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Call for papers: Space, Time and Technology in the Network Society
by Anstead Nicholas Dr (PSI) 18 Aug '10

18 Aug '10

Dear all (with apologies for cross-posting), We are currently putting together a panel proposal for the ECPR General Conference at the University of Iceland, Reykjavik, between the 25-27 August 2011. In particular, we interested in discussing the way in which new communication technology alters our relationship with time and space, and how these shifting circumstances impact on a diverse range of political issues and questions. The full call for papers: Theorists of the network society have drawn attention to the relationship between space and time. While we commonly think of time as objectively measured by clocks and space objectively measured by its geographic extension, both dimensions also have constructed identities. Communications technologies have played an important role in this process. From the Pony Express, to the telegraph, to digital media today, the time required to transmit communications across vast distances is asymptotically approaching zero. The contraction of time and space enables new configurations of political organization enabling the emergence of "glocal" networks blurring geographic boundaries and hierarchies, reconfigurations between local, regional and national levels of campaigning, and a faster pace of politics with a twenty-four news cylcle and an instantaneous temporal rhythm. While these themes have received a great deal of attention by theorists, the spatial-temporal dimensions of politics in network society has received little empirical elaboration. This panel invites presentations crossing diverse fields within politics grappling with impact of digital media on the political construction of space and time. Please send 200 word abstracts to nick.anstead(a)gmail.com<mailto:nick.anstead@gmail.com> and mjensen94(a)gmail.com<mailto:mjensen94@gmail.com> by August 30th. Also, please feel free to contact us if you have any questions. Best wishes, Mike and Nick --- Nick Anstead Lecturer in Politics, School of Political, Social and International Studies, University of East Anglia [room] Arts 3.59 [email] n.anstead(a)uea.ac.uk [phone] 01603 59 2888 [mobile] 07788 413 443 [blog] www.nickanstead.com/blog [twitter] www.twitter.com/NickAnstead Office hours (exam period '10): Monday, 13:00-14:00 & Tuesday 12:00-13:00

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Sharing of Data Leads to Progress on Alzheimer’s > " The Paradigms They Are A-Changin' > The Future of Research and Scholarship - OPEN, Social, Semantic, Mobile"
by gerrymck 18 Aug '10

18 Aug '10

Colleagues/ On Augst 12 2010, The NYTimes piblished an article titled "Sharing of Data Leads to Progress on Alzheimer’s" >>> In 2003, a group of scientists and executives from the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the drug and medical-imaging industries, universities and nonprofit groups joined in a project that experts say had no precedent: a collaborative effort to find the biological markers that show the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in the human brain. [more] [snip] As Expected > ForeSeen > Observed > Predicted >>> BTW: Not Only Did The Irish Save Civilization [snip] We Also ForeSaw / Foresee The Future [:-)] >>> The Paradigms They Are A-Changin' > The Future Of Research And Scholarship: Open / Semantic / Social / Mobile <<< There are four major themes that are and will become the context and framework of research and scholarship in the 21st Century: Open / Semantic / Social / Mobile > OPEN > Open Access / Open Data / Open Peer Review / Open Research >> Semantic > Audio / Interactivity / Supplemental Content / Video >>> Social > Science Blogging / Social Bookmarking / Social Networking / Social Software >>>> Mobile > Mobile Access / Mobile Content / Mobile Data / Mobile Research In scheduled presentation(s), we will briefly profile select developments related to these major themes and speculate on their potential evolution and impact on research and scholarship in the coming decade(s). [ http://scholarship20.blogspot.com/2009/05/paradigms-they-are-changin-open.h…] BTW: For A summary of my presentation at the National Univerity of Ireland, Galway SEE John Brelsin's blog entry at [snip] Thanks, John !!! BTW: John is the co-author of The Social Semantic Web. Springer, 2010 [snip] JOY ! /Gerry Gerry McKiernan Associate Professor Science and Technology Librarian Iowa State University Library Ames IA 50011 Follow Me On Twitter > http://twitter.com/GMcKBlogs "There Is Nothing More Powerful Than An Idea Whose Time Has Come!" / Victor Hugo [ http://bit.ly/b2i4Yl ]

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New book announcement (Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL)
by Derek Hansen 17 Aug '10

