The Key of Reason

Moving on up

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:52:45 +1300

I am pleased to finally be able to announce that I will be moving my blogging efforts. Though the Key of Reason will still be somewhat active, most of my discipline-specific blogging will now be the Cyber Studies blog, where I have recently been appointed Fellow.

Check in there as we move into our new digs!

Some thoughts on recent changes in the SNS-o-sphere

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:21:09 +1300

1) Facebook - another layout change (which sucks, but that’s another tumblr-post) — one thing I’ve noticed as I’ve been hunting around trying to find the features I used to easily use is the “Reconnect with friend” ad at the top right of the main page.

Are Facebook trying to enforce connection? Do they honestly expect that people want to maintain the same level of interaction with every person they’re ‘friended’ on Facebook? Facebook ‘Stalking’ is a big part of the FB experience for a lot of people, so why this sudden emphasis on explicit social interactivity?

2) Twitter lists. Now, this is something I can personally see I’ll have a lot of use for. However, I do wonder if the introduction of lists suddenly invokes an expectation of reciprocity in the exchange (i.e.: I listed you as a follower of a particular merit, you are now expected to do the same). Maybe this is one reason behind the anecdata coming up lately about lists causing mass defriendings…

Prezi and IR10

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 07:17:12 +1300

Wondering if it would be possible to use a group mindmap tool like Prezi to map the info pouring out in realtime of the IR10 conference? It might be able to use things like time of posting, usernames, even keywords to map tweets to a framework of the conference schedule. Sources like flickr and blogs mind need a little more metadata or manual entry into the approriate slot.

Thoughts?

Ir10 liveblogging

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:01:12 +1300

Russian SNS, now Matt showing us the path to the statistical darkside.

IFIP 9.5 WG Virtuality and Society Conference CfP

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:49:33 +1200

CALL FOR PAPERS (Please direct all inquires to the website/email links below)

IFIP 9.5 WG Virtuality & Society http://www.ifip95wg.org are pleased to announce our next gathering as a part of IFIP’s 50th Anniversary conference:

WORLD COMPUTER CONGRESS 2010
20-23 September 2010
Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre Brisbane, Australia
http://www.wcc2010.org/

CALL FOR PAPERS
===============
9th Human Choice and Computers (IFIP-TC9-HCC9) Track 2:

Virtual Technologies and Social Shaping
———————————————————-

Following on the recent (April 2009) International Working Conference of IFIP 9.5 Working Group on Virtuality and Society, “Images of Virtuality,” at Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece, this conference will be a track of the IFIP Technical Committee 9th Human Choice and Computers (HCC9) stream of the IFIP World Computer Congress, in Brisbane, Australia, September 2010 http://www.wcc2010.org/ .

This track will focus on the feedback loops between virtual technologies and the social groups who use them, how each shape the other and are in turn shaped by them. Social shaping, the sociology of technology, science studies and other approaches of cultural studies to the phenomenon of the information society, driven by such classics as those of Bijker and Law and Mackenzie and Wajcman from the 1990s, are arguably now ready for a fresh look, in the context of virtual environments and global social networking and gaming communities.

The intervening years have additionally seen an explosion of digital and media arts interpretations, and explorations of the impact of virtual technologies upon society, and the social use of such technologies upon their design, and the entrepreneurial trajectories of their appearance in the global market.

Virtual technologies, crucially, have moved very decisively from the workplace - whether corporate or home office - and into the domestic sphere, into our living rooms, playrooms, our kitchens, and our bedrooms. Here the relationship between virtual technologies and society, and the mutual shaping processes each undergo, are ripe for fresh study, insight, and exploration. The Virtuality and Society Working Group sub-stream of the Human Choice and Computers stream of the World Computer Congress therefore invites research and work-in-progress papers that address the choices faced by an information society permeated by ubiquitous virtual technologies.
Relevant topics and themes include, but are not limited to:

