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No apologies for self promotion
by Barry Wellman 27 Jun '07

27 Jun '07

(Actually, I'm not -- just communicating efficiently with lots of people I know -- hope to see some of you at Communities & Technologies conference this week at Michigan State). I received a letter today (the old-fashioned way) telling me that I had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. According to [[Wikipedia]], "election to Fellowship in the Society is the highest academic accoldate available to scientists and scholars in Canada." The RSC was founded in 1882 and modeled on the UK Royal Society (Newton and all that). Besides kvelling, the election gives me the right to use the mysterious initials "FSRC" after my signature (as below). The RSC calls it a "postnomial": my (and perhaps your) new word for the day. With this, and Bev/my pending 42nd anniversary, I feel both content and looking forward to more adventures in scholarship and love in the next decades. Barry Wellman, FRSC _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman For fun -- updating songs, movies and history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php Elvis wouldn't be singing Return to Sender now _____________________________________________________________________

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good copy, bad copy -documentary film
by Jeremy Hunsinger 26 Jun '07

26 Jun '07

GOOD COPY BAD COPY - a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/ 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

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Re: [Air-l] Using LinkedIn for survey sample
by elena＠monmouth.com 26 Jun '07

26 Jun '07

Thanks Elijah... I really appreciate your thoughts. I did some further research that might help others in the future. I was considering asking members of the entire (or possibly just my own) LinkedIn network to complete an online survey. I don't think this would entail any programming (beyond the survey itself). LinkedIn has a Question/Answer area and I found previous requests for survey participants for dissertation studies (one made reference to their IRB). However, when I look at the intended use of the area, this type of request doesn't seem to fit (but the previous requests were not flagged for improper use). I would be a little hesitant given this. I think the self-selection issue may be the most concerning of all as the membership appear to be biased in favor of executives, entrepenuers, and people who are looking for work (or recruiting for jobs). I would need a more balanced sample requiring current employment by an organzation at various levels. As far as sampling... in I/O Psychology I've noticed that many dissertations (and published studies) use non-experimental designs and convenience samples. But I'm being stubborn and wondering if I couldn't figure out a way to get a better sample. I'll have to talk to my chairperson and get his thoughts. In the end, because my 2nd degree network has thousands of people (not to mention the 11 million LinkedIn claims), I found the idea intriquing and wondered if anyone had experience with it (or had discounted it). This might be outside the realm of the aoir group, as I would not be studying the network itself (but I'm actually not sure about this). Thanks again for your time! Elena > > > Subject: [Air-l] Using LinkedIn for survey sample > > > > Has anyone recruited survey participants from a social network (e.g., > > LinkedIn)? I'm looking at recruitment possibilites for a dissertation on > > organizational behavior (motivation to lead and moral philosophy). It > > occurred to me that LinkedIn might be a good resource for a sample of > > professionals, but I'm not sure of the privacy/ethical aspect. Any > > thoughts or experiences? > > less from the privacy/ethical aspect, but more from the practical > aspect... > > 1) does LinkedIn's terms of service (TOS) allow you to use their data in > this fashion? Your IRB should probably study that document carefully > as part of your project approval... > > 2) LinkedIn is somewhat self-selecting - in that you get a very particular > set of folks, with a particular set of goals, signing up for it. > > 3) difficulty of accounting for bias in your sample. how're you going to > explain your sampling strategy, and what defenses will you use in > discussing it with people who care about that sort of thing? > > 4) data collection issues - how're you going to extract this data that you > want, and where're you going to stick it? IIRC LinkedIn doesn't have > an API as such, and so hiring a programmer to write a cool little > crawler for it in an afternoon is a pretty substantial investment of > time, energy, and dollars. > > 5) can you really get at organizational structures from the (very > limited, in terms of information available at linkedin.com...) data > available on the folks that you sample out? > > > Anyway... these are the things that come to mind fairly immediately. > There's research out there about sampling from incomplete networks; some > of that should prove most instructive as you work out your ideas... > > --elijah > _______________________________________________ > 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/ > --------------------------------------------- This message was sent using Monmouth Internet MI-Webmail. http://www.monmouth.com/

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Re: [Air-l] air-l Digest, Vol 35, Issue 24
by Joe Straubhaar 26 Jun '07

