A few weeks ago, I noticed something new on YouTube: an “I dislike this” button.
I wonder how long that’s been there?
When I talk about online argumentation, a frequent comment is “too bad there’s only +1 and Like; we need more expressivity”.
See related discussions:
Tags: dislike button, like button, online argumentation, opinions, YouTube
Posted in argumentative discussions, information ecosystem, PhD diary, social web | Comments (1)
Loro Aroyo gave a talk in DERI on Friday, based on her “Crowdsourcing community science” slide deck. She was in town for Smita‘s viva. This is a deck of interest to anybody in digital cultural heritage.
The slide on “Ways to use the crowd” seemed particularly useful to me:
Posted in information ecosystem, PhD diary, social web | Comments (0)
What are the laws of information? Frank van Harmelen proposes seven laws of information science in his keynote to the Semantic Web community at ISWC2011. ((He presents them as “computer science laws” underlying the Semantic Web; yet they are laws about knowledge. This makes them candidate laws of information science, in my terminology.))
I wish every presentation came with this sort of summary: slides and transcript, presented in a linear fashion. But these laws deserve more attention and discussion–especially from information scientists. So I needed something even punchier to share, (prioritized thanks to Karen).
Tags: Frank van Harmelen, ISWC, ISWC2011, keynotes
Posted in computer science, information ecosystem, library and information science, PhD diary, semantic web | Comments (0)
Yesterday I overheard two guys talking in the grocery store:
I am more of a John Lennon than you are.
The response?
My hair has more volume, therefore I am.
A brief, informal argument. Halloween-themed, I presume.
Tags: informal argumentation, John Lennon, overheard
Posted in argumentative discussions, PhD diary | Comments (1)
Today the DERI Reading Group starts up again for the fall. I’m talking about three papers from the IMPACT project.
For now this is just to provide my colleagues with links; check back later for slides, etc.Scroll down for slides and video.
Reading Group talk: Using Controlled Natural Language and First Order Logic to improve e-consultation discussion forums from Jodi Schneider on Vimeo.
Tags: IMPACT, paper summaries, reading group
Posted in argumentative discussions, PhD diary, social semantic web | Comments (1)
When the topic of discussion changes, how do you indicate that? Tender Support seems clunky in some ways, but their forking mechanism helps conversations stay focused on their topic:
Forking with Tender Support
Lately forking has also been on my mind as the Library Linked Data group edits and reorganizes our draft report: wiki history and version control is helpful, but insufficient. What I miss most is a “fork” feature, where you could temporarily take ownership of a copy (socially, this indicates that something is a possibility, rather than the consensus; technically, it indicates provenance, would allow “show all forks of this”, and might help in merge changes back). Perhaps naming and tagging particular history items in MediaWiki could help address this, but I think really I want something like git.
I’ve seen a few examples of writing and editing prose with git; I’d like to get a better understanding of the best practices for making collaborative changes in texts with distributed version control systems. Surely somebody’s written up manuals on this?
Tags: document management, dvcs, editing, forking, git, version control, wikis
Posted in argumentative discussions, library and information science, PhD diary, random thoughts | Comments (2)
GetSatisfaction does so many things right. Smart, immediate feedback is one example.
A couple weeks ago, I noticed this message while adding a post:
“EASE UP ON THE ALL CAPS IN YOUR TITLE. It looks like you’re shouting”
This is great in several ways:
Like their mood feedback it’s lightweight and appears to be effective.
Tags: feedback, GetSatisfaction, immediate feedback, Internet norms, social context
Posted in PhD diary, random thoughts, social web | Comments (0)
We’ve extended the STLR 2011 deadline due to several requests; submissions are now due May 8th.
JCDL workshops are split over two half-days, and we are lucky enough to have *two* keynote speakers: Bernhard Haslhofer of the University of Vienna and Cathy Marshall of Microsoft Research.
Consider submitting!
STLR 2011
June 16 (PM) & 17 (AM) 2011
http://stlr2011.weebly.com/
Co-located with the ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL) 2011 Ottawa, Canada
While Semantic Web technologies are successfully being applied to library catalogs and digital libraries, the semantic enhancement of books and other electronic media is ripe for further exploration. Connections between envisioned and emerging scholarly objects (which are doubtless social and semantic) and the digital libraries in which these items will be housed, encountered, and explored have yet to be made and implemented. Likewise, mobile reading brings new opportunities for personalized, context-aware interactions between reader and material, enriched by information such as location, time of day and access history.
