Day 4 (11/11/09):
I was so tired, even I skipped out on the 8:30.
10:30am: Plenary Session: Diversity in Digital Information Environments: Opportunity or Chaos? A Pecha-Kucha Presentation.
The Plenary session was great. The Pecha-Kucha Presentation was new to the conference and I think all of them should be like it. In fact all presentations in the world should be like this. The idea is that each presenter had 6 minutes and 40 seconds to present (20 slides x 20 seconds).
Marshall presnted the ideat that there is a cloud of information and that information is always being reused and changed.
Toms presented the idea that IS does not have any core principles and we need to start there. I agree that we do need to narrow down those core principles, as well as definitions.
Druin presented the idea about the technology that is used in education and how new technology should be approached. I agree that getting creative and giving the students the means (flexibility) to be creative is the way to go, especially in the IS feild.
Marchionni presented the idea that there is too much text and too many words in the world. I agree that graphs and pictures can sometimes tell the story better.
Schwartz presented on the idea of how to understand context and sort information.
Dillon presented on teh idea that there is no Chaos and that is all deals with privacy.
1:30pm: Children, Technology and Social Values: Enabling Children's Voices in a Pluralistic World
Druin presented her research on her experience using children in the design and usability of technology. It wa very interesting and reminded me that children do need to be a part of the user testing. Also, the interesting questions she braught up (why do we not include children? what are we scared of?) really made me think.
Myers presented his research on children's virtual worlds. It is interesting that virtual worlds are primarily used and for children. He braught up the questions about what these worlds are teaching our children.
Anderson presented her work on how the phone fits in with schools. She raise interesting questions about teh use of phones, the rules and laws about phones in schools, and what should be the way to go on this issue.
Fleischmann presented his work on the idea that children need to take part in the public policy decisions. His research was on the activist way a child can change policy and that we need to make a better effort to get children involved in the process, especially if it effects them directly.
3:30pm: Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights: Implications of the TRIPS Agreement for Access to HIV/AIDS Drugs in Africa
The presentations in this panel were very interesting and all had to deal with the same issue in certain states of Africa.
Gathegi presented on its effect in Kenya. Britz in South Africa, and Agada in Nigeria. All three states were at different places in legislation and help to the people with HIV/AIDS, as well as different degrees of government support. However, the TRIPS agreement has helped these states make and distribute the drugs that are needed. But the statistics from these places are not correct and more needs to be done to help the people in these three state (all of Africa) beside the TRIP agreement, especially if the state governments do something to give preference to the drug companies rather than the people (undermineing what TRIP is trying to do, renegotiating and defining the terms).
I have to say that despit there not being as many people, the presentations at the end were great. The party at the end also had some great food and I got to dance (a plus). I hope next year the conference will have a dance floor for this part of the conference. I would like to do more dancing, especially if there is going to be a great band like tonight.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Meetings, Food, Research with Ranges, and Lots of Technology
Recap for Day 3 (11/10/09):
7:00am: Chapter Assembly Planning Meeting Breakfast
It might have been early in the morning, but it was fun. Not to mention the great food that had me filled up until lunch time at noon. We had four people (including me) from the Indiana chapter of ASIS&T. We called ourselves the "Indiana Mafia" since we outnumbered everyone there. We got together and talked about goals for the next year. Our chapter wanted to have a recap meeting for people that could not make it to the meeting, a social even to get everyone together, and maybe some talks and tours of places that would interest everyone in the chapter. We had some great discussion afterwards to help the other chapters and ideas that would help ours. I gave m opinion ion how to get the students to the meetings and found out that the whole of ASIS&T is trying to get the chapters some travel grants for students. I agree that it would help. Also, we all talked about ways to collaborate more. Video conferencing using Scype seems like it would be affordable and maybe even doable. I would love to see how it goes. Also, we took away the fact that it is easier to get people involved if they are charged before the event (the have an interest) and to give them little tasks since big task are too hard to handle for any of us.
8:30am: Social Reference and Digital Reference: Online Question Answering Practices in Two Diverse Communities.
Elieen Abels presented her research on IPL. She talked about the training and question that they have gotten over the years. She also presented the new system: ILP2. Please go check it out.
Marie Radford presented her research on the quality of answers given face-to-face and through chat by Librarians. The four main things that users wanted from both were: extended hours, electronic information, interaction, and relationship building. Other interesting findings were, users were okay with waiting as long as the Librarian told them, users had already searched google and wikipedia before coming to Librarians, and users wanted to have conversations with the Librarians (beginning and ending message). Some recommendations are to encourage the use of the services (they are not marketed to the point where users know Librarians are there) and to build positive relationships with users.
Chirag Shah presented his research on the wisdom of crowds in O&A environments. The main point is that it might take a while, but the crowd is smarter then one person and they will eventually come up with an answer that will work. Each person have one part of he whole answer.
Rich Gazan presented his research on the dimensions of trust in a Q&A environment. He stated that trust had three levels: content, site, and individual users. People will start with trusting the content, then move to trusting the site, and finally end up trusting the people they know on the site. Furthermore, as the users move from one level of trust to another, they do not trust the level they left behind anymore.
Pnina Shachaf presented her research on the quality of answers through the Wiki Reference Desk. What she found was that the quality of answers were better than the Librarian Reference Desk bases on three levels of quality: reliability, responsiveness, and assurance.
Some of the dialog that followed was very interesting. The collaboration of people was deemed important and one of the panelists mentioned that it happens with Librarians as well. One of the panelists mentioned that they are working on an environment where Librarians can collaborate better and electronically. Also, problems with some of the numbers for accuracy and time in Shachaf's presentation were questioned by one of the panelists that has seen other statistics in their own work and others, stating that the methodology was wrong. I have to agree just because of my own work experience. Not to mention the fact that trying to compare a Q&A environment on the web to a FtF or through e-mail seems wrong. I think that it would be more comparable to Chat now. I would like to see the difference between the Q&A and Chat for Librarians.
