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Job ad: Research associate at NCeSS (re-advertisement)
by Yuwei Lin 07 Feb '08

07 Feb '08

*** Apologies for Cross-posting *** Research Associate Vacancy at NCeSS Hub (Re-advertisement) Closing date: 25/02/2008 Reference: HUM/70376 http://www.ncess.ac.uk/about_us/vacancies/ The primary objective of the National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS) is to develop and promote the application of innovations in digital research infrastructure (commonly known as e-Infrastructure) for the benefit of economic and social scientists: see http://www.ncess.ac.uk. NCeSS comprises a coordinating Hub, based at the University of Manchester, and seven major research Nodes at other UK universities. The Hub wishes to appoint a Research Associate with a background in Economics, Econometrics, quantitative Social Science, or Computer Science combined with extensive experience of working with economic and social scientists. The post-holder will investigate how e-Infrastructure - networked, distributed, scalable computational tools and services - can encourage and assist economic and social researchers to use (and re-use) quantitative data in tackling their substantive research. This investigation will contribute to the ESRC's National Data Strategy, which aims to develop a world class social science data infrastructure capable of delivering all the data necessary to address current and future research needs in the social sciences. The post is tenable from the earliest possible date for two years. This is a re-advertisement and previous applicants need not re-apply. Salary: £26,666 to £32,796 p.a. Informal enquiries: Tel: + 44 (0) 161 275 1381 Email: rob.procter(a)ncess.ac.uk To request a hard copy of application form: Katy Middlebrough Tel: + 44 (0) 161 275 4723 Email: Katy.Middlebrough(a)manchester.ac.uk Please quote reference HUM/70376 Closing date: 25/02/2008 Interview date: w/c 03/03/2008 For full details of the post, and to download an application form, please visit http://www.ncess.ac.uk/about_us/vacancies/

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IR 9.0 Deadline extension
by Brian Loader 07 Feb '08

07 Feb '08

I have now received a number of requests for an extension to the submission deadline for IR 9.0 - please don't send any more! Having informally agreed to these I am now formally extending the submission date to FRIDAY 22 FEBRUARY (please don't ask exactly what time lets just say Friday!! Actually where does Friday end?). Hope this helps everyone who wants to submit a proposal but is under time constraints. I will shortly be providing answers to all your other questions on the list. When I find all the answers... Keep those submissions coming in. Brian Brian D. Loader Co-Director, Social Informatics Research Unit (SIRU), Department of Sociology, Wentworth College, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD Email bl506(a)york.ac.uk Tel: +44(0) 1904 432639 Fax: +44(0) 1904 433043

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Re: [Air-L] open-access is the future: boycott locked-down academic journals
by Jason Wilson 07 Feb '08

07 Feb '08

Hi all, As someone involved with the journal danah singles out, I've responded to this on danah's blog, and reposted on a group blog I'm involved with. To cut and paste the response would be too large for the list's size limits. Suffice to say that I found this assessment of academic publishing as simplistic as I did the first time I heard these ideas, many years ago. I think anyone who is in new media studies, and who has had good experiences with academic publishing, should join this debate. It certainly feels important to me. Dr Jason Wilson Research Associate Queensland University of Technology Brisbane Australia j5.wilson(a)qut.edu.au jason_a_wilson(a)yahoo.com.au http://spooner.beds.ac.uk/nmrg http://gatewatching.org ----- Original Message ---- From: danah boyd <aoir.z3z(a)danah.org> To: aoir list <air-l(a)aoir.org> Sent: Thursday, 7 February, 2008 4:07:51 PM Subject: [Air-L] open-access is the future: boycott locked-down academic journals At AOIR this year, we heard a lot about open-access journals and the future of academic publishing. These talks were extremely well- received. At the same time, I have a sneaking suspicion that most of us came back home and continued to publish with the same respected journals that we've always published with. I've certainly seen a lot of CFPs from folks wanting to publish issues in locked-down journals. Today, an article of mine was finally published in Sage's Convergence series. I should be excited by this, but I'm actually quite depressed. While I'm lucky to be visible enough that some folks will find out about my article and ask me for a copy, most of the articles in that issue will barely get read because they are virtually inaccessible. Additionally, while scholars will ask me for my article, most policymakers and technologists will not, even though the article is probably more relevant to them than it is to you. I believe that the locked-down nature of this publishing regime silences academics while capitalizing off of our free labor at every turn. I think that this is unfair, unacceptable, and irresponsible. Thus, since I'm a blogger, I wrote a ranty blog entry about the topic: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2008/02/06/openaccess_is_t.html In said ranty blog entry, I laid out a set of steps for how to proceed to make change. For example, I think that all tenured faculty have a responsibility to stop publishing in locked-down journals and help build up the reputations of open-access ones. (I even believe that those who flout journal's restrictions by publishing their pieces on their websites are failing future generations by not pushing for change to happen.) I offer steps for scholars, libraries, universities, tenure committees, disciplinary associations, and scholars at all stages. In short, I'd like to see a boycott of locked-down academic journals. I think that it's particularly critical in our field since we are doing work that is relevant beyond the academy. I think that we need to stand in solidarity to stop this abuse of our labor and this silencing of our voices. Am I crazy? danah _______________________________________________ The Air-L(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers 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/ Get the name you always wanted with the new y7mail email address. www.yahoo7.com.au/y7mail