17 Aug '10

AIR-L’ers I’ve mostly been a lurker on the list since my time as a doc student several years ago. I’m pleased to share something that I think will be beneficial to the AIR-L community. It’s a new book titled “Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL” that will be available early September from Elsevier/MorganKaufmann Publishers: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/723354/description The book is a nice introduction to social network analysis (SNA) and its application to social media (e.g., Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, email, forums, wikis). It describes basic network concepts as well as how to apply them using an Excel plugin called NodeXL: http://nodexl.codeplex.com. Myself (shakmatt(a)gmail.com) Ben Shneiderman (ben(a)cs.umd.edu) and Marc Smith (marc(a)connectedaction.net) are the primary authors, but there are excellent contributed chapters from other AIR-L researchers (see link above for the full list). I’ve been teaching with draft versions of the book to non-technical students at Maryland’s iSchool in my online communities class for a few semesters now and have received very positive feedback from students who were new to SNA. Others have been using the draft version of the book to teach courses in business schools, computer science, and sociology classes to students at the graduate and undergraduate level. If you want to look at an e-copy of the book to determine its usefulness for a course, please send an email to our editor, Rachel Roumeliotis (R.Roumeliotis(a)elsevier.com) Regards, Derek Hansen Assistant Professor College of Information Studies University of Maryland

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[CFP]: The Changing Dynamics of Scientific Collaborations at HICSS (due October 1)
by James Howison 17 Aug '10

17 Aug '10

CFP: Workshop on The Changing Dynamics of Scientific Collaborations at HICSS (January 4th 2011) http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu/hicss_44/ Following on from successful workshops at CHI and CSCW we call for 3- to 4-page position papers on the following topics, especially those with a focus on understanding or supporting changing practices in these areas: - Collaborative scientific applications concerning data gathering, analysis, sharing, and visualization - Case studies concerning data gathering, analysis, sharing and visualization - Socio-technical research on scientific collaborations - Research on the scientific software ecosystem - Social networks of scientists - Repurposing social software for science - Participatory design and/or rapid prototyping for scientific software - Distributed data gathering and analysis - Time-critical scientific applications - Studies of generational differences in how science is done - Cross-functional applications and comparisons of a scientific to a non-scientific field - Science and Innovation policy questions on these issues at science funding bodies and beyond. The workshop will bring together - researchers who study scientific practices and collaboration - designers and software developers deploying new types of collaborative systems The goal of the workshop is to produce a white paper to report on the state of the field and to delineate themes and current challenges. Please email workshop papers to James Howison <jhowison(a)cs.cmu.edu> by October 1st. Best regards, James Howison Cecilia Aragon Charlotte Lee Claudio Silva

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IR 11.0 student submissions
by Torill Mortensen 17 Aug '10

17 Aug '10

This email has just been sent to those who registered as having papers written solely by students or Ph D candidates. Note: this email it mentions that the deadline has been extended until August 28th. This is correct, and is also valid for all other full papers. For those who sent in an abstract and not a full paper, putting one up at the website is still optional. Torill Mortensen ---- Are you a student participant of IR 11.0, or do you know one? This email is directed at students who have submitted a paper (abstract or full paper) and had the submission accepted. -- Traditionally, there has been a student award for the best student full paper submitted to the IR conferences. In order to participate in this competition, you need to 1: Be a student, and not faculty. 2: Submit a full paper. The deadline will be extended to August 28th (for all members) in order to give you a little more time on some of those hurried papers. If you did not plan to submit a full paper but would like to participate, you can still write out your drafts and notes and submit a full paper. The prize is a free banquet and all the glory of having submitted the best student paper in 2010, which looks very nice on your CV. The papers will be assessed anonymously by a group of your peers. Torill Mortensen, program chair For questions about the student award, contact torill.mortensen(a)gmail.com -- Internet Research 11 https://www.conftool.net/aoir-ir11/

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[MCJ] CFP: M/C Journal 'coalition' Issue
by Axel Bruns 17 Aug '10