10:30am: Information Organization: Tags and Frames
Peishan Tsai Bartley presented their paper Book tagging in Library Thing. Bartley set up three books on Library Thing for a sample to tag. The problems that Bartley ran accross in the study was that their were too many tags and not enough overlap among them, as well as tags that did not seem relevant to the books.
I did not know about Library Thing before this conference. I learned a lot about it from this paper.
Sue Yeon Syn and Michael Spring presented their paper, "Tags as Keywords." Their study was on the overlap in tags and keywords among 693 papers found in the ACM and Citeulike. They found that tags were better for general concepts and keywords were better for specific concepts. In conclusion, the tags were selected from the titles, the distribution was similar but the keywords were more focused, and some improvements on the use of tags (such as reduced tag noise) could imporve the specificity of tags. The paper was very interesting, especially considering the movement from web 2.0 to web 3.0.
Hyun Hee Kim and Yong Ho Kim presented their paper on The two-step model for video key-frame determination. They comparied the two step model to the current model for picking out frames from a video to get at what the video is about in a database (Digital Library) system. The paper was very interesting even if the information was over my head for most of the presentation. However, since there is a move toward digital archiving, it is a very interesting study. I like the idea of having frames for people to look at in order to see what the video is about, especially since video is visual, compared to a paragraph telling someone about the video.
12:00pm: Award Luncheon
The food was great. I really liked the fish and the desert was great. The people that spoke had some funny things to say as well.
2:00pm: Conceptual Information System Design
Dr. Feinberg presented her work on the use of genre in design. The approach was very interesting and poetic. She stated that the use of genre is community based and will create universal access.
Dr. Hamid presented his work on regimes in information. Context is the key to his research. Information has to be settled in action in order for it to acted upon. He critizied the 6 worlds view by Boltanski and Thevi (2006) and stated that they were lenses to see the world, not theories.
Dr. Niu presented his work on inadiquate documentation. The presentation was an overview of the differet ways documents have been stored, transfered, accessed, and changed throughout the technology age. The best practice needs to be based in tacit knowledge and more studies.
3:30pm: Celebrating 10 Years of SIG/USE: A Fish Bowl Dialogue on Information Behavior Research Past, Present, and Future.
The Fish Bowl was a very interesting experiment. It was the first time something like this was done. The chairs were set in a circle. The people in the middle talked and anyone could take their place to continue the dialogue. Also, people were a part of it from Second Life.
It started with an overview of where Information seeking and behavior started to the present. The dialogue was about where to go, or where we were going, in the future. The biggest question was since the feild is like others, where do we fit and where will we go to make a place for us in the future.
5:30pm: SIG ED Dinner.
We went to this great Tai resteraunt. I had the garlic shrimp with brown rice, broccoli, and coconut ice cream. I found I really loved the coconut milk, but still hat the coconut part itself. I also tried other people's dishes and loved them all. I am definity going to Tai again.
8:00pm: SIG CON
Saidly, I cannot tell you about this. It is a secret and unless you were there or go to ASIS&T, you will not understand it anyway.
So ends Day 3.
7:00am: Chapter Assembly Planning Meeting Breakfast
It might have been early in the morning, but it was fun. Not to mention the great food that had me filled up until lunch time at noon. We had four people (including me) from the Indiana chapter of ASIS&T. We called ourselves the "Indiana Mafia" since we outnumbered everyone there. We got together and talked about goals for the next year. Our chapter wanted to have a recap meeting for people that could not make it to the meeting, a social even to get everyone together, and maybe some talks and tours of places that would interest everyone in the chapter. We had some great discussion afterwards to help the other chapters and ideas that would help ours. I gave m opinion ion how to get the students to the meetings and found out that the whole of ASIS&T is trying to get the chapters some travel grants for students. I agree that it would help. Also, we all talked about ways to collaborate more. Video conferencing using Scype seems like it would be affordable and maybe even doable. I would love to see how it goes. Also, we took away the fact that it is easier to get people involved if they are charged before the event (the have an interest) and to give them little tasks since big task are too hard to handle for any of us.
8:30am: Social Reference and Digital Reference: Online Question Answering Practices in Two Diverse Communities.
Elieen Abels presented her research on IPL. She talked about the training and question that they have gotten over the years. She also presented the new system: ILP2. Please go check it out.
Marie Radford presented her research on the quality of answers given face-to-face and through chat by Librarians. The four main things that users wanted from both were: extended hours, electronic information, interaction, and relationship building. Other interesting findings were, users were okay with waiting as long as the Librarian told them, users had already searched google and wikipedia before coming to Librarians, and users wanted to have conversations with the Librarians (beginning and ending message). Some recommendations are to encourage the use of the services (they are not marketed to the point where users know Librarians are there) and to build positive relationships with users.
Chirag Shah presented his research on the wisdom of crowds in O&A environments. The main point is that it might take a while, but the crowd is smarter then one person and they will eventually come up with an answer that will work. Each person have one part of he whole answer.
Rich Gazan presented his research on the dimensions of trust in a Q&A environment. He stated that trust had three levels: content, site, and individual users. People will start with trusting the content, then move to trusting the site, and finally end up trusting the people they know on the site. Furthermore, as the users move from one level of trust to another, they do not trust the level they left behind anymore.
Pnina Shachaf presented her research on the quality of answers through the Wiki Reference Desk. What she found was that the quality of answers were better than the Librarian Reference Desk bases on three levels of quality: reliability, responsiveness, and assurance.
Some of the dialog that followed was very interesting. The collaboration of people was deemed important and one of the panelists mentioned that it happens with Librarians as well. One of the panelists mentioned that they are working on an environment where Librarians can collaborate better and electronically. Also, problems with some of the numbers for accuracy and time in Shachaf's presentation were questioned by one of the panelists that has seen other statistics in their own work and others, stating that the methodology was wrong. I have to agree just because of my own work experience. Not to mention the fact that trying to compare a Q&A environment on the web to a FtF or through e-mail seems wrong. I think that it would be more comparable to Chat now. I would like to see the difference between the Q&A and Chat for Librarians.