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IR 9.0 Submission Deadline
by Brian Loader 07 Feb '08

07 Feb '08

For those of you who promised yourselves that you would get that proposal submitted for the IR 9.0 Conference:Rethinking Communities, Rethinking Place submitted by the end of the day I just thought I would help with a reminder. Just go to: http://conferences.aoir.org/ And click on the 'submissions site' link... Deadline is Friday 8 February. Brian Brian D. Loader Co-Director, Social Informatics Research Unit (SIRU), Department of Sociology, Wentworth College, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD Email bl506(a)york.ac.uk Tel: +44(0) 1904 432639 Fax: +44(0) 1904 433043

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Need Your Help to Build Grassroots Polling Community
by Yosem Companys 07 Feb '08

07 Feb '08

Dear AIR friends, Since some of you may not know me personally, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Yosem Companys (yes, this is truly my last name!), and I am a PhD student in the School of Engineering at Stanford University. As part of my studies, I have closely collaborated with my friend Ricardo Rossello who just obtained his Ph.D. in Bio-Engineering at the University of Michigan to create a new scientific method to enhance the value of polling. What we came up with is called *Bullitics*, which you can see at www.bullitics.com. This is *NOT* a faddish 2.0 site, but rather a patent-pending scientific method that we have developed after years of research to enhance the value of polling. What we are trying to do with *www.bullitics.com** *is *to build a non partisan grassroots online polling community to empower people to become their own pollsters and enable them to track the value of candidates and issues in real time*. As an example of how powerful the system could be, please read the results<http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=12231>of an early test we conducted on it in New Hampshire. *PLEASE HELP US*. You can help us by following the simple four steps: - *Register* at www.bullitics.com - *Submit your preferences and change them often *as political events change before and after Super Tuesday. The more you use the product, the better! - *Provide feedback *regarding your experience with the product. Recall, its just a beta --- most of the interesting things about the product will be surfacing later on, so please also check the site often for updates as we will be integrating these continuously over time. - *Forward to Ten Friends*! The more people use Bullitics, the more powerful the tool will be. In general, I think that we are all interested in making it easier for people to influence the political process and the political decisions that affect their lives. We hope that *www.bullitics.com** *serves as a small grain of sand that takes us in that direction. *WE TRULY APPRECIATE YOUR HELP*! With your help, we may improve the political process... Thanks, Yosem Companys and Ricardo Rossello P.S. Forward this email to your friends... and send any comments to ricky.rossello(a)gmail.com

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WikiCandidate 08
by Dmitry Epstein 06 Feb '08

06 Feb '08

Dear list members, My colleagues and I just launched a website (http://wikicandidate08.com <http://wikicandidate08.com/> ) intended to research the way in which people engage in political discussion online. It's called WikiCandidate. The site is the campaign website of a fictional presidential candidate running in the 2008 US election. It's intended to look and feel exactly like a real campaign website (our developers are getting there gradually, but things look similar already), with one exception: all the content on it is tied to a wiki engine and editable by users. Visitors to the site can write up and change this candidate's bio, issue stances, news from the campaign trail, etc. First and foremost, the WikiCandidate Project is supposed to be a fun website and an online community. In a presidential election, it's common for people to be disappointed in the choice of candidates. Each person running has some character flaw, holds a position on an issue you don't share, says something you wish they hadn't. So, we wondered, free of practical constraints like life history, party politics, and voting record, who is (and can there be) a perfect presidential candidate? It wasn't long before we realized there were some really interesting academic research questions that could be asked about this. And so we put together this website. We're not studying people our users like bugs or anything. We mostly want to see whether an effort like this can be successful, and how people discuss politics in this non-traditional forum. We'd love you to stop by, and if you like what you see, invite your readers to do the same. Thank you! Dima

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Most popular sites
by Peter Fischer-Nielsen 06 Feb '08

06 Feb '08

Dear all, What is your experience with alexa.com? Can it be used as a reliable tool for measuring for instance the most used religious sites world wide: http://www.alexa.com/browse/general/?&CategoryID=373&mode=general&R=True &Start=1&SortBy=Popularity Do you know of other and better ways? Kind regards, Peter Fischer-Nielsen PhD student, University of Aarhus, Denmark

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final call panel: science learning/education in virtual worlds
by Jeremy Hunsinger 06 Feb '08