17 Aug '10

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 17 Aug. 2010 M/C - Media and Culture http://www.media-culture.org.au/ is calling for contributors to the 'coalition' issue of M/C Journal http://journal.media-culture.org.au/ M/C Journal is looking for new contributors. Founded in 1998, M/C is a crossover journal between the popular and the academic, and a blind- and peer-reviewed journal. Our Website at http://journal.media-culture.org.au/ provides open access to all past issues. To find out how and in what format to contribute your work, visit http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/about/submissions. Call for Papers: 'coalition' Edited by Anthony Lambert and Elaine Kelly "Birds of a feather (and colour) will flock (and fly) together." -- Old English Proverb, 1545 (approx) The notion of the 'coalition' is one normally associated with formalised alliances between political parties. Coalitional affiliations are not limited to mainstream politics, but share a focus on strategy and outcome across the full range of human endeavours. Parties with varying priorities will put to one side their differences in order to focus on overlapping concerns. Thus coalitions come in all shapes and sizes and cross all walks of life: from families, clubs and teams to friendships, churches and sects, from companies and co-operatives to scientific formula, mathematical groupings and multimedia/multi person online gaming environments. Recent history has revealed cracks in public and political alliances. In Australia for example, November 2007 marked a change in politics and culture that saw the demise of then Prime Minister John Howard and his Coalition government. The coupling of neoliberalism and social conservatism was said to be the hallmark of that government's commitment to 'old Australian values', to severe forms of border control, the refusal of same-sex marriage, scepticism toward climate change, and rapid privatisation policies for public services. The Coalition, it appeared, no longer represented the interests of the public. Likewise 'the coalition of the willing' as a collective American-led force fighting the war-or-terror fell apart in the later stages of the Bush administration, and the 2008 shift in American politics to Barack Obama's presidency was a singular moment of international historical significance. We ask then, as connections to particular coalitions shift, what new affiliations are formed? And which aspects of older coalitions continue in the midst of change? What do regions, nations and individuals do when the groups they belong to fall apart or lose power? Larger coalitional shifts tell us much about culture, history, law, media, technology and human behaviour. After Australia and the Western world have moved away from supporting the power and policy of previously dominant groups, questions emerge as to the nature and ethics of collectives (of all kinds) as the expression of political, social and personal change. This issue of M/C Journal seeks to mount a timely critical reflection on the multiple contemporary meanings and uses of 'coalition' and coalitional thinking. How does the notion of coalition inform political practices and powers? How have coalitions changed in recent times? What other (non-political party) coalitions exist and how might they work? How do coalitions inform understandings and expressions of race and whiteness, gender and sexuality, class and poverty, nations and borders? What does it mean to be 'post-coalitional' and how might we map persistence and change in recent political and non-political groupings and collectives? We welcome papers identifying texts and behaviours that exemplify coalition, affiliational thinking or behaviours, coalitional crisis, or the current local/global coalitional and post-coalitional conditions in which people live - from larger contexts of geopolitics through to the micropolitics of everyday practices, pleasures and identifications. Please send a 100-word abstract to the editors at pig(a)journal.media- culture.org.au. Articles of 3,000 words in length should be submitted online at http://journal.media-culture.org.au/ and should be prepared in accordance with the M/C Journal style guidelines, available at http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/about/submissions. Article deadline: 15 Oct. 2010 Issue release date: 15 Dec. 2010 M/C Journal was founded (as "M/C - A Journal of Media and Culture") in 1998 as a place of public intellectualism analysing and critiquing the meeting of media and culture. Contributors are directed to past issues of M/C Journal for examples of style and content, and to the submissions page for comprehensive article submission guidelines. M/C Journal articles are blind peer-reviewed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Further M/C Journal issues scheduled for 2010/11: 'waste': article deadline 25 June 2010, release date 25 Aug. 2010 'pig': article deadline 20 Aug. 2010, release date 20 Oct. 2010 'coalition': article deadline 15 Oct. 2010, release date 15 Dec. 2010 'doubt': article deadline 21 Jan. 2011, release date 23 Mar. 2011 'diaspora': article deadline 4 Mar. 2011, release date 4 May 2011 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- M/C - Media and Culture is located at <http://www.media-culture.org.au/>. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- M/C Journal is online at <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/>. All past issues of M/C Journal on various topics are available there. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- end Dr Axel Bruns -- General Editor editor(a)media-culture.org.au M/C - Media and Culture http://www.media-culture.org.au/ -- M/C Journal http://journal.media-culture.org.au/