26 Jun '07

One advantage for using EndNote is that it has been around a long time (I have been using it since EndNote Plus), seems likely to last (so you don't have to move hundreds or thousands of cites around), and has great support. They helped me this year with backward compatibility issues for both their file versions and the Word files I had used with them. Joe Straubhaar > Message: 7 > Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 12:20:33 +1000 > From: Mary-Helen Ward <mhward(a)usyd.edu.au> > Subject: Re: [Air-l] Doctoral Research - Project or Document > To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org > Message-ID: <468077F1.3000108(a)usyd.edu.au> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > My university supplies this to students and staff and supports its use > with tutorials through the library. I use it a lot, but it doesn't do > everything I need. I've been following this thread with interest. And > yes, I do use a Mac. Doesn't everyone? :) > > M-H > > elena(a)monmouth.com wrote: > >> I'm using EndNote 10 and I like the ability to add a pdf to each >> reference. I keep research notes with each reference and import >> references directly from proquest (but they almost always have to be >> edited afterwards). I ordered the student version from Amazon and >> it was >> pretty inexpensive (about $100). Joseph Straubhaar Amon G. Carter, Sr. Centennial Professor of Communications Radio-TV-Film Dept. University of Texas Austin, TX 78712 vox 512-471-5304, fax 512-471-4077 jdstraubhaar(a)mail.utexas.edu

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Re: [Air-l] air-l Digest, Vol 35, Issue 23
by Eszter Hargittai 26 Jun '07

26 Jun '07

Hi, I have some quantitative data to address the issues raised by danah thanks to the MacArthur-funded project we're undertaking in my Web Use Project group. (See below for details about the data set.) Based on a sample of 1,236 very diverse college students, there is a statistically significant positive relationship between use of Facebook and the parental education level of students (a standard proxy for socio-economic status). We also find a statistically significant negative relationship between parental education and use of MySpace. The data also suggest statistically significant differences in use by race and ethnicity, but I'll have to report on specifics later since I just cleaned the data set and am still working on some recodes. Although unfortunately I cannot be there, several students (Soo An, Dan Li, Gina Walejko) from my research group will be at the C&T2007 meeting at Michigan State this week presenting at the workshop on social software. Although they won't be talking about this specific issue, they will be discussing all sorts of findings from our study. Regarding the data set, just to clarify, this is in not a convenience sample of college students. We administered a paper-pencil survey to students in the one class at the University of Illinois, Chicago that is required of all students thus posing no selection bias as to who was in the sampling frame from the university. We have a 98% response rate of the 85 course sections, and an 82% response rate of all students enrolled in the class. I could go on and on about how the sample is diverse, but regarding the above-mentioned variable of parental education, over a third of fathers and almost half of mothers have a high school education or less, while about 42% of fathers and 40% of mothers have a college or graduate degree. About 77% of the sample reported using Facebook sometimes or often, while that figure is 54% for MySpace. Also, as additional information, the focus of this study was not SNS use per se, these questions make up a very small portion of the entire data set. More later as we make progress in analyzing the data. Eszter Eszter Hargittai Assistant Professor Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology Northwestern University 2006-2007 Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford http://www.eszter.com On 6/25/07, air-l-request(a)listserv.aoir.org <air-l-request(a)listserv.aoir.org> wrote: > > Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 17:02:16 -0700 > From: danah boyd > Subject: [Air-l] viewing American class divisions through Facebook and > MySpace > > A week ago, folks were talking about class divisions around Facebook > and MySpace use in teen culture. I was in the middle of writing an > essay about that exact topic(and some folks have heard me speak to > this issue over the last few months) so i didn't want to peep up > until i had written what i could. I finally gave up and realized > that I didn't have the proper words for talking about this issue so I > wrote an essay with caveats. I offer it to you to tear to shreds in > the hopes that maybe some good can come out of it. (I didn't include > the full text here because it's long - i hope the link doesn't > discourage folks from checking it out.) Feedback is *very* welcome. > > Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace > http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html > > [Barry - i disagree with your view that it's just local clustering > dependent on a random local seed. I've seen this in too many schools > in too many states in the United States to believe that this isn't > about class. I can't speak to Canada or Britain or anywhere else. I > also can't speak to adult usage. I'm talking solely about high > school teen usage in the US. If you've got ideas for how to measure > this quantitatively when demarcating class is difficult, i'm all ears.] > >

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CFP: Open Source and Public Sector
by Sawhney, Harmeet Singh 26 Jun '07