Discussing issues of responsive and iterative user-centred design, usability, accessibility, and the ‘permanent beta’ of virtual systems
Discussing the impact of virtual technologies within the domestic sphere and
the changes to such technologies developed out of use-cases .
Exploring new (e-, or v-) research methodologies and techniques on inquiring into social action in the context of virtuality .
Identifying challenging social, ethical, and political issues of socialization in virtuality .
Discussing the role of electronic and digital arts and media in the shaping of virtual technologies and their uses .
Discussing the role of digital gaming and massive multiplayer role-playing games in the shaping of virtual technologies and their uses .
Discussing virtual spaces and the role of place in virtual technologies, and how the domestic as well as the work and civic spaces of the information society are shaped by, and in turn shape such technologies .
Identifying opportunities and challenges for education, governance, and entrepreneurship in virtual worlds .
Discussing emerging issues of e-policy and e-quality of life specifically implicated by virtual technologies .
Exploring social histories and philosophies that deepen our understanding of term virtuality, and of the relationship between virtual technologies and society and the mutual shaping processes between them

Additional information on the work of IFIP 9.5 WG is available at
http://www.ifip95wg.org

Program Committee
==================

Programme Chair:
David Kreps, Salford Business School, Salford University, UK.

Programme Co-chairs:
Martin Warnke, Computer Science & Culture, Leuphana University, Lueneburg, Deutschland, and Claus Pias, University of Vienna,
Austria Chrisanthi Avgerou, Management Information Systems and Innovation,
London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
Oliver Burmeister, University of Wollongong, Australia
Simran Grewal, University of Bath, UK
Niki Panteli, School of Management, University of Bath, UK.
Erika Pearson, Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand
Angeliki Poulymenakou, Management Science & Technology, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
Steve Sawyer, College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State University, USA
Lin Yan, Greenwich University, UK

Instructions for paper submission
=================================
Papers must not substantially overlap with papers that have been published
or are simultaneously submitted to a journal or another conference with
proceedings. Papers must be written in English; they should be at most 1O-12
pages in total, including bibliography and well-marked appendices. Papers
should be intelligible without appendices, if any.

Accepted papers will be presented at the conference and published in the
IFIP Series by Springer. Submitted and accepted papers must follow the
publisher’s guidelines for the IFIP Series (www.springer.com/series/6102),
Author templates, Manuscript preparation in Word). At least one author of
each accepted paper must register to the conference and present the paper.
All papers must be submitted in electronic form through the web via
http://www.wcc2010.org by the deadline indicated below, indicating for which
HCC9-track they apply. Papers submitted after this deadline will be
discarded without review.

Important dates
===============
Intention to submit: Immediately
Submission of papers: January 31, 2010
Notification to authors: April 20, 2010
Camera-ready copies: May 15, 2010

Intention to submit and submission must be sent also to the two HCC9 IPC
Chairs, and according to your track choice to the tracks chairs:
Jacques Berleur, Namur University, Belgium: jberleur@info.fundp.ac.be
Magda Hercheui, Westminster Business School and London School of Economics, United Kingdom m.hercheui@googlemail.com

Track 2: Virtual Technologies and Social Shaping David Kreps, Salford Business School, Salford University, UK, d.g.kreps@salford.ac.uk
Martin Warnke, Computer Science & Culture, Leuphana University, Lueneburg, Deutschland., warnke@leuphana.de,
Claus Pias, University of Vienna, Austria

Twitter Study Reveals Interesting Results About Usage | Pear Analytics

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:36:46 +1200

Twitter Study Reveals Interesting Results About Usage | Pear Analytics:

socialspacestation:

Pear analytics undertook research to see what people tweeted about and to attempt to classify Twitter based discussions. (c/o Mashable)

Tags: twitter research content analysis news

I haven’t read the full whitepaper yet, but this quote jumped off the page at me from the overview on the mainpage:

Note that we did not collect any tweets during the Michael Jackson news, in order not to skew the results.

I have to admit, I do wonder if that gap is where the interesting stuff is: in my experience, Twitter burbles away in the background, full of chatter and the slow-burn of social ties strengthening. But when something BIG happens (whether it be a terrorist attack or a popstar popping his clogs), Twitter swings into action as an unfiltered tsunami of information (and misinformation), ideas, opinions and interpretation.