This full-day workshop, motivated by the idea that reading is mobile, interactive, social, and material, will be focused on semantically enhancing electronic media as well as on the mobile and social aspects of the Semantic Web for electronic media, libraries and their users. It aims to bring together practitioners and developers involved in semantically enhancing electronic media (including documents, books, research objects, multimedia materials and digital libraries) as well as academics researching more formal aspects of the interactions between such resources and their users. We also particularly invite entrepreneurs and developers interested in enhancing electronic media using Semantic Web technologies with a user-centered approach.
We invite the submission of papers, demonstrations and posters which describe implementations or original research that are related (but are not limited) to the following areas of interest:
*EXTENDED* Paper submission deadline: May 8th 2011
Acceptance notification: June 1st 2011
Camera-ready version: June 8th 2011
Each submission will be independently reviewed by 2-3 program committee members.
Please use PDF format for all submissions. Semantically annotated versions of submissions, and submissions in novel digital formats, are encouraged and will be accepted in addition to a PDF version.
All submissions must adhere to the following page limits:
Full length papers: maximum 8 pages
Demonstrations: 2 pages
Posters: 1 page
Use the ACM template for formatting: http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html
Submit using EasyChair: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=stlr2011
Tags: annotation, CFP, context-aware, ebooks, electronic media, ePub, JCDL2011, LLD, location-based storytelling, multimedia collections, recommendations, semantic libraries, STLR2011, workshops
Posted in future of publishing, library and information science, PhD diary, scholarly communication, semantic web, social semantic web | Comments (2)
To support reading, think about diversity of reading styles.
A study of “How examiners assess research theses” mentions the diversity:
[F]our examples give a good indication of the range of ‘reading styles’:
- A (Hum/Male/17) sets aside time to read the thesis. He checks who is in the references to see that the writers are there who should be there. Then he reads slowly, from the beginning like a book, but taking copious notes.
- B (Sc/Male/22) reads the thesis from cover to cover first without doing anything else. For the first read he is just trying to gain a general impression of what the thesis is about and whether it is a good thesis—that is, are the results worthwhile. He can also tell how much work has actually been done. After the first read he then ‘sits on it’ for a while. During the second reading he starts making notes and reading more critically. If it is an area with which he is not very familiar, he might read some of the references. He marks typographical errors, mistakes in calculations, etc., and makes a list of them. He also checks several of the references just to be sure they have been used appropriately.
- C (SocSc/Female/27) reads the abstract first and then the introduction and the conclusion, as well as the table of contents to see how the thesis is structured; and she familiarises herself with appendices so that she knows where everything is. Then she starts reading through; generally the literature review, and methodology, in the first weekend, and the findings, analysis and conclusions in the second weekend. The intervening week allows time for ideas to mull over in her mind. On the third weekend she writes the report.
- D (SocSc/Male/15) reads the thesis from cover to cover without marking it. He then schedules time to mark it, in about three sittings, again working from beginning to end. At this stage he ‘takes it apart’. Then he reads the whole thesis again.
from [cite source=’doi’]10.1080/0307507022000011507[/cite] Mullins, G. & Kiley, M. (2002), It’s a PhD, not a Nobel Prize: how experienced examiners asses research theses, Studies in Higher Education, 27, 4, pp.369-386. DOI:10.1080/0307507022000011507
Parenthetical comments are (discipline/gender/interview number). Thanks to the NUIG Postgrad Research Society for suggesting this paper.
Posted in books and reading, higher education, PhD diary, scholarly communication | Comments (0)
Time-based comments
I’ve been digging SoundCloud lately.
Today I noticed time-based comments in their tracks. It’s a bit disorienting to have comments pop up as you’re listening. Maybe after adjusting, there’s a pleasant sense of having a conversation going on around you. Definitely feels like you’ve got company!
Comments pop up as the track plays
Avatars appear below the track to indicate that there are comments, and you can scroll over avatars to read comments. You can also hide the comments if you prefer.
Entering a comment from the timeline
Avatar icons appear in the overview
Example track due to Duncan.
Tags: commenting, comments, SoundCloud, threaded discussions, time-based discussions, timelines
Posted in argumentative discussions, information ecosystem, PhD diary, social web | Comments (0)