10:30am: Information Organization: Tags and Frames
Peishan Tsai Bartley presented their paper Book tagging in Library Thing. Bartley set up three books on Library Thing for a sample to tag. The problems that Bartley ran accross in the study was that their were too many tags and not enough overlap among them, as well as tags that did not seem relevant to the books.
I did not know about Library Thing before this conference. I learned a lot about it from this paper.
Sue Yeon Syn and Michael Spring presented their paper, "Tags as Keywords." Their study was on the overlap in tags and keywords among 693 papers found in the ACM and Citeulike. They found that tags were better for general concepts and keywords were better for specific concepts. In conclusion, the tags were selected from the titles, the distribution was similar but the keywords were more focused, and some improvements on the use of tags (such as reduced tag noise) could imporve the specificity of tags. The paper was very interesting, especially considering the movement from web 2.0 to web 3.0.
Hyun Hee Kim and Yong Ho Kim presented their paper on The two-step model for video key-frame determination. They comparied the two step model to the current model for picking out frames from a video to get at what the video is about in a database (Digital Library) system. The paper was very interesting even if the information was over my head for most of the presentation. However, since there is a move toward digital archiving, it is a very interesting study. I like the idea of having frames for people to look at in order to see what the video is about, especially since video is visual, compared to a paragraph telling someone about the video.
12:00pm: Award Luncheon
The food was great. I really liked the fish and the desert was great. The people that spoke had some funny things to say as well.
2:00pm: Conceptual Information System Design
Dr. Feinberg presented her work on the use of genre in design. The approach was very interesting and poetic. She stated that the use of genre is community based and will create universal access.
Dr. Hamid presented his work on regimes in information. Context is the key to his research. Information has to be settled in action in order for it to acted upon. He critizied the 6 worlds view by Boltanski and Thevi (2006) and stated that they were lenses to see the world, not theories.
Dr. Niu presented his work on inadiquate documentation. The presentation was an overview of the differet ways documents have been stored, transfered, accessed, and changed throughout the technology age. The best practice needs to be based in tacit knowledge and more studies.
3:30pm: Celebrating 10 Years of SIG/USE: A Fish Bowl Dialogue on Information Behavior Research Past, Present, and Future.
The Fish Bowl was a very interesting experiment. It was the first time something like this was done. The chairs were set in a circle. The people in the middle talked and anyone could take their place to continue the dialogue. Also, people were a part of it from Second Life.
It started with an overview of where Information seeking and behavior started to the present. The dialogue was about where to go, or where we were going, in the future. The biggest question was since the feild is like others, where do we fit and where will we go to make a place for us in the future.
5:30pm: SIG ED Dinner.
We went to this great Tai resteraunt. I had the garlic shrimp with brown rice, broccoli, and coconut ice cream. I found I really loved the coconut milk, but still hat the coconut part itself. I also tried other people's dishes and loved them all. I am definity going to Tai again.
8:00pm: SIG CON
Saidly, I cannot tell you about this. It is a secret and unless you were there or go to ASIS&T, you will not understand it anyway.
So ends Day 3.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
3 Rants
I have three rants that I have to start out with.
1) Power Points
Most of the Power points that I have seen have been great at the conference. However, there are some that have way too much text on them for me to be able to read and understand them. I like being able to get what the people are taking about in one look.
Also, the visual representations for numbers using graphs and tables have been excellent. However, there are some that I have not been able to get. I have been sitting close to the power points, so I know being able to see them is not the issue. I guess I just do not see what they are seeing. Furthermore, I like it when people start their graphs at zero. I know that it will make the graph bigger, but it helps me understand the graph better and I will not misinterpret the significance of the numbers (or even question it).
2) Posters
Okay. So this is not quite a rant, but a complement. I love it when the Poser presenters have something to hand out to me. I have made posters in the past and know how hard it is to fit everything you want to say in one poster. However, it can sometimes be hard to read. Someone from the conference and I talked about posters and we both agree that they can do one of two things: be for reading and be for getting what it is about quick. I prefer the one that either do both, or I can get in once look. That is where the handouts come in. If the person had a handout of the poster, their abstract, or a brief bit of text on the research, then I could take it, read it, and come back with questions. Especially in an environment like the one we have been having, very crowded when you go to look at the posters.
3) Prepared Speeches
My last rant is that sometimes when the presenters are pressed for time, they try to put too much information into their remaining time. It is usually not their fault, but it can be harder to understand them when they are trying to hurry through he points and the power point slides. I was not able to keep up.
1) Power Points
Most of the Power points that I have seen have been great at the conference. However, there are some that have way too much text on them for me to be able to read and understand them. I like being able to get what the people are taking about in one look.
Also, the visual representations for numbers using graphs and tables have been excellent. However, there are some that I have not been able to get. I have been sitting close to the power points, so I know being able to see them is not the issue. I guess I just do not see what they are seeing. Furthermore, I like it when people start their graphs at zero. I know that it will make the graph bigger, but it helps me understand the graph better and I will not misinterpret the significance of the numbers (or even question it).
2) Posters
Okay. So this is not quite a rant, but a complement. I love it when the Poser presenters have something to hand out to me. I have made posters in the past and know how hard it is to fit everything you want to say in one poster. However, it can sometimes be hard to read. Someone from the conference and I talked about posters and we both agree that they can do one of two things: be for reading and be for getting what it is about quick. I prefer the one that either do both, or I can get in once look. That is where the handouts come in. If the person had a handout of the poster, their abstract, or a brief bit of text on the research, then I could take it, read it, and come back with questions. Especially in an environment like the one we have been having, very crowded when you go to look at the posters.
3) Prepared Speeches
My last rant is that sometimes when the presenters are pressed for time, they try to put too much information into their remaining time. It is usually not their fault, but it can be harder to understand them when they are trying to hurry through he points and the power point slides. I was not able to keep up.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Papers, Panels, Posters. Oh My!