Off to read the full paper now — we’ll see what other ideas occur.

Busy busy busy

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:32:13 +1200

The two massive posts preceeding are the reason for the long radio silence on this blog. IRGO unConference. PRism special issue. Check ‘em out.

PRism Special Issue CfP: Online social networks, communication practice, and public relations

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:19:00 +1200

Call for Papers: Online social networks, communication practice, and public relations

The social networking emerging online is now seen as one of the defining characteristics of Web 2.0 and beyond. From virtual worlds to microblogging, individuals and groups are forming diverse and sometimes apparently novel ways of building and maintaining social bonds. These mediated exchanges between individuals and groups who may never physically meet challenge our current understandings of friendship, communication, and belonging.

For communication and public relations scholars and practitioners, such interactions pose a number of significant questions. How do researchers explore the nebulous social connections people forge in online spaces? How do we re-evaluate what it means to be an individual and part of a group in this context? Do these new channels of communication change the way we present ourselves and our ideas?

This special 2010 edition of PRism online public relations and communication journal (http://praxis.massey.ac.nz/prism_on-line_journ.html) seeks papers which discuss and explore ways in which to approach, study, and account for the diversity of online social experience, particularly in regard to communication practice and issues of public relations. Possible topics include:

* methodological frameworks for studying online social behaviours
* theory building (normative or critical) regarding the social web as part of communications or public relations practice
* ways of conceptualizing the online self and society, such as; performance, identity, network theory, and their implications for organisational communication and public relations
* issues and ethics in online data collection on social networking sites
* case studies exploring the impact of multimodal (online/offline) social ties in research
* opinion pieces on using social networks in public relations
* critically informed speculation on the future of communication practice in social media (beyond ‘Web3’)
* multimedia submissions on a related topic

Papers are welcome from all disciplinary areas. Full papers will be due by Friday 5th of February, 2010 and will be peer reviewed. Academic papers should be 5,000 words and practitioner papers between 2,500-3,000 words maximum. Style should follow house guidelines:http://praxis.massey.ac.nz/fileadmin/Praxis/Files/Journal_Files/Prism_House_Style.pdf See also the PRism submission guidelines at:http://praxis.massey.ac.nz/sub_guide.html

Enquiries are welcome and should be directed to Erika Pearson (erika.pearson@otago.ac.nz).

Erika Pearson
Department of Media, Film and Communication
University of Otago
PO Box 56
Dunedin 9054
New Zealand
Ph: 64 3 479 8680
Fax: 64 3 479 3932

IRGO unConference: New Zealand's Internet Futures

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:18:41 +1200

IRGO is pleased to be hosting the inaugural IRGO unConference on the 23 and 24th of November 2009 at the Centre for Innovation, University of Otago, Dunedin.

The topic of the unConference is “New Zealand’s Digital Futures.” Our opening address will be by Professor Greg Hearn, Director of the Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation at QUT. Our closing speaker will be announced shortly.

The unConference aims to bring together scholars and practitioners from around the region to discuss the future of the internet from multiple perspectives. In particular, the conference will focus around three key questions. Firstly, what might be possible for the future internet of the region? Secondly, what will citizens want from the internet in the future (two, five, ten years ahead)? And thirdly, what potential internet problems or issues will we have to navigate in the immediate future?

As this is an unConference, the direction of the discussion is up to you. We are using a submission system where people can suggest topics for panels, nominate panelists, and even vote topics up or down. The final list of topics will be decided by popular vote — and you do not need to be a registered attendee to vote! We will be making conference artifacts available online, so anyone interested can nominate and vote on topics.

Finally, thanks to University of Otago, registration is FREE. However, places are limited, so please register ASAP to confirm your place.

For general information on the conference: http://irgo.otago.ac.nz/glance.html
To connect to the submissions system: http://irgo.otago.ac.nz/submissions.html
For registration: http://irgo.otago.ac.nz/registration.html

Please feel free to forward to any interested colleagues. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us through the website or via email: irgo@otago.ac.nz

We look forward to seeing you in November

I need to get to Milwaukee for IR10. Anyone?