06 Feb '08

This is one of the ideas that I've been working on for copenhagen, as it seems to be gathering a good bit of steam and funding. My perspective will be to look at the organizational and funding structures for science learning in virtual worlds, likely a network/ political economy analysis. If other people have papers or proposals, I'd love to see them so i could write up a panel. Jeremy Hunsinger Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (www.cipr.uwm.edu ) Words are things; and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. --Byron _______________________________________________ The Air-L(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers 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/

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Association/Organizational Virtual Communities of Practice?
by Gerry Mckiernan 05 Feb '08

05 Feb '08

***APOLOGIES FOR RECEIPT OF DUPLICATE POSTINGS*** Colleagues/ As many may be aware, there are several changes being considered in the Public Library Association (PLA) Bylaws. A major proposed change is the creation of various Communities of Practice to replace PLA committees: >Communities of Practice will replace many of the PLA Committees. Communities of Practice will be virtual groups that are interest- >focused and member-driven. Members will have the power to create groups, as well as morph and/or disband them at their >discretion. This will allow all 11,000+ members, many who are not able to travel to in-person committee meetings, to get involved >with the organization and the public library issues they care about most. Communities of Practice, should the members choose, will >still be able to meet in-person at ALA Annual Conference and Midwinter. [ http://www.pla.org/ala/pla/bylawsannouncement.cfm ] For a forthcoming presentation, I am greatly interest in learning of Any and All Past, Present and/Future Association/Organizational Virtual Communities of Practice, particularly those of the Online Social Networking Kind. Note: At this time, I am only interested in *Virtual* >>Association / Organizational<< Communities of Practice. I am also interested in Any and All relevant literature, Web sites, blogs, wikis, etc. Please respond to this list and ** if at all possible, also submit as a comment on my _Friends_ blog posting*** Association/Organizational Virtual Communities of Practice? [ http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2008/02/associationorganizational-… ] I will post a summary to the e-List(s) of Any and All submissions to The Blog. Thanks! >From a Snowing Central Iowa ... /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://www.alternativeenergyblogs.blogspot.com/ ]

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CFP Digital Culture and Communication
by Kathleen O'Riordan 05 Feb '08

05 Feb '08

a reminder that the final deadline for this is 15th Feb. k > DIGITAL CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION (DCC) SECTION - CALL FOR PANELS AND > PAPERS > European Communication Research and Education Association - ECREA > > 2nd ECREA CONFERENCE, Barcelona, 25-28 November 2008 > Hosted by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) http:// > www.ecrea2008barcelona.org > > PROPOSAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 15th February 2008 > > The 'Digital Culture and Communication' section invites everyone who > works > on these issues, within the broad theme of ECREA's 2nd international > conference, 'Communication policies and culture in Europe' to submit > proposals. > > The section 'Digital Culture and Communication' aims to further exchange > and develop research at the European level in the field of digital media > and informational culture as this is broadly defined. We welcome work > that > crosses disciplines and that operates at the boundaries of what might > generally be allowed to constitute media/ communication systems. The > section actively seeks both empirical and theoretical/critical work. > > Digital media technologies allow us to rethink existing media and > communication theories and approaches (as well as research methods). They > also force us to redefine traditional boundaries and to explore new forms > of interaction. We therefore encourage work based on interdisciplinary > approaches that address the broad theme of the conference call, and the > section's interests. We welcome proposals which reflect both theoretical > and methodological challenges in digital culture and communication > research as well as those exploring new boundaries within the field. > > For further information about the section please visit our (relative > stable) blog at: www.digitalcultureandcommunication.blogspot.com/ > or email Maren Hartmann: hartmann(a)udk-berlin.de and/or Caroline Bassett: > C.Bassett(a)sussex.ac.uk, Kate ORiordan: K.ORiordan(a)sussex.ac.uk > > This invitation is for proposals of pre-organized panels, posters, and > individual papers from established academics, young scholars, > practitioners and postgraduate research students. > > Individual paper proposals, individual poster proposals and panel > proposals can be submitted at the official conference website: > www.ecrea2008barcelona.org > PAPER PROPOSALS: http://www.ecrea2008barcelona.org/eng/callfor_pa.asp > POSTER PROPOSALS: http://www.ecrea2008barcelona.org/eng/callfor_po.asp > PANEL PROPOSALS: http://www.ecrea2008barcelona.org/eng/callfor_pn.asp > > Notifications of acceptance will be sent out in mid-April 2008, > > Paper-presenters and panellists will be asked to confirm their intention > to attend by registering before October 24, 2008. > > Please note that, as a policy, ECREA Candidates can submit "one proposal > as first author, and more as co-author (second, ...), chair or respondent > of a panel - but a participant will be allowed only one paper > presentation. The length of the individual abstracts is preferably 400 > and > maximum 500 words. A panel proposal combines a panel abstract with the > individual abstracts, of each 400-500 words. Participants will indicate > their preference for a specific section (where they want to present their > paper / poster / panel)". >

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