Okay. I have to start with a small rant about Regency B. I did not like the room because it was too close to the main room and registration table. People are talking and when someone decides to come into the room, the sound makes it hard to hear the presenters and the questions. I do not know if this could have been avoided by having the registration table and the coffee in another location, but it could have helped. I have only been in other rooms that have been far away from the tables, so I have not heard anything there. Did anyone have the same problems in other rooms that were close to the Registration table.
Here is a recap of the Day (11/9/09):
8:00 am: Information Seeking and Use in Diverse Organizational Contexts
Dr. Deltor presented his research on individual and task differences in how people approach information seeking in an organization. He found that individual and task difference are significant for the way people search for information.
Dr. Choo presented his research on information cultures withing organizations. He had three questions:
1) Is there an information culture? (Yes)
2) Do organizations have distinct information cultures? (Yes)
3) Do information cultures matter? (Yes, Impact on Information Use Outcomes)
He looked at three very different organizations, using 6 different Information Behavior Values, and found that there is an impact information culture has on information use outcomes. You should see his statistics, they were impressive (and very cool).
Dr. Mackenzie presented her research in Manager Diversity. She explained the history and trend in the change of how we look (and act) as managers. The Mad Men references were great. Her main point was that there have been some research in for-profit companies, but only on the fringes. She states that future research in for-profit companies need to be done to see what Managers are doing in the new, diverse cultures of for-profit companies.
Dr. Turnbull presented his research on the diversity of technology in the organization. He talks about the communities of seeking practice that go on in the (for -profit) organization and how MIS people can help the organization by creating applications and technology to help the information seeking process, especially in an increasingly collaborative working environment. The MIS people can come up with ways to make the technology that will appeal to both employees and upper-level management.
10:00am: Poster Session 1.
I really liked the size of the Posters, but I hate where they are placed. It is too close together and hard for a lot of people to fit in the area. I could not get to all the posters I wanted to see because of the space problem. However, I did get to have some great conversations with three people representing research in Poster Session 1.
The Appraisal of FBI Records: Random Destruction of Evidence of Statistically Valid Sampling Method?
The Future of Reference and Information Services in the Virtual World.
Gender Perspective, Information Behaviors and Wikipedia.
Thank you to Craig Blaha, Craig M. MacDonald, and Sook Lim for letting me hang around and talk their ears off. I had fun learning about your research and getting to collaborate by exchanging experience and knowledge on the topics.
10:30am: The Ethics of Online Communities: Challenges to Research Design and Data Collection.
I ended up talking to one of the Poster people for too long and missed Dr. Chen speaking.
Dr. Preer presented her research on the standards and practices when it comes to technologies. She stated that two main contexts impact the standards: audience and the technology. The ideas of privacy and access are the main concerns when it comes to why there needs to be standards.
Dr. Wildemuth presented her research on the Belmont Report from NCPHS. The Belmont report has three areas for standards: (1) Respect for the Persons, (2) Beneficence, (3) Justice. However, these ideas are harder to deal with them they seem in an age with new technologies where you might not have control over the information about your-self. But researchers cannot fall into the trap of not including a group because it is too hard to include them.
http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/belmont.html
Dr. Fleischmann presented his research on the "Ethical Challenges of Emerging Technologies" or (1) online communities (semi-public: Facebook), (2) virtual worlds (Second Life), (3) crowdsourcing (Mechanical Turk). How do you deal with third parties and protecting your information? Can data be used from places that are semi-public. He mentioned an interesting paper by Friedman (2007) called "Spatial Social Behavior in Second Life" where they made a bot to do the research. However, were they misrepresenting themselves?
1:30pm: HCI/Usability.
Jingjing Liu presented information on Digital Libraries, and how presentation and interaction played a roll in the use of Digital Libraries. Three DLs were used in user study: ACM, Xplore, and IEEE. The recommendations are to have a balance between interaction and presentation.
It seemed like there were too many questionnaires to me, but that might have been to keep them focused on the current DL instead of another.
Bonnie McKay presented her research based on previous research in Diary and Field studies on multi-session web tasks. She stated that her and her partner came up with three prototypes (which were really cool by the way and I want it) that had to have three specific tools. These tools (identified from previous research) were lists, reminders, and management/organization. The results were that despite the fact the first prototype was the easiest to use, the user preferred the additional features provided by the other two.
Yu-Hui Chen presented on her groups research in trying to figure out what the definitive definition of web usability should be. They took literature from the past 20 years in both the LIS and Computer Science field, found articles through citation reports, and read them to match the definitions against the 11 attributes of usability. The results were that only 5 attributes significantly showed up (75%) in the literature in both fields, while the rest showed up in less than 25% of the literature. There were not differences across time and field of what 5 attributes showed up the most and which ones did not.
3:30pm: Opportunities, Threats & Theoretical Approaches: Research in Traditional and Social Virtual Reference Quality.
Jeffery Pomerantz presented his research on IPL Ask a Librarian service and Yahoo! Answers. Both are post Q&As. The research showed what sites each used the most to give an answer to the person;s question. IPL used more .edu and .gov sites, while Y!A used more international sites to answer there questions (besides other bad sources in my opinion). For future research, he would like to see some information on the users, the questions, and quality of answers.
Rich Gazan presented his research on the quality of answers on Answerbag. The really interesting point was what to do with intentionally "bad" answers. People that answer questions in a way because the questions is a homework question and they want the person to find an answer some other way. User suggestions are: (1) don't delete "bad" answers right away, (2) get tags that can be used to rate questions in a better way, (3) get a counter for underused tags. However, there are problems because sites that do have specific tags do not use them.
Marie Radford presented her research on a model for face-to-face and chat reference services. Basically the model (which was beautiful and completely understandable) showed that these interactions were successful if the person got their information and interpersonal needs met. However, it was unsuccessful in neither were met. But there was a more sketchy area for if one or the other was not met (mixed results). It also seemed like the person asking the question was more satisfied if they did not get information but the Librarian was very nice and interactive, but it was the other way around if they got information and the Librarians did not interact (or interacted badly).