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:00:57 +1200

Anyone want to help Andrew Get To Milwaukee? Come on, we need him for our panel! Help!

andrewlong:

The Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) run an annual Academic conference where the eminent (e.g., Barry Wellman, Steve Jones, danah boyd, Nancy Baym, …) and the not-yet eminent meet to discuss the latest in cutting edge social/technical internet-facing research.

The conference this year (2009) is called IR10.0 with the overarching theme “Internet: Critical”. What makes this conference particularly special (other than it being in its 10th year, about the internet, located in Milwaukee and that its all set for lots of Twitter research discussion) is that - I had a paper accepted!

When I say paper, I submitted as part of a panel with Erika Pearson (instigator), danah boyd, and Stephanie Tuszynski with the collective (and obviously worthy) topic: “Friends and Followers: Renegotiating Friendship Online”. You can see this panel nestled amongst the other fascinating internet research topics in the draft programme that’s just been released.

However, there is a catch …

Unfortunately it’s a big one: I can’t get money from my Department to send me to this conference. This is despite the acceptance and the certainly that these researchers are the people I need to talk to, interact with and listen to, in order to develop further as a researcher.

So, I put it to you (with some desperation and little expectation): How can I get to Milwaukee in October to attend IR10 to present with my co-panelists?

Photo

Fri, 01 May 2009 15:21:00 +1200

IRGO Seminar Series 2009 - updated

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:08:21 +1200

irgo:

Monday, May 25th, 12-1pm: John Kaiser, Manager, ICT Strategy and Services, Division of Health Science, will be facilitating a discussion on fostering innovation in ICT in the health sciences. School of Business Boardroom CO4.20.

Friday, June 12th, 12-1pm: Andrew Long, Information Science, will be speaking to the topic “Life is Tweet: Emergent Micro-narratives on Twitter”. School of Business CO2.07.

Wednesday, July 22nd, 12-1pm: Prajesh Chhannabai, PhD candidate at Information Science, will be speaking on his research into online/mobile social networking and dissemination of health information. School of Business Boardroom CO4.20.

Friday, August 14th, 12-1pm: John Egenes, Department of Music, speaking on Remix Culture: The Folk Process in the 21st Century. School of Business CO2.07.

Wednesday, September 2nd, 12-1pm: Alan Toy, Department of Accountancy and Business Law, speaking on current research on consent to online privacy policies . School of Business Boardroom CO4.20.

All seminars are also listed on the Facebook page if you use that site to manage your RSVPs.

Please distribute this information among your colleagues.

How To Email Academic Staff/How To Reply

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:22:14 +1200

Emails are becoming an increasingly important mode of communication, both for socialization and information exchange. One of the roles of an academic teacher (particular a communications academic teacher) is to help students develop a style of communication which is functional, correct, effective, and in their own voice.

Given the proliferation of posts in the blogs I read about how to email a staff member, it’s obviously not just a local problem.

So, in my ongoing attempt to illuminate, educate, and procrastinate, here are Aunty E’s tips for students email an academic staff member for help. Note! These lessons can also be applied to emails in other contexts!

Firstly, students should be aware that they are making a request, and should frame their tone accordingly. Unless something has gone badly wrong in the staff-student relationship, you should be able to reasonably expect at least a courteous reply, so it behooves you to be courteous too.

DO: “Hello Professor. Could I please make a time to see you this week to discuss the feedback on my first essay. I am on campus all day Thursday. Let me know if there is a time on that day that suits. Thanks, Full Student Name/Class Name and Time”

DON’T: “Hey, my mark was too low! Where are you!”

See the difference? The first would get you “Yes, of course, I am also free Thursdays after 2pm if that is better.” The latter would get you at best an polite “My office hours are X, perhaps see me then?” and a prime place as a topic of gossip amongst the staff members’ friends later. Especially if the email was sent at 11.30pm on a Saturday night (shocking, I know, but we do leave the office occasionally).

