Rules of Engagement for cyber war? -robert ** Cyber war Geneva Conventions call ** Newsnight has exclusive access to a proposal calling for cyber warfare rules of engagement which will be put to world leaders at the Munich Security Conference. < http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9386445.stm > ** BBC Daily E-mail ** Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all in one daily e-mail < http://www.bbc.co.uk/email > ** Disclaimer ** The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have been verified. [sent from the back of mi mynd.]

1 0

Ranking Web of Universities. January 2011 Edition
by Isidro F. Aguillo 04 Feb '11

04 Feb '11

The Cybermetrics Lab released today the 12th edition of its Ranking Web of Universities. This is the world broadest coverage ranking of Universities showing the performance of 12,000 higher education institutions worldwide. The Ranking is freely available: http://www.webometrics.info/ This January 2011 edition's introduces new improved features including an updated Directory, more national and regional Rankings and recalculated indicators for better reflecting academic impact of the universities’ web presence. Focusing not only on the research dimension, but considering also other academic missions like teaching, community engagement and knowledge and technological transfer, the Ranking Web is offering a series of truly global indicators that reveal the outstanding performers, the excellence in education and the international impact and visibility of the universities. The main results from the current edition are: • US dominance: The Ranking is headed by MIT and Harvard University, followed by Stanford and California Berkeley. There are 115 North American universities among the Top 200, including 16 Canadian ones. • Academic Digital Divide. The concerning gap between US and the Developed World Universities is not being closed. Only 59 European institutions are cited in the Top 200, including 10 UK ones, mostly in the leading group (Cambridge and University College of London are the EU best ones) • Language barriers. The globalization of the Web penalized the international visibility of French, Japanese or Korean universities. Australian, Scandinavian, Singapore and surprisingly Taiwanese institutions show a performance close to the Canadian universities. • Size is a relevant factor in the emerging countries. Sao Paulo in Brazil, UNAM in México and Peking and Tsinghua in China are examples to be considered. None Indian university appears in top 500. • Open Access policies. The scores show that many universities are launching big efforts to populate their repositories, greatly expanding the availability of academic papers. On the contrary, there are still a few hundred institutions with two or more web domains, a bad practice that penalizes not only their rank but their overall visibility in search engines. "In this edition a new indicator has been applied for reflecting more accurately the academic impact of the web contents" said Isidro F. Aguillo, Head of the Cybermetrics Lab. "The goal is to provide a complete overview of the academia worldwide, without using subjective criteria or excluding universities solely by technical reasons and guaranteeing no economical or political interests affect the scores". “We are very surprised by the use of incomplete or flawed rankings for recognition of foreign university degrees. The current report constitutes a robust evaluation resource that can useful worldwide" said Isidro Aguillo. About The Cybermetrics Lab The Cybermetrics Lab is a research group devoted to Science Evaluation by means of analysis, visualization and evaluation of the information published in the public Web. The Cybermetrics Lab belongs to the Spanish Research Council (CSIC), the largest scientific public body in Spain and one of the most important networks of research centers in Europe. The Cybermetrics Lab publishes several scientific information portals including the Webometrics Rankings of Research centers (research.webometrics.info), Hospitals (hospitals.webometrics.info), Business Schools (business-schools.webometrics.info) and Repositories (repositories.webometrics.info). About the Webometrics Project The Webometrics Rankings are published since 2004, analyzing more than 45.000 academic and research organizations from all over the world. About 20.000 Higher Education Institutions are included in the Catalogue of Universities that is probably the largest and the most updated (a new edition appears every January & July) world directory of academic web domains. Media Contact Isidro F. Aguillo, HcDr Head, The Cybermetrics Lab Email: isidro.aguillo(a)cchs.csic.es

1 0

Re: [Air-L] Offensive
by Marj Kibby 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

Agreed, It is offensive that an increasing number of perfectly legitimate words are now "off limits" because they once occurred in a context that distressed some - or many. Marj Associate Professor Marjorie Kibby Discipline Convenor: Film, Media and Cultural Studies School of Humanities and Social Science The University of Newcastle Callaghan NSW 2308 Australia Marj.Kibby(a)newcastle.edu.au +61 2 49216604

1 0

Offensive
by Barry Wellman 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

Using JRuby--New from Pragmatic Bookshelf Bringing Ruby to Java Yes I know it is about a Java implemention of Ruby, but still folks, dont you have any history of who Jack Ruby was?? Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________

2 1

Re: [Air-L] [Web4lib] Ranking Web of Universities. January 2011 Edition
by Isidro F. Aguillo 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