Alumni Reception and closing comments for the day (aka, the list of things I could have Twittered about).
I used the little computers in the lobby to blog while everyone was gone. It was great, but I did not like the keyboard. I was so use to a bigger one that it took a while to get use to the spacial differences. I don't think I will be buying one after all.
I found out that there are Library Predators out there. Meaning that Librarians gather one a month and answer questions on message boards like Yahoo! Answers and state that it is from Librarians. I will have to check that out.
The coffee has been really good. Someone wanted me to mention that it is strange to be served coffee from Seattle when we are in B.C. Canada. I agree, but it is still better than regular coffee in the States (not Starbucks).
I have to mention that, no, I do not know if there is a prize for most tags. I am just trying to collect as many as I can.
The Alumni reception was great. I met some fantastic people (thanks to Ralf). I got to talk about Parliamentary Procedure, eat some great food (my favorite is the salmon), and get some more flair for my name tag (among other items I took from the tables). I have to say that Maryland won my best table at the Alumni Reception. They had beach balls.
I did not go to the international reception because I am too tired and need to go to bed. Conferences are so tiring, aren't they?
Well, that is all for tonight. I will continue with Day 3 tomorrow.
Here is a recap of the Day (11/9/09):
8:00 am: Information Seeking and Use in Diverse Organizational Contexts
Dr. Deltor presented his research on individual and task differences in how people approach information seeking in an organization. He found that individual and task difference are significant for the way people search for information.
Dr. Choo presented his research on information cultures withing organizations. He had three questions:
1) Is there an information culture? (Yes)
2) Do organizations have distinct information cultures? (Yes)
3) Do information cultures matter? (Yes, Impact on Information Use Outcomes)
He looked at three very different organizations, using 6 different Information Behavior Values, and found that there is an impact information culture has on information use outcomes. You should see his statistics, they were impressive (and very cool).
Dr. Mackenzie presented her research in Manager Diversity. She explained the history and trend in the change of how we look (and act) as managers. The Mad Men references were great. Her main point was that there have been some research in for-profit companies, but only on the fringes. She states that future research in for-profit companies need to be done to see what Managers are doing in the new, diverse cultures of for-profit companies.
Dr. Turnbull presented his research on the diversity of technology in the organization. He talks about the communities of seeking practice that go on in the (for -profit) organization and how MIS people can help the organization by creating applications and technology to help the information seeking process, especially in an increasingly collaborative working environment. The MIS people can come up with ways to make the technology that will appeal to both employees and upper-level management.
10:00am: Poster Session 1.
I really liked the size of the Posters, but I hate where they are placed. It is too close together and hard for a lot of people to fit in the area. I could not get to all the posters I wanted to see because of the space problem. However, I did get to have some great conversations with three people representing research in Poster Session 1.
The Appraisal of FBI Records: Random Destruction of Evidence of Statistically Valid Sampling Method?
The Future of Reference and Information Services in the Virtual World.
Gender Perspective, Information Behaviors and Wikipedia.
Thank you to Craig Blaha, Craig M. MacDonald, and Sook Lim for letting me hang around and talk their ears off. I had fun learning about your research and getting to collaborate by exchanging experience and knowledge on the topics.
10:30am: The Ethics of Online Communities: Challenges to Research Design and Data Collection.
I ended up talking to one of the Poster people for too long and missed Dr. Chen speaking.
Dr. Preer presented her research on the standards and practices when it comes to technologies. She stated that two main contexts impact the standards: audience and the technology. The ideas of privacy and access are the main concerns when it comes to why there needs to be standards.
Dr. Wildemuth presented her research on the Belmont Report from NCPHS. The Belmont report has three areas for standards: (1) Respect for the Persons, (2) Beneficence, (3) Justice. However, these ideas are harder to deal with them they seem in an age with new technologies where you might not have control over the information about your-self. But researchers cannot fall into the trap of not including a group because it is too hard to include them.
http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/belmont.html
Dr. Fleischmann presented his research on the "Ethical Challenges of Emerging Technologies" or (1) online communities (semi-public: Facebook), (2) virtual worlds (Second Life), (3) crowdsourcing (Mechanical Turk). How do you deal with third parties and protecting your information? Can data be used from places that are semi-public. He mentioned an interesting paper by Friedman (2007) called "Spatial Social Behavior in Second Life" where they made a bot to do the research. However, were they misrepresenting themselves?
1:30pm: HCI/Usability.
Jingjing Liu presented information on Digital Libraries, and how presentation and interaction played a roll in the use of Digital Libraries. Three DLs were used in user study: ACM, Xplore, and IEEE. The recommendations are to have a balance between interaction and presentation.
It seemed like there were too many questionnaires to me, but that might have been to keep them focused on the current DL instead of another.
Bonnie McKay presented her research based on previous research in Diary and Field studies on multi-session web tasks. She stated that her and her partner came up with three prototypes (which were really cool by the way and I want it) that had to have three specific tools. These tools (identified from previous research) were lists, reminders, and management/organization. The results were that despite the fact the first prototype was the easiest to use, the user preferred the additional features provided by the other two.
Yu-Hui Chen presented on her groups research in trying to figure out what the definitive definition of web usability should be. They took literature from the past 20 years in both the LIS and Computer Science field, found articles through citation reports, and read them to match the definitions against the 11 attributes of usability. The results were that only 5 attributes significantly showed up (75%) in the literature in both fields, while the rest showed up in less than 25% of the literature. There were not differences across time and field of what 5 attributes showed up the most and which ones did not.
3:30pm: Opportunities, Threats & Theoretical Approaches: Research in Traditional and Social Virtual Reference Quality.