Secondly, and even more importantly, be clear, concise and specific. Yes, the issue you are grappling with is the most important thing in your life right now. But for your lecturer, it’s probably not even currently on their radar (to let you in on a little secret, assessments worry lecturers when they are creating them, and when they have to mark them. In between, we pass the worry over to you and promptly forget about it to make room for all the other worries we have!) Also remember that your class is just one of many obligations that lecturer has. You are a precious and unique snowflake, just like everyone else. Don’t expect a lecturer to even remember your name, particularly on a contextless email. So provide that context to help them out:

DO: “Hello Professor. I am in your CLASS101 lecture on Thursday at noon, and I have a question about the first essay. The topic I am working with is the one on post-feminism and superhero comic book representations of women, and I am having trouble making sense of McRobbie’s articulation of post-feminism in the required reading. Am I correct in assuming that she thinks that post-feminism is a repudiation of feminist ideals? If so, I’m still a little stuck trying to apply that to superheroines - I’m thinking of looking specifically at Wonder Woman, but not entirely sure yet. Can you suggest any ways to link the two together? Thanks - Student’s Full Name and ID/Student Number

DON’T: “Hey, I’m stuck on the essay. Help?”

REALLY DON’T: “so my bfreind just brok up w/ me and ive just been slobbing around the house instead of lectures, hahahaha, u get what i mean. anyway, totes stuck on that question thingy. what does it mean? oh, can i have an extension, probably gonna need one. l8tr!

In the first email, I know which class, and which section (useful if there are multiple sections or tutorials), which question in that class the student is dealing with, where they are up to in terms of their research, and the general area of the problem. It is in their ‘voice’ but it gives me all the information I need to make suggestions to help them progress. I’d also remember this student as being switched on, engaged, and eager to learn.

The second email - I don’t know who they are, which essay they are dealing with, or what their problem is. I’d probably email back requesting more info. I’d remember this student as being slack, even if they’d been working like a fiend for two weeks on the essay.

The third has no structure, an informal tone, is unclear, and inappropriately demanding. Remember kids, in academia as in the jungle - don’t make anyone above you in the food chain grumpy.

Finally, subject lines are important. On an average day, I get over 100 pieces of email from all over the place. No subject, or a meaningless subject like “hey” don’t tell me what I need to prioritize your email in the right place, so it will probably be the last thing I deal with when clearing the box. You don’t want to be last. Trust me. Last is bad.

A class name and a suggestion of the content are much more useful. For the good email above, perhaps “CLASS101: Question re: focus of first essay” I know which class it is, I know it’s a question on an upcoming assessment. Enough info to prioritize it correctly.

Replying to Email: Staff to Students

A lot has been made of the quality of student email to staff, but I would like to add that the same rules apply when staff email students. Even if you cannot help the student, a quick email can still be polite. To whit:

DO: “Hi {Student} - Sorry, but extensions can only be granted with a medical certificate or similar. If you have one, drop it into the office and they’ll adjust your hand-in date accordingly.”

DON’T: “No”

REALLY DON’T: {radio silence}

The first says no, but gives a reason, and explains what the student might do to follow up. The second gives the same information, but provides no idea of next-actions (Remember, guys, we know the procedures and policies, but students may not!). The third provides no information, and is just rude besides (remember that first comment on courtesy - yes, it applies to you too!)

Polite replies not only respect the student as a human being and someone you are in a position of authority to, they also demonstrate best practice for writing emails. How can we expect students to learn when we fall into the same bad habits?

Also, I want to single out not-replying. To me, this is highly discourteous. Whilst no-one is arguing that you need be wedded to your email at all hours of the day and night, a student (or colleague for that matter) should reasonably be able to expect that they should receive a reply within a couple of working days of sending. Leaving emails unanswered for weeks on end (esp. brief queries), deleting or redirecting everything from a student account (yes, it happens), or taking the attitude that if they’re not bashing down your door, then it wasn’t important, all set the wrong tone as to the effectiveness of email as a mode of professional communication. Even the worst email demands a reply, even if only to note where the student went wrong and if they’d care to try again, so will you. I would argue that the only valid time to not reply is:

1. when the student is a repeat offender and has been warned that subsequent emails of that type will not receive a reply

2. when you are out of the office and have left note (with the class, an automatic reply, whatever) that you are unavailable. In this case, make clear to the students whether you’d prefer them to see a colleague/TA or that you’ll be responding on your return.