Dear Wilfred: There a search gateway at bottom of the left index. It is powered by ZoomSearch that is powerful enough and it is a really cheap option. Best, -- Isidro F. Aguillo, HonPhD Cybermetrics Lab (3C1). CCHS - CSIC Albasanz, 26-28. 28037 Madrid. Spain isidro.aguillo @ cchs.csic.es www. webometrics.infoQuoting Wilfred Drew: > One problem, how does one get the ranking of a specific institution? > > ----------------------------------------- > Wilfred (Bill) Drew, M.S., B.S., A.S. > Assistant Professor > Librarian, Systems and Tech Services > Strengths: Ideation, Input, Learner, Command, Analytical > E-mail: dreww(a)tc3.edu > Follow the library: http://twitter.com/TC3Library > Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail or document. > > -----Original Message----- > From: web4lib-bounces(a)webjunction.org > [mailto:web4lib-bounces@webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Isidro F. > Aguillo > Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 6:09 AM > To: web4lib(a)webjunction.org; ASIS&T Special Interest Group on > Metrics; air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org > Subject: [Web4lib] Ranking Web of Universities. January 2011 Edition > > *Ranking Web of Universities. January 2011 Edition* > > ·*New edition of the ranking including 12,000 Higher Education > Institutions according to its web performance in January 2011* > > ·*It analyzes presence and performance and the international visibility > and impact of the universities* > > ·*Useful Resource for researchers, scholars, provosts, managers, and > candidate students* > > ·*Developed by The Cybermetrics Lab, CSIC* > > *Madrid, February 3rd, 2011 -- *The Cybermetrics Lab released today the > 12^th edition of its Ranking Web of Universities. This is the world > broadest coverage ranking of Universities showing the performance of > 12,000 higher education institutions worldwide. > > The Ranking is freely available: > http://www.webometrics.info/ > > This January 2011 edition's introduces new improved features including > an updated Directory, more national and regional Rankings and > recalculated indicators for better reflecting academic impact of the > universities' web presence. > > Focusing not only on the research dimension, but considering also other > academic missions like teaching, community engagement and knowledge and > technological transfer, the Ranking Web is offering a series of truly > global indicators that reveal the outstanding performers, the excellence > in education and the international impact and visibility of the > universities. > > The main results from the current edition are: > > ·US dominance: The Ranking is headed by MIT and Harvard University, > followed by Stanford and California Berkeley. There are 115 North > American universities among the Top 200, including 16 Canadian ones. > > ·Academic Digital Divide. The concerning gap between US and the > Developed World Universities is not being closed. Only 59 European > institutions are cited in the Top 200, including 10 UK ones, mostly in > the leading group (Cambridge and University College of London are the EU > best ones) > > ·Language barriers. The globalization of the Web penalized the > international visibility of French, Japanese or Korean universities. > Australian, Scandinavian, Singapore and surprisingly Taiwanese > institutions show a performance close to the Canadian universities. > > ·Size is a relevant factor in the emerging countries. Sao Paulo in > Brazil, UNAM in México and Peking and Tsinghua in China are examples to > be considered. None Indian university appears in top 500. > > ·Open Access policies. The scores show that many universities are > launching big efforts to populate their repositories, greatly expanding > the availability of academic papers. On the contrary, there are still a > few hundred institutions with two or more web domains, a bad practice > that penalizes not only their rank but their overall visibility in > search engines. > > "In this edition a new indicator has been applied for reflecting more > accurately the academic impact of the web contents" said Isidro F. > Aguillo, Head of the Cybermetrics Lab. "The goal is to provide a > complete overview of the academia worldwide, without using subjective > criteria or excluding universities solely by technical reasons and > guaranteeing no economical or political interests affect the scores". > > "We are very surprised by the use of incomplete or flawed rankings for > recognition of foreign university degrees. The current report > constitutes a robust evaluation resource that can useful worldwide" said > Isidro Aguillo. > > *About The Cybermetrics Lab* > > The Cybermetrics Lab is a research group devoted to Science Evaluation > by means of analysis, visualization and evaluation of the information > published in the public Web. The Cybermetrics Lab belongs to the Spanish > Research Council (CSIC), the largest scientific public body in Spain and > one of the most important networks of research centers in Europe. > > The Cybermetrics Lab publishes several scientific information portals > including the Webometrics Rankings of Research centers > (research.webometrics.info), Hospitals (hospitals.webometrics.info), > Business Schools (business-schools.webometrics.info) and Repositories > (repositories.webometrics.info). > > *About the Webometrics Project* > > The Webometrics Rankings are published since 2004, analyzing more than > 45.000 academic and research organizations from all over the world. > About 20.000 Higher Education Institutions are included in the Catalogue > of Universities that is probably the largest and the most updated (a new > edition appears every January & July) world directory of academic web > domains. > > *Media Contact* > > Isidro F. Aguillo, HcDr > Head, The Cybermetrics Lab > Email: isidro.aguillo(a)cchs.csic.es > > _______________________________________________ > Web4lib mailing list > Web4lib(a)webjunction.org > http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/ > >

1 0