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February/March 2014

Volume 40, Number 3ISSN: 1550-8366

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BULLETINof the Association forInformation Science and Technology

A N N U A L M E E T I N G C O V E R A G E

Inside ASIS&T

6] Photo Montage

9] 2013 ASIS&T Award Winners

16] James Cretsos Leadership Award: A Tale of Finding My Intellectual Homewith ASIS&T by Chirag Shah

S P E C I A L S E C T I O N

ASIS&T Annual Meeting Pre-conference Activities

23] 9th Annual Social Informatics Research Symposiumby Pnina Fichman and Howard Rosenbaum

27] Information Behavior on the Move: 2013 ASIS&T SIG/USE Research Symposiumby Denise E. Agosto, Lorri Mon and Rong Tang

33] Full Room for the Third SIG/MET Workshop by Vincent Larivière

ASIS&T Annual Meeting Plenary Speaker

36] Jorge García Highlights 2013 ASIS&T Annual Meeting by Steve Hardin

ASIS&T Annual Meeting Award Winners

39] Award of Merit Acceptance Speech by Carol Collier Kuhlthau

41] Research: Computer-mediated Communication by Susan C. Herring

D E PA R T M E N T S

[2 ]Editor’s Desktop

[3 ]President’s Page

[6 ]Inside ASIS&T

C O L U M N

[45 ]

RDAP Review:Educating Researchers

for EffectiveData Managementby Christopher Eaker

LOOKINGBACK…

IRENE L. TRAVISEditorBulletin of the Associationfor Information Science andTechnologyBulletin<at>asis.org

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NEX T ART I C L E >< PRE V I OUS PAGECON T E N T S

b y I r e n e L . T r a v i sb y I r e n e L . T r a v i s

Montreal was a hospitable and popular site for the2013 Annual Meeting, which was attended by nearly 600people. In the off-season, downtown Montreal seemedgenerally dominated by the pleasant bustle of businessand students from nearby McGill. All seemed quiet atnight, but then there was the noble and magnificent trafficjam after the Canadiens’ hockey game Monday night,which we could all view as light sculpture from our perchin the Salon Club at the SIG/III International Reception.The reception was a significant highlight of the meetingas 41 different countries were represented this year. I wasespecially impressed with the energy and enthusiasm ofthe newly created Asian Chapter and of the EuropeanChapter, which won the 2013 Chapter-of-the-Year Award.

In this issue of the Bulletin, we give you a taste of theAnnual Meeting with a look at a variety of conferenceactivities. We begin in Inside ASIS&T with a photomontage of people, places, sessions, parties and otherevents we enjoyed in Montreal. We then segue into fullcoverage of the winners of this year’s prestigious ASIS&TAnnual Awards and a report from the James Cretsos

Leadership Award winner Chirag Shah on what ASIS&Tmeans to him both personally and professionally.

Continuing the Annual Meeting coverage in our featuresection, we begin with reports from pre-conferenceworkshops by SIG/USE, SIG/MET and SIG/SI, in whichthese active SIGs offered intense programs of papers,speakers, posters, panels, discussion groups and awardpresentations focused on their own specialties. SteveHardin reports on the talk by Jorge García, this year’skeynote speaker. We have also included Award of Meritrecipient Carol Kuhlthau’s acceptance speech as well asviewpoints on information science from ASIS&T ResearchAward recipient Susan Herring.

On his President’s Page, Harry Bruce updates us onupcoming actions being taken as a result of theWebPresence Task Force and on steps for expandingmembership.

And finally, our RDAP Report is by Christopher Eakerof the University of Tennessee Libraries, who discussesresources available for educating researchers, especiallygraduate students, about data management. �

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With 2014 in front of us, I want to wish all members ofASIS&T a Happy NewYear! 2013 was a challenging year forme.As I reflect over the past year, I have come to understand thatwe are all called to live our lives more joyfully and thankfully.There are many things that bring joy and appreciation into mylife. For example, I am both joyful and thankful to be servingthis year as ASIS&T president. My thanks go to each member ofour Association – I am grateful that you choose to affiliate withASIS&T. I am grateful for all the engagements of our members:submissions to our publications, contributions to our AnnualMeeting, participation inWebinars and similar activities. And Iam grateful for our member volunteers who serve on the Board,committees and task forces, SIGs and chapters that make up theleadership and governance structure of ASIS&T.

Our volunteer and distributed governance structure hasmany advantages. It allows us to canvas and incorporate themultiple and diverse expertise of participating members. Itdemonstrates that our Association is member driven and memberresponsive. It motivates us to constantly refine and enhance thevalue of ASIS&T membership. It reinforces the importance ofaffiliation and engagement, and it allows our Association toreflect the passion of our highly engaged members.

There are some disadvantages of course. Our governancestructure means that we are a little less nimble in terms ofdecision-making and in the implementation of initiatives. Apartfrom our excellent headquarters office staff, the Associationrelies entirely upon members who volunteer their time and

P R E S I D E N T ’ S P A G E

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b y H a r r y B r u c e

HARRY BRUCE2014 ASIS&T PresidentDean and professorThe Information SchoolUniversity of Washingtonharryb<at>uw.edu

EDITOR’S SUMMARYASIS&T President Harry Bruce expresses joy and thanks for volunteers’

contributions to the Association, pointing out advantages and

challenges of a governance structure largely dependent on volunteer

activity. Significant recent developments by volunteer committees

include the Web Presence Task Force’s recommendations for the

ASIS&T website redesign, progressing to the RFP stage. The

Membership Committee and International Relations Committee are

working to strengthen and expand membership, attracting more global

members and transitioning students to professional membership.