3. When students know that you prefer other modes of contact (phone, office hours) and that you only clear your email irregularly.

In all these cases, the student is not left wondering, but has a clear understanding of the place of email in the conversation between teacher and student.

With such clarity, frustration is reduced and communication accuracy is increased. And that is a good thing. Really!

hyperreality or absent-mindedness?

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:14:15 +1200

Just before the weekend, I was in a meeting, and I mentioned that the topic under discussion in the meeting might also be of interest to my friend and colleague, Sarah Stewart. Oh, said Leigh B., who was also at the meeting, why don’t we invite her up to join us?

That might be hard, I said, as she’s back in Queensland, Australia.

No, Leigh replied. I saw her this morning, she’s here.

A quick check after the meeting revealed that Sarah and Leigh had “seen” each other on Second Life and Skype - and Sarah was in Australia.

Sarah and I both immediately went to thoughts of hyperreality and simulacra, as the use of the Matrix poster in her blogpost shows! For those who slept through their Baudrillard, simulacra and simulation in the Baudrillardian sense refers to the argument that humans experience “reality” only through symbols and symbolic representations - the map stands in for the territory.

What intrigued me about the whole situation was the mediated connection was so strong that Leigh was adamant that Sarah was in the building - he even gave her office a call! This so-called “death of distance” is becoming an increasingly common phenomena in mediated interactions (though perhaps rarely as extreme as in Leigh’s case!) as people experience intimacy, connectivity, and intellectual and emotional engagement with people physically removed but still present through the mediation of technology and channels of communication.

‘You’re never alone when you’re on the phone,’ was one old slogan, where it was implied that the phone allowed people far away to extend themselves into your space. With Second Life, Skype, and the plethora of IM platforms, the extension occurs both ways, as individuals project into a third (virtual) space to engage, interact, and satisfy both intellectual and emotional needs.

A lot of research energy is being put into questions such as photorealism and overcoming the Uncanny Valley in virtual worlds and social media spaces. But maybe they should focus not on what we see, but what we feel. With enough encouragement, our minds can take that pixellated avatar or staticky VoIP sound an make it feel like the other person really is there with us.

And then everyone else can tease you when you remember that they’re actually far, far away.

"thought in cold storage" or "ideas on the boil"

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:38:08 +1300

As the hour of my academic reckoning approaches, I’ve become more engaged with the debates around the shifting question of ‘what is quality scholarship?’

‘Quality’ evokes a value judgement, which means that someone has values that they judge against. For academics and scholarly writers, this might be some lofty idea of “excellent research,” “innovative thinking” or “novelty and insight.” But for academics existing in the real world (with real middle management!), this boils down into some sort of institutional review process, the most famous of which is the US tenure system.

The existing modes of institutional peer review revolve around the publication of “scholarly” works (articles, monographs, etc) in “appropriate” places: peer-reviewed printed journals and academic presses, in the main.

This has been challenged by the rise of Open Source Journals (of which First Monday is a good example). It took me a while (in my innocence!) to grasp this, but there seems to be an entrenched belief that OS (online) journals are unscholarly.

I was confused by this because, in my experience with both print and online journals, I could not see the difference. Both solicited submissions on themes and accepted unsolicited articles on a defined range of topics. Both required scholarly articles to conform to discipline codes such as a referencing style. Both (in my experience, any way) used the same back-end tools to facilitate information management. Both tendered submissions to double-blind peer-review (with multiple reviewers), who wrote reports and recommendations which were considered by an editor and an editorial committee. Both then took accepted articles, galley-proofed them, and published. As a reader, I looked up and read both online (I cannot remember the last time I handled a dead-tree version of a journal).