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teaching with current social network sysems?!
by Murray Turoff 17 Aug '10

17 Aug '10

If you are teaching a course on social networks it is quite proper to ask small groups of students to investigate different social network systems based upon some sort of guidance on what to look for to evaluate the system. however, when their exists a whole set of course ware systems with better functionality for the course process such a moodle i am unclear why one would want to teach using any of the social network systems. Even a bulletin board system like WebBoard would be better to offer a class then all the social network systems i have seen. If you want a good student project to get students to be aware of problems on the web, set up trials of different online sellers and then get some students use accounts that have cookies from very cheap places like walmarts and other students to use accounts with cookies from places like niemen markus and what they will discover they will get different prices from the same sellers depending on the cookies they or you have. This is not illegal and was verified by some tests a few years back done out one of a business school in a professors class. It pays to clean up your cookies. Distinguished Professor Emeritus Information Systems, NJIT homepage: http://is.njit.edu/turoff

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postdoc position in Social Impacts of Technology
by Shelia Cotten 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

Hi everyone. Please pass this along to other individuals that may be interested and relevant listservs. Thanks. Shelia Postdoctoral Fellowship in Social Impacts of Technology at the University of Alabama, Birmingham Dr. Shelia Cotten, a professor in the Sociology and Social Work department at the University of Alabama, Birmingham (UAB), is seeking to hire a Postdoctoral Fellow for a 1-2 year postdoc position. The position is available immediately but the start date is somewhat negotiable. The postdoc will work with Dr. Cotten to analyze data from existing research projects and to collect survey, interview, and observational data on upcoming research projects. Projects focus on technology usage across the life course and the social impacts of this usage, thus experience studying either specific age groups, and/or the impacts of technology use, would be preferable but is not required. Dr. Cotten, with funding from the National Science Foundation, is leading the largest study of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO laptop dissemination in the United States. She also has a large NIA grant studying the impacts on quality of life of training older adults in assisted and independent living communities to use computers and the Internet. A doctoral degree in Sociology, Psychology, Communication, New Media, or a related field is required before beginning the postdoctoral fellowship. Candidates must have (1) strong quantitative and/or qualitative analysis skills, (2) experience writing manuscripts, and (3) good organizational and time management skills. Prior publication and grant writing experience will enhance the application. The Postdoctoral Fellow is a 12 month, full-time appointment, with salary up to $45,000 depending upon qualifications. Benefits are also provided. See http://www.postdocs.uab.edu/ for more information on postdoc benefits at UAB. Funding may be available to support travel for conference presentations. Submit the following application materials as attachments via email to Dr. Shelia Cotten - cotten(a)uab.edu. Please use the following email subject line: Technology Postdoc Position. - Cover letter describing training, skills, research interests and how they fit with those described in the position advertisement, and why you’re interested in this position. - Names and contact information for three references - An up to date curriculum vitae Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until a suitable candidate is selected. UAB is a Carnegie designated RU/VH: Research University institution with a population of approximately 17,000 undergraduate and graduate students. UAB’s Medical School is in the top 25 in the U.S. The Department of Sociology and Social Work houses the Center for Social Medicine and is affiliated with the Lister Hill Center for Health Policy, the Center for Aging, and others. The Department offers Bachelor’s degrees in Sociology, Social Work, and Social Psychology, the MA in Sociology, and the Ph.D. in Medical Sociology. Metropolitan Birmingham is home to over 1 million people and is at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, with plentiful cultural and recreational opportunities.

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Examples of Successful Uses of Facebook in the Classroom?
by Michelle Everson 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