Jeffery Pomerantz presented his research on IPL Ask a Librarian service and Yahoo! Answers. Both are post Q&As. The research showed what sites each used the most to give an answer to the person;s question. IPL used more .edu and .gov sites, while Y!A used more international sites to answer there questions (besides other bad sources in my opinion). For future research, he would like to see some information on the users, the questions, and quality of answers.
Rich Gazan presented his research on the quality of answers on Answerbag. The really interesting point was what to do with intentionally "bad" answers. People that answer questions in a way because the questions is a homework question and they want the person to find an answer some other way. User suggestions are: (1) don't delete "bad" answers right away, (2) get tags that can be used to rate questions in a better way, (3) get a counter for underused tags. However, there are problems because sites that do have specific tags do not use them.
Marie Radford presented her research on a model for face-to-face and chat reference services. Basically the model (which was beautiful and completely understandable) showed that these interactions were successful if the person got their information and interpersonal needs met. However, it was unsuccessful in neither were met. But there was a more sketchy area for if one or the other was not met (mixed results). It also seemed like the person asking the question was more satisfied if they did not get information but the Librarian was very nice and interactive, but it was the other way around if they got information and the Librarians did not interact (or interacted badly).
Alumni Reception and closing comments for the day (aka, the list of things I could have Twittered about).
I used the little computers in the lobby to blog while everyone was gone. It was great, but I did not like the keyboard. I was so use to a bigger one that it took a while to get use to the spacial differences. I don't think I will be buying one after all.
I found out that there are Library Predators out there. Meaning that Librarians gather one a month and answer questions on message boards like Yahoo! Answers and state that it is from Librarians. I will have to check that out.
The coffee has been really good. Someone wanted me to mention that it is strange to be served coffee from Seattle when we are in B.C. Canada. I agree, but it is still better than regular coffee in the States (not Starbucks).
I have to mention that, no, I do not know if there is a prize for most tags. I am just trying to collect as many as I can.
The Alumni reception was great. I met some fantastic people (thanks to Ralf). I got to talk about Parliamentary Procedure, eat some great food (my favorite is the salmon), and get some more flair for my name tag (among other items I took from the tables). I have to say that Maryland won my best table at the Alumni Reception. They had beach balls.
I did not go to the international reception because I am too tired and need to go to bed. Conferences are so tiring, aren't they?
Well, that is all for tonight. I will continue with Day 3 tomorrow.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Crepes, SIG Rush, and Not-So-Secret Student Party! "Tag Me!"
I went to a crepe place with some people today and yesterday. I have to say that it has the best crepes I have ever tasted. The food is good and at a reasonable price. It is called the Crepe Cafe. It is on Robson. Go check it out.
SIG rush was kind of a disapointment. There were tables with not people at them and it seemed like every SIG I wanted to navigate to and get information about was empty. I also wanted to get some more tags. I have to say that one of my goals is to get as many tags (if not all they have to offer) before the end of the conference. After last night, I am definitly on my way there. I have filled up the front of my name tag the best I could and have moved onto the back. If anyone sees me and has a tag that is not on my name tag please, "Tag Me!"
I did get to talk with the current President of ASIS&T for a while. I tole him I knew where UK (University of Kentucky) was because I lived there and went to undergrad there. We had a great comverstation on how people in the US do not know there geography (international, we understand), about the ecomony in Indiana and Kentucky, as well as some other off the topic insights that made me laugh. I then had a great time talking to students around the IFP table. We filled up the area because we wanted IFP representewd but it was one of the many talbes with no one there. It was great getting to know you guys (you know who you are *wink.*
The, what I have to call, not-so-secret student party was next. It was a smaller crowd but with the same energy. I got to eat some great chocolate (the best was the pomegranate one) from SIG CON. I had "Canada Dry" for the first time in Canada (I know an insult to Canadians, but I know a Canadian brought it as a joke, so I laughed). I then proceeded to have a great conversation with two PH. D. students from Canada. We talked about the differences in the feild across boarders and other concepts, like how different B.A. disiplines cause people to look at topics differently. It was philisophical and allowed me to get back to my Poly Sci roots. I loved it.
As a side note, I noticed that the hotels do not have a 13th floor. I know in other sultures this might be confusing because the number 13th does not have the bad connotation in other cultures. Also, did anyone think about the fact that even though it is called the 14th floor, technically it is the 13th floor? Just throwing it out there.
That's all for Yesterday (Day 1). I will try to catch up on Today's in the next posts.
SIG rush was kind of a disapointment. There were tables with not people at them and it seemed like every SIG I wanted to navigate to and get information about was empty. I also wanted to get some more tags. I have to say that one of my goals is to get as many tags (if not all they have to offer) before the end of the conference. After last night, I am definitly on my way there. I have filled up the front of my name tag the best I could and have moved onto the back. If anyone sees me and has a tag that is not on my name tag please, "Tag Me!"
I did get to talk with the current President of ASIS&T for a while. I tole him I knew where UK (University of Kentucky) was because I lived there and went to undergrad there. We had a great comverstation on how people in the US do not know there geography (international, we understand), about the ecomony in Indiana and Kentucky, as well as some other off the topic insights that made me laugh. I then had a great time talking to students around the IFP table. We filled up the area because we wanted IFP representewd but it was one of the many talbes with no one there. It was great getting to know you guys (you know who you are *wink.*
The, what I have to call, not-so-secret student party was next. It was a smaller crowd but with the same energy. I got to eat some great chocolate (the best was the pomegranate one) from SIG CON. I had "Canada Dry" for the first time in Canada (I know an insult to Canadians, but I know a Canadian brought it as a joke, so I laughed). I then proceeded to have a great conversation with two PH. D. students from Canada. We talked about the differences in the feild across boarders and other concepts, like how different B.A. disiplines cause people to look at topics differently. It was philisophical and allowed me to get back to my Poly Sci roots. I loved it.
As a side note, I noticed that the hotels do not have a 13th floor. I know in other sultures this might be confusing because the number 13th does not have the bad connotation in other cultures. Also, did anyone think about the fact that even though it is called the 14th floor, technically it is the 13th floor? Just throwing it out there.