26 Jun '07

CALL FOR PAPERS Special Issue of The Information Society on Open Source and Public Sector: Discourse, Politics and Practice Guest Editors: Jan Ljungberg, Magnus Bergquist and Anna Maria Szczepanska In the last ten years the Open Source (OS) and Free Software (FS) movement has come to challenge the norms and ideals, products and procedures of the dominant proprietary software industry. OS/FS represents a radically different logic within the field of software development. This logic is based on ideas that celebrate the rights of the user and informational freedoms and resist strong intellectual property laws and regulations. In addition to gaining ground in the commercial software market, the OS/FS-movement is also establishing itself as an interesting alternative for the public sector. Currently, discussions regarding OS/FS procurement and policy-making are taking place within governments and public sector organizations all over the world. The OS/FS-technologies advocates have promoted them on the basis of their potential cost-benefits, their value as a public good, their egalitarian and digital divide-bridging qualities and so forth. But the public sector initiatives still seem somewhat hesitant. The OS/FS in public sector discussions and policy-making processes represent a discourse still very much in the making. This special issue will provide an opportunity for researchers to present valuable insights at an early stage about a relevant topic that crosscuts the information technology and policy processes and OS/FS movements institutionalization processes. We hope to bring together insights from multiple areas, such as political science, sociology, economics, IS-research, media studies, policy studies and cultural studies. Discourse analysis and case studies would both be welcome analytical strategies to provide breadth to the special issue. Contributions could include the following: - Papers identifying and discussing how underlying norms, values and practices inscribed in OS/FS and proprietary software are understood and dealt with in public sector discourse. - Case studies on evolving policies and laws related to Open Source / Free Software in the public sector. - Papers analyzing the rhetoric on the pros and cons of OS/FS in the public sector. - Papers identifying and analyzing the way actors (e.g. the media, business groups, academia, consumers, NGOs, SMOs, transnational advocacy networks) are organizing in order to influence, support or criticize policy processes and other activities relating to the dispersal of OS/FS products and ideas in public sector. The guest editors invite abstracts by September 1, 2007, which should be sent to anmar(a)ituniv.se. Authors with the most to offer to the dialogue will be invited to contribute full papers, which will go through the normal review process of the journal. For more information on TIS guidelines, please refer to: http://www.indiana.edu/~tisj/contributors/guest%20editors.html

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international symposium of media artists
by William Bain 26 Jun '07

26 Jun '07

This symposium scheduled by the Tate Modern might be of interest. The title is "Disrupting Narratives" and it explores interaction in electronic supports. Tickets can be booked online for webcast in July. http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/symposia/8896.htm Regards, Will William Bain PhD Student Comparative Literature Department of Spanish Philology Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona --------------------------------- Be a better Globetrotter. Get better travel answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out.

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Re: [Air-l] viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
by William Bain 26 Jun '07

26 Jun '07

Danah Boyd wrote: " I finally gave up and realized that I didn't have the proper words for talking about this issue so I wrote an essay with caveats. " In my very humble opinion: please don't give up, it's immensely interesting. I've been looking through abstracts from articles fonund by searching cite-u-like (social network systems) since this came up. I now realize more about what you're up against. an article found on google from the _antrhropology & education quarterly_ apparently addresses some of what you mention. Sorry for the sloppy typing and sloppier referencing, but it's at http://www.anthrosource.net/doi/abs/10.1525/aeq.1997.28.4.493 - the title is "dialectics of race and nationality: contradictions and philadelphia working class youth" (1997, Jo Ann Scheider). Maybe of interest to you? Best regards, Will William Bain PhD Student Comparative Literature Department of Spanish Philology Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona --------------------------------- Get the free Yahoo! toolbar and rest assured with the added security of spyware protection.

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media notice of danah's essay
by Jimmy Wales 26 Jun '07

26 Jun '07

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6236628.stm

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Using LinkedIn for survey sample
by elena＠monmouth.com 26 Jun '07

26 Jun '07

Has anyone recruited survey participants from a social network (e.g., LinkedIn)? I'm looking at recruitment possibilites for a dissertation on organizational behavior (motivation to lead and moral philosophy). It occurred to me that LinkedIn might be a good resource for a sample of professionals, but I'm not sure of the privacy/ethical aspect. Any thoughts or experiences? Thanks, Elena Papavero PhD Student Northcentral University --------------------------------------------- This message was sent using Monmouth Internet MI-Webmail. http://www.monmouth.com/

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