Hi Everyone, For awhile now, I've been toying with trying to incorporate Facebook into my courses as a way for students to talk about statistics they are seeing in the news (I teach statistics courses). My idea is to set up a group in Facebook where students could go to post things they are finding in the media related to statistics and to critique these items and comment on what others have posted. I would likely either set this up as an extra credit assignment (and have other options for students who do not want to use Facebook) or as a required assignment (again with another option for those students who might not want to use Facebook). I'm interested in trying Facebook because (a) I know many of my students use it and I thought this might engage them more, and (b) I like the layout of Facebook and the way you can easily link to things and share videos. I haven't found a blog interface that I like as much as Facebook. I do have some concerns, of course, related to privacy issues, and I would not want students to feel that I am doing this because I want to pry into their personal lives (my goal here is not to "friend" all my students but to get them talking about statistics they see in everyday life and sharing things with each other). So, I'm wondering if anyone on this list has tried to use Facebook and would be willing to share what was done and how it worked, or give some tips on "best practices" for use of Facebook in an educational context. Thank you in advance for anything you might have to share! Sincerely, Michelle Everson -- Michelle Everson, Ph.D. Quantitative Methods in Education Department of Educational Psychology University of Minnesota gaddy001(a)umn.edu 612-624-0691 http://www.tc.umn.edu/~delma001/CATALST/

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Follow-up on "Successful Uses of Facebook in the Classroom"
by Michelle Everson 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

First, I wanted to thank those of you who responded to my query about using Facebook in the classroom. I have not been able to personally contact everyone who responded to that message, but I definitely will do that in the coming days. Second, I wanted to follow up that initial post with another question. I find myself struggling quite a bit right now in terms of trying to structure a particular assignment I would like my students to work on, and I was hoping I could pick your brains a bit. As I mentioned before, I teach statistics (mostly at the graduate level), and one goal I have for students in the class is that they become more statistically literate and they develop the skills to critically analyze statistics they hear about or read about in the news. This summer, I came to class every day and brought in a recent news story I had found that made use of statistics or presented statistical information (sometimes in a misleading way), and we'd spend a little time talking about that. Statistics are all around us all the time, and it was not hard to find things to bring to my students to talk about. I now want to give my students opportunities to share news stories they find with me and each other, and I have some ideas, but I'm not sure of the best way to go. Initially, I was wondering if I could encourage students to tweet about news articles they find that include statistics, or if I could set up a group in Facebook where students would come to post links to articles and talk a bit about these articles. I envision an assignment where each student would have to share a certain number of news stories AND show me that he or she has taken the time to critically reflect on the news story and relate it to something learned in class. Because of this, Twitter might not be the best option since we are limited in terms of characters, but I can see students sharing a short link and then including a question of some kind or a comment on the methodology used in the study (I actually did try using Twitter awhile ago as an extra credit opportunity for students and it seemed to work out okay). Of course, I know not all students will have Facebook or Twitter accounts, and even those who do may not be comfortable using those tools in an educational context. So, I was thinking maybe it would be better to set up a class blog of some kind. However, then I start thinking about the fact that not all of my students are going to be technologically savvy, and using a blog may be a frustrating experience for some of them, unless I can very easily show them how to post things to the blog and insert hyperlinks and videos if necessary. What makes things a little bit more tricky is that this fall, I am teaching two sections of this introductory statistics course--one totally online and one in the classroom--and I would like to use this assignment in both sections. I can easily show my classroom students how to blog, but I may not have the opportunity to meet all my online students in person, so I need to figure out other ways to show them how to blog. A nice thing about a blog is that it's something everyone in class would be able to contribute to, and therefore everyone in class will see all the postings and be able to comment on each others' posts. So, I'm leaning toward this, but I wonder if anyone has experience trying to set up a class blog and how that has worked. Do you have any words of wisdom to share? Or, can you think of any other ideas that I might want to consider? One last thing I am thinking about is setting up a "Statistics in the News" assignment but giving students several choices about how they can complete the assignment. The could (a) contribute to a class blog I set up, (b) post things in a Facebook group I set up, (c) tweet about statistics in the news, or (d) come up with their own way to share, given the caveat that they think of something that would incorporate technology in some way (e.g., maybe create a YouTube video, or set up their own blog or website, etc.). I like this idea in that I would hope that each student could find something that appeals to him or her (thus making this assignment something more interesting and engaging). On the flip side, it would be more work for me, and I'm not sure I'm up to that. Thanks again for your feedback! It's great to have this group to bounce ideas off of. Sincerely, Michelle Everson -- Michelle Everson, Ph.D. Quantitative Methods in Education Department of Educational Psychology University of Minnesota gaddy001(a)umn.edu 612-624-0691 http://www.tc.umn.edu/~delma001/CATALST/

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