That's all for Yesterday (Day 1). I will try to catch up on Today's in the next posts.
Stealing Pens and Navigating Rooms
Yesterday, I walked into one of the panels and found pens. I love pens. For some reason I cannot walk by pens without picking it up. However, I am using a pencil. I am not using the pens. I have the bad habit of picking up pens from places and people no matter where I am. Does anyone else have this problem?
Of course, it does not matter too much since I give away as manyu pens as I take. I guess it must be a pay-it-forward kins of think. I guess that goal for the conference is to take a pen and pass it on. I have already done that myself. Someone needed a pen on the first day and I gave them one of mine. They then got a pen from the box of ones I mentioned. They are going to pass it on to someone who needs it. So the blue, ballpoint pen that I found at work one day; made it to Vancouver, into the hands of someone from B.C., Canada, and will go out into the universe to find its way into some other person's hands. It is interesting to think about at a conference like this, where the passing of information is vital and the pen is one of the vewry first technologies to help humans pass on information.
As I was getting my pen from the box, I also noticed that I navigated the rooms in certain ways. I have paid attension and have done the same things today. Since I have HCI/Usability on the brain, I thought I would comment and send it out into the cloud (and the only two followers I have right now). I find myself getting as close to the power points as I can. I want to be able to see them because I am talking large quantities of notes. I hope I will not run out of room in the notebook I brought. I want to spell the names right and get the terms used in the papers. I chalk it up to the fact that I have glasses. I am near sited and cannot see far away. I know other people have different ways of navigating rooms. I pick where I am going to sit in classrooms for many different reasons. How are you navigating the rooms at the conference?
One side note on the rooms here. This hotel is nice, but why the yellow, bubble carpet. I had a laugh when I first saw it. It is intersting and the longer I stay here, I am liking it, but it does not seem to fit with the atmosphere and arcitecture of this place.
Of course, it does not matter too much since I give away as manyu pens as I take. I guess it must be a pay-it-forward kins of think. I guess that goal for the conference is to take a pen and pass it on. I have already done that myself. Someone needed a pen on the first day and I gave them one of mine. They then got a pen from the box of ones I mentioned. They are going to pass it on to someone who needs it. So the blue, ballpoint pen that I found at work one day; made it to Vancouver, into the hands of someone from B.C., Canada, and will go out into the universe to find its way into some other person's hands. It is interesting to think about at a conference like this, where the passing of information is vital and the pen is one of the vewry first technologies to help humans pass on information.
As I was getting my pen from the box, I also noticed that I navigated the rooms in certain ways. I have paid attension and have done the same things today. Since I have HCI/Usability on the brain, I thought I would comment and send it out into the cloud (and the only two followers I have right now). I find myself getting as close to the power points as I can. I want to be able to see them because I am talking large quantities of notes. I hope I will not run out of room in the notebook I brought. I want to spell the names right and get the terms used in the papers. I chalk it up to the fact that I have glasses. I am near sited and cannot see far away. I know other people have different ways of navigating rooms. I pick where I am going to sit in classrooms for many different reasons. How are you navigating the rooms at the conference?
One side note on the rooms here. This hotel is nice, but why the yellow, bubble carpet. I had a laugh when I first saw it. It is intersting and the longer I stay here, I am liking it, but it does not seem to fit with the atmosphere and arcitecture of this place.
So Many Panels, Not Enough Time
I have to say that when I looked at the itinerary for the conference, I was a little overwhelmed because there were so many panels and events I wanted to go to. Everything looks interesting to me. I do not have enough of me to go to everything I want to hear about. I have things marked, but I think I will just have to plan what I will go to on the day. Even to the last minute.
Here is a brief overview of the day.
I went to the New Member/First Time Conference Brunch first. I sat at a table with China (she is in ASIS&T with me at IUB and staying in the same room here in Vancouver). We did not know what all the SIGs were, but having the cheat sheet helped. We sat at a table that looked interesting (and empty). It was the SI (Social Informatics) table. Many people came to join us. We ate and then the fun began. They started with some introductions of important people in ASIS&T and the SIGs. Then we all had to get up and get in line from A-Z of the First name. We then had to ask, after we were paired up, 10 questions of the people in 1 minute. It was fast and I do not think I got all of the answers from the person across from me, but I met some great people. I met Courtney and Chris. These two people I have conversations throughout the day with and made me laugh.
I then went to the Plenary. Tim Bray from Sun Mircosystems was the speaker. He was a great speaker with an awesome Power point. I think he may have my vote for the best Power Point of the conference. I will have to talk about that later. He had three things he talked about: Logic, Rhetoric, and Grammer. All three where talking about web applications and how they have changed the way we communicate as human beings. He was very inspiring! I loved that he gave it over to us to invent technologies that can help shape the future of web applications and communication.
Other things I found cool about his presentation was the fact that the crocheter in me was squealing because I found out about ravalry. I also liked the questions that people asked. The part about Intellectual Freedom was great. I completely agree with hims that until the music, movies, and (dare I add) publishing industries can get there heads out of their marketing schemes and see that it needs to be updated in this internet driven era, that we cannot have a normal conversation with them about Intellectual Freedom. What will an Act like the one he mentioned do to other forms of communication like Fanfiction? I am just throwing it out there, but if you want to comment, go ahead. I know there are plenty of people out there that will want to talk about it.
Here are some things that were going on in my head, that I could have Twittered about:
1) When the lady was talking about the music and stuff in the context that communication is not getting more textual. I have to think about YouTube. I mean, it is videos that are communicating with an audience either through the people themselves or through a video that someone made by putting together clips and music. I consider that an example of a communication that is not textual, or a least not quite as textual.
2) Got to love Reference Librarians!
3) Barbara has to be a Librarian. It was the whole bias and balance of information that gave away her secret identity.