So why, I wondered, was one acceptable to my institutional peer-review process, and the other was a curious novelty with no real value? My confusion deepened as my “print” articles sank without a trace, whereas my OS articles lead to invitations to contribute to edited collections and requests for interviews with the media. Wasn’t this part of the original lofty purpose of publishing, after all? To stimulate informed debate and discussion? And weren’t academics meant to explore the new edges in society and report back? Isn’t that why were had the Ivy Towers in the first place (nice places to rappel off! And look at that view!)

Yet to look at promotion, tenure and confirmation criteria is to see a set of rules that seem determined to stymie such innovation. This is not an unrecognized phenomena — many fields (not just Net Studies) have recognized that existing models of institutional peer-review do not fully account for the actual experience of advancing knowledge and peer esteem, important aspects of the critical mission of scholarship.

Acknowledging the validity of peer-review in OS and online journals is one thing. But what about peer esteem and the development of ideas outside formal articles? Great ideas don’t just appear in journals (print or otherwise) and monographs. Great ideas appear everywhere, and with new technologies of distribution and interaction, these ideas are circulating widely in all stages of their development. Blogs are a great example of this - I am not alone in “thinking out loud” in this blog, pondering things that seem interesting, but which may or may not make it to an article for whatever reason (time, resources, sustained interest, etc).

But not every idea in a blog is a good one. Not every great blog has a big enough readership for it to qualify for such formal recognition. Not every online article is good - but neither is every print article or every book.

Perhaps the question we should be asking in our institutional contexts is not “where has this person published?” but rather “what have they contributed to the conversation?” By recognizing that the conversation isn’t just pontificating from a journal article, but rather a constant give and take of article, book, blogpost, conference paper, volunteer labour (reviewing, or organizing, or even networking), we might develop a more nuanced picture of what it is that we have achieved.

And I might actually survive my hour of reckoning :)

another article - Futures

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:24:53 +1300

The joys of peer review means that there can be nothing for months, then two in a week ;)

You can read my new Futures article here:

Pearson, E. (2009). Forecasts or Fallacies: Two issues for futures research on the Internet. Futures. 41(3), 140-146.

Abstract: This paper explores the idea of futures research online, and considers whether two issues in particular — high rates of change, and complexity — pose a significant problem to the success of internet-orientated futures research. In particular, these two potential problems will be considered from the perspective of new developments within futures research frameworks and methodologies.

Cinema Journal SI: Digital Scholarship and Pedagogy

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:28:55 +1300

Cinema Journal is not required reading for many people in internet studies, but in their latest issue they have an awesome set of papers on digital scholarship and pedagogy.

Papers:

In Focus: Digital Scholarship and Pedagogy

Introduction: Media Studies and the Digital Humanities
Tara McPherson

Peer-to-Peer Review and the Future of Scholarly Authority
Kathleen Fitzpatrick

Engaging Academic and Nonacademic Communities through Online Scholarly Work
Avi Santo
Christopher Lucas

Digital Scholarship and Pedagogy, the Next Step: Cultural Science
John Hartley

Learning the Five Lessons of YouTube: After Trying to Teach There, I Don’t Believe the Hype
Alexandra Juhasz

On Digital Scholarship
Anne Friedberg

Hybrid Practices
Sharon Daniel

New Article Out (and everyone can read it!)

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:04:00 +1300

Pearson, E. (2009). All The World Wide Web’s A Stage: The performance of identity in online social networks. First Monday, 14(3).

http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2162/2127

For those that are unfamiliar with First Monday, it is the open source journal of Internet Studies, and while it may not be all that in terms of traditional modes of publishing, in the field of internet studies its a very useful journal to publish in. Check out the archives while you’re there, there’s a lot of tasty stuff up and available for everyone.

Interview on Radio National Afternoons. Extract from the RNZ...

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:58:21 +1300

Interview on Radio National Afternoons. Extract from the RNZ Afternoons Podcast Page

SNS Gives You Cancer???

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:46:51 +1300

I shall be on Radio New Zealand National: Afternoons
are 4.50ish local time to refute claims that SNS gives you cancer. Tune in!