- Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Can User Centred Design be Harmful?
by Jeremy Hunsinger 08 May '07

08 May '07

A short report from usability news about a workshop at chi 2007. http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article3882.asp "A critical observation was that in these settings, the idea of a single user owning and interacting with a single device, around some individually oriented task, is often inappropriate. Instead, systems are more often shared and used by communities, and their objectives are also geared to development and growth of the community." 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

4 4

Re: [Air-l] "Validity? of citing internet sources?
by Matthew Bernius 07 May '07

07 May '07

As other have mentioned, you're using a variety of online sources as texts for analysis of opinion (something perceived differently than so called "objective" fact). Might I suggest: "The Vulgar Spirit of Blogging": On Language, Culture, and Power in Persian Weblogestan*" Alireza Doostar <http://www.anthrosource.net/action/doSearch?action=runSearch&type=advanced&…> *American Anthropologist December 2004, Vol. 106, No. 4, pp. 651-662 Doostar's paper is an examination of opinion and discussion spread through blogs. It seems pretty analogous to your project. - Matt Joseph Gelfer wrote: Can anyone point me in the direction of any peer-reviewed papers which argue > for the ?validity? of citing internet sources as complements to regular > print sources? > > Here?s the context: I work in the area of Religious Studies. I like to > cite > church and religious organisation websites as an indicator of their > positions on various contemporary issues. I also like to cite blogs of > religious leaders who have significant public and publishing profiles, as > these often contain some pretty impassioned content that may not make it > through to ?official? outlets. > -- ----------------------------- Matthew Bernius New Media and Customer Intelligence Strategist for Hire mBernius(a)gMail.com http://www.waking-dream.com

1 0

Researching Virtual Workplaces
by Pam Brewer 07 May '07

07 May '07

First, thank you. I have published several questions to this list, and you all are so gracious in responding. I hope to begin contributing myself very soon--not just listening to the very helpful threads. I have yet another question I would like to ask and hope that it might be helpful to others as well. For my dissertation, I am researching intercultural virtual workplaces--specifically dialogic international online communication. Very briefly, I am conducting case studies with several companies that regularly engage in international online communication. I plan to collect artifacts of communication and analyze them in light of the most commonly identified issues in virtual workplaces, conduct online focus groups to further identify and explain these issues, and finally, conduct online interviews. My problem is that while companies have proven very helpful in agreeing to focus groups and interviews, they are much more reluctant to give me access to a body of text. While it is difficult but not impossible to establish this access, I am wondering if you all have suggestions for other methods that might work well rather than the textual analysis of artifacts. I very much want to provide this look at workplace communication even though access to other types of organizations would be easier. Thank you very much for any suggestions or references. Best, Pam Pamela Estes Brewer Lecturer -- Coordinator, Professional Writing Department of English and Philosophy Murray State University PhD Candidate, Texas Tech University 270-809-4719 fax 270-809-4545 pam.brewer(a)murraystate.edu

1 0

web science, or AoIR by any other name
by Amy S. Bruckman 07 May '07

07 May '07

> Do folks here see "Web Science" becoming a part of AoIR? We're starting a Web Science initiative in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. We interpret the term broadly to mean "the interdisciplinary study of the Web." (Not just semantic web stuff.) Compared to the kinds of things the AoIR community usually addresses, I would say we're a bit broader because we include more core computer science. Part of our reason for calling it "web science" instead of "Internet research" is to appeal to the folks coming from the hard side of computer science. One of our goals is to increase communication across disciplines. For example, we had a great conversation at a faculty meeting yesterday about the "interestingness" algorithm on flickr, and how this might reflect a new view of algorithms that draws together our social computing and theoretical computer science faculty in a new way. And if we can draw in our economics, public policy, "new media", etc. folks too... then this starts to look interesting! So basically I see "Internet research" and "web science" becoming synonyms in the long run. YMMV :-) -- Amy Amy Bruckman Associate Professor College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 30332-0760 Tel: 404-894-9222 Fax: 404-894-3146 Email: asb(a)cc.gatech.edu Web: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~asb/

6 7

New Research Positions at the OII
by William Dutton 07 May '07

07 May '07

I would like to bring two new positions at the OII to the attention of members of the AoIR. See: <http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/ newpositions.cfm> William Dutton william.dutton(a)oii.ox.ac.uk http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/dutton/

1 0

On-line focus groups
by Semenov Alexander 07 May '07

07 May '07

Hello, all! After a rough search in aoir-archieves without results I'm asking directly: Does anyone know any papers on on-line focus groups? Anything will go - methodology, examples of usage, results of such surveys, areas of application, restrictions, platform and software descriptions and so on. Thanks in advance! Best wishes, Alexander Semenov.