Afterward, Howard (Assistant Dean from IUB) told me that Tim invented XML and he was hoping the guy would talk on that. I wished someone had brought it up. I would have loved to have seen where that could have gone. Not to mention answering the question on where XML might be going.
At 3:30 I went to the panel: Information Access: A Global Context. I had three presenters with a wide range of topics. All I could think was how this all seemed over my head, but I got the gist of everything they were saying. I also found out that if someone does not make it to the panel, it messes up the timing for everyone. People practice and get the presentations to a specific time, then they have to come up with things to talk about to filling the extra time they have been given.
Here is a brief summary of the three papers:
Lance Hayden presented on a paper he did on market research Cisco did for information security. The main points were that the methodology for the data gathering and the way the findings were presented (with no conversation about why), gave way to the interesting topic that Cisco stumbled onto a way of looking at how people use information security in a way that has not been seen. Maybe the places and cultures have something to do with how people perceive information security. Also the point that maybe the industries should be working with academia to get the data and user information to help them, rather that using market research would get the ball rolling with finding out why people see information security different. Could it happen? The Cisco report is online and called "Data Leakage Worldwide."http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns170/ns896/ns895/white_paper_c11-499060.html
Samual Muwanguzi presented on the impact of the FM radio and cell phones in Uganda. In some instances, the use of these technologies can bring benefits to humanity. However, in Uganda, the practice helped cause bloodshed. It is a case by case basis. Sometimes it can better human life, sometimes it can destroy it. I am glad that someone brought up Rwanda in the Q&A. I was wondering about it and it was cleared up that that radio was not the newer FM kind where a dialog can be preformed. It is one way.
Steven Kraines was last. He presented on using ontologies for helping in the search and retrieval of biomedical literature. The ontologies would be in a augmented formate. Where the computer and human is working together to create tag and language that is accurate and logical. Take a look at it on the internet at http://ekoss.org/.
I will split the events into a new post.
Here is a brief overview of the day.
I went to the New Member/First Time Conference Brunch first. I sat at a table with China (she is in ASIS&T with me at IUB and staying in the same room here in Vancouver). We did not know what all the SIGs were, but having the cheat sheet helped. We sat at a table that looked interesting (and empty). It was the SI (Social Informatics) table. Many people came to join us. We ate and then the fun began. They started with some introductions of important people in ASIS&T and the SIGs. Then we all had to get up and get in line from A-Z of the First name. We then had to ask, after we were paired up, 10 questions of the people in 1 minute. It was fast and I do not think I got all of the answers from the person across from me, but I met some great people. I met Courtney and Chris. These two people I have conversations throughout the day with and made me laugh.
I then went to the Plenary. Tim Bray from Sun Mircosystems was the speaker. He was a great speaker with an awesome Power point. I think he may have my vote for the best Power Point of the conference. I will have to talk about that later. He had three things he talked about: Logic, Rhetoric, and Grammer. All three where talking about web applications and how they have changed the way we communicate as human beings. He was very inspiring! I loved that he gave it over to us to invent technologies that can help shape the future of web applications and communication.
Other things I found cool about his presentation was the fact that the crocheter in me was squealing because I found out about ravalry. I also liked the questions that people asked. The part about Intellectual Freedom was great. I completely agree with hims that until the music, movies, and (dare I add) publishing industries can get there heads out of their marketing schemes and see that it needs to be updated in this internet driven era, that we cannot have a normal conversation with them about Intellectual Freedom. What will an Act like the one he mentioned do to other forms of communication like Fanfiction? I am just throwing it out there, but if you want to comment, go ahead. I know there are plenty of people out there that will want to talk about it.
Here are some things that were going on in my head, that I could have Twittered about:
1) When the lady was talking about the music and stuff in the context that communication is not getting more textual. I have to think about YouTube. I mean, it is videos that are communicating with an audience either through the people themselves or through a video that someone made by putting together clips and music. I consider that an example of a communication that is not textual, or a least not quite as textual.
2) Got to love Reference Librarians!
3) Barbara has to be a Librarian. It was the whole bias and balance of information that gave away her secret identity.
Afterward, Howard (Assistant Dean from IUB) told me that Tim invented XML and he was hoping the guy would talk on that. I wished someone had brought it up. I would have loved to have seen where that could have gone. Not to mention answering the question on where XML might be going.
At 3:30 I went to the panel: Information Access: A Global Context. I had three presenters with a wide range of topics. All I could think was how this all seemed over my head, but I got the gist of everything they were saying. I also found out that if someone does not make it to the panel, it messes up the timing for everyone. People practice and get the presentations to a specific time, then they have to come up with things to talk about to filling the extra time they have been given.
Here is a brief summary of the three papers:
Lance Hayden presented on a paper he did on market research Cisco did for information security. The main points were that the methodology for the data gathering and the way the findings were presented (with no conversation about why), gave way to the interesting topic that Cisco stumbled onto a way of looking at how people use information security in a way that has not been seen. Maybe the places and cultures have something to do with how people perceive information security. Also the point that maybe the industries should be working with academia to get the data and user information to help them, rather that using market research would get the ball rolling with finding out why people see information security different. Could it happen? The Cisco report is online and called "Data Leakage Worldwide."http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns170/ns896/ns895/white_paper_c11-499060.html
Samual Muwanguzi presented on the impact of the FM radio and cell phones in Uganda. In some instances, the use of these technologies can bring benefits to humanity. However, in Uganda, the practice helped cause bloodshed. It is a case by case basis. Sometimes it can better human life, sometimes it can destroy it. I am glad that someone brought up Rwanda in the Q&A. I was wondering about it and it was cleared up that that radio was not the newer FM kind where a dialog can be preformed. It is one way.
Steven Kraines was last. He presented on using ontologies for helping in the search and retrieval of biomedical literature. The ontologies would be in a augmented formate. Where the computer and human is working together to create tag and language that is accurate and logical. Take a look at it on the internet at http://ekoss.org/.
I will split the events into a new post.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