7 6

Re: [Air-l] Grants
by Kluver, Randy 07 May '07

07 May '07

I don't think you can make that kind of conclusion based on one limited point of data. I too receive Grants.gov postings, but the messages to me are filtered according to the criteria that I have specified when I signed up. Sometimes I get one or two a week, sometimes not. Federal agencies operate on cycles, and there are some periods of time that are just busier than others. For a better sense on the state of federal funding, you could consult the NSF statistics: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf07303/pdf/nsf07303.pdf. According to this, in 2005-2006, funding for all categories increased by 3% than the previous year, and in 2006-2007, it increased by 1.2%. The proposed amount for this year is over 136 billion dollars. Of course, some money is shifted from one category to another. The biggest hits were in Agriculture and transportation, the biggest growth category was regional and community development, with an increase of 22% in 05-06 and 23% in 06-07. That actually seems to me that it would be one category of federal funding relevant to this particular community. Thus, I think both of your conclusions are wrong; federal funding has not disappeared, and funding that affects this community is certainly not non-existent. I don't have any data on private sources of funding. Randy Kluver, Ph.D. Director, Institute for Pacific Asia Texas A&M University 204 Coke 3371 TAMU College Station, TX 77843-3371 Phone: (979) 845-3099 Fax: (979) 845-3085 http://international.tamu.edu/ipa/ 1. Grants (James Whyte) Date: Sun, 6 May 2007 09:09:55 -0700 (PDT) From: James Whyte <whyte.james(a)yahoo.com> Subject: [Air-l] Grants To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org Message-ID: <940509.64390.qm(a)web59010.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 I have, for several years, received the announcements of federal grants from http://grants.gov . When I first atarted in 2004 those announcements appeared in my inbox every day and sometimes twice a day. Today I received a posting that contained one announcement. This was the first posting in over a week. My point is that in 2 years the funding for research has almost disappeared. New funding that effects this community seems to have become non-existant. Is this true in the private sector? I have not found any single source that reports this sector. James

2 2

Internet & Politics: book launch event in London, 14 May
by Jankowski 07 May '07

07 May '07

All: Those of you in the London area may be interested in attending the panel described below, related to recent Internet and politics publications, particularly The Internet and National Elections: A Comparative Study of Web Campaigning (Routledge: May 2007; editors: Randy Kluver, Nicholas Jankowski, Kirsten Foot, Steven Schneider). Details on the book are available at: http://international.tamu.edu/ipotest/book/index.asp Those of you unable to attend the live event may be interested in the webcast; see the site of the Stanhope Centre for Communication Policy Research: <http://www.stanhopecentre.org/2007/>http://www.stanhopecentre.org/2007/ Nick Jankowski THE INTERNET & POLITICS: ASSESSING THE CLAIMS AND REVIEWING THE EVIDENCE Panel Discussion Monday, May 14, 2007, 5.30 7.30 p.m. City University Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB Convocation Suite Travel instructions: <http://www.city.ac.uk/maps/northamptonsquare/index.html>http://www.city.ac.uk/maps/northamptonsquare/index.html Open to the Public One of the long-standing claims of the Internet is that politics is becoming an open playing field, allowing persons previously excluded from the political process to become engaged. This and related claims have concerned a legion of activists and scholars during the past decade, but only recently have empirically-grounded studies been conducted that examine and in some cases contest these ideas. As a contribution to this continuing debate, the Stanhope Centre for Communication Policy Research (<http://www.stanhopecentre.org/2007/>http://www.stanhopecentre.org/2007/) is organizing a panel involving scholars active in this area. The editors and authors of three recent or about-to-be published books will be taking part, together with staff members from the Department of Sociology at City University. The most immediate publication in this genre is entitled The Internet and National Elections: A Comparative Study of Web Campaigning, to be released by Routledge in May 2007. This volume provides a comparative analysis of the use of the Web in countries around the world during political campaigns. Drawing upon a common conceptual framework, the book examines how the Internet is employed by a variety of political actors. Details of this publication are available at: <http://international.tamu.edu/ipotest/book/index.asp>http://international.tamu.edu/ipotest/book/index.asp At the conclusion of the discussion a reception will be held celebrating publication of The Internet and National Elections. Scholars participating in the panel are: · Jean Chalaby, Professor, City University, author of American Cultural Primacy in a New Media Order: A European Perspective (Gazette, 2006) · Endre Dányi, Research student, University of Lancaster, author of chapter in The Internet and National Elections · Kirsten Foot, Associate Professor, University of Washington; co-editor of The Internet and National Elections and co-author of Web Campaigning (MIT Press, 2006) · Nicholas Jankowski, Visiting Fellow, Virtual Knowledge Studio, Amsterdam, co-editor of The Internet and National Elections · Randy Kluver, Director, Institute for Pacific Asia, Texas A&M University, co-editor of The Internet and National Elections · Wainer Lusoli, Assistant Professor, Chester University, author of Voice and E-Quality: The State of Electronic Democracy in Britain (Hampton Press, forthcoming) · Steven Schneider, Professor, State University New York, co-editor of The Internet and National Elections and co-author of Web Campaigning (MIT Press, 2006) · Frank Webster, Professor, City University, author of Theories of the Information Society (Routledge, 2002) The panel discussion will be webcast; details available at: <http://www.stanhopecentre.org/2007/>http://www.stanhopecentre.org/2007/ For further information, contact: Stanhope Centre for Communication Policy Research Northampton Square, City University, London Tel. +44 (0) 20 7040 4566

1 0

Online Activism -- empirical research references?
by Paul DiPerna 07 May '07

07 May '07

Dear air-listers, Can anyone recommend references for research on online activism? particularly relating to social and political movements? I'll definitely be grateful for any suggestions on insightful case studies and even broader empirical research.. Thanks, Paul ------------- Paul DiPerna Blau Exchange http://www.blauexchange.org online ID: http://claimid.com/pdiperna

10 9

Call for papers
by Suzana Sukovic 07 May '07

07 May '07

Call for Papers Workshop on new sociotechnical insights in interaction design (Sociotech-ID'07) (September 10-11, 2007) in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil <http://iit.tvu.ac.uk/sociotech-id07>http://iit.tvu.ac.uk/sociotech-id07 held in conjunction with the 11th IFIP TC 13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction Interact'2007 http://www.interact2007.org/ Suzana Sukovic PhD Candidate _________________________________________ Information & Knowledge Management Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Technology, Sydney PO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2007, Australia www.hss.uts.edu.au/research/research_students/suzana_sukovic.html

1 0