Bruce envisions ASIS&T as the premier association for both

information professionals and information scholars and points out

the work of the Information Professionals Task Force to identify the

many professional roles in the information industry. The Membership

Committee will build on its work by encouraging current members to

promote the value of membership for information professionals.

KEYWORDS

volunteers

governance

screen design

international aspects

students

information professionals

information industry

mailto:harryb<at>uw.edu

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quite simply that our governance structure relies almost entirelyupon people who must prioritize between two roles: one asemployee and one as member of ASIS&T. We all have otherpressing roles to perform for our employers, and it is appropriatethat this role is given higher priority than the leadership andgovernance role for ASIS&T.

My view is that our current governance structure is morebeneficial than detrimental for ASIS&T. I want to share withyou an update on work that is being done by the Board andseveral ASIS&T committees. First, let me update you onseveral Board initiatives. At the Board retreat in Summer 2013,we received a detailed report from the Web Presence TaskForce. The Board discussed this report in detail leading up tothe Annual Meeting in Montreal, and it was decided that theAssociation would commission a redesign of the ASIS&Twebsite. A survey conducted by the Web Presence Task Force,chaired by Diane Rasmussen Pennington, revealed the urgentneed for updating and upgrading to current technology anddesign so that our website better reflects a world-leadinginformation association. We will soon be releasing a call forproposals from experts in the field of website design andconstruction to submit outlined plans for the website. In themeantime, the Board has decided to commission the WebPresence Task Force with the implementation of severalchanges to the current ASIS&T website including

1. creating a central, rotating-image, news banner that makesit easy to refresh and update important information that isrelevant to ASIS&T members;

2. changing location of the login section and making ituncomplicated for users to log in and stay logged in;

3. altering the size of the mainASIS&T banner on thehomepage to allow for more usable space for essentialitems; and

4. tidying up the layout and navigation “above the fold” toensure essential activities (such as connecting to theDigital Library) are easy to find.

I am grateful to the members of the Web Presence TaskForce for their expertise and for their willingness to take onthis additional work.

As I stated in my last Bulletin column, my primary goal forthis year of my presidency is to focus on addressing the steadydecline in ASIS&T membership that has been occurring for thepast couple of decades. I want to stop this decline in 2014 andcreate the beginning of a steady increase in ASIS&Tmembership in the coming years. To achieve this goal, I haveasked the Membership Committee, led by Bill Edgar, todevelop strategies that will lead to increased professional andinstitutional membership and to the translation of studentmembers into professional or academic members aftergraduation. I have also asked the International RelationsCommittee, led by Mei Mei Wu,Yan Zhang and DianeSonnenwald, to develop strategies that will lead to increasedinternational membership. If members have ideas regardinghow to recruit and retain international members, please contactthe International Relations Committee.

In my last Bulletin column, I also identified where our

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I believe that we must be the world’s premier associationfor information professionals and information scholars.

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greatest potential for membership growth resides. I think thispotential is in professional members. I believe that we must bethe world’s premier association for information professionalsand information scholars. Is ASIS&T a scholarly or aprofessional association? My response to this fair question isthat ASIS&T is an association for information scholars andinformation professionals. Some scholarly members ofASIS&T may be concerned that we will lose some memberswho want the Association to be more focused upon the needsof information scholars. My reply to this concern is that Ibelieve as an information scholar my intellectual life is enrichedby meaningful engagement with information practitioners andthat the purpose of my research is to impact users ofinformation and information professionals who focus uponinformation access and provision. Is it possible for ASIS&T tobe the association of choice for both information scholars andinformation professionals? I believe that it is possible andcertainly desirable. It was the case in past years of theAssociation’s history, and it not only can be the case for ourfuture but also needs to be, if we are to ensure a brighter futurefor our Association. There are, after all, many more informationprofessionals working around the world than there areinformation scholars. This point has been reinforced by theInformation Professionals Task Force, which has been doing aremarkable job explicating the many titles and job descriptionsthat come under the term information professional.

I am certain that we can and must do a better job ofcommunicating the value ofASIS&T membership to informationprofessionals. The membership committee will help us developmethods for doing so, but they will need your help. If you are amember of ASIS&T and an information professional, someoneon the membership committee might approach you about whyyou regard ASIS&T membership as important to your role.What value do you see in your affiliation with the Association?How can we strengthen this value proposition for you andother information professionals? If the membership committeedoes not contact you in the next few months, I invite you to getin touch with Bill Edgar, with another member of thecommittee, with the committee’s board liaison, Sanda Erdelez,or with me.You might also talk with your colleagues who arenot currently ASIS&T members. Ask them why they have notjoined the Association and what might persuade them to re-consider doing so. If there are issues, themes or topics thatarise from these conversations, please share these observationswith Bill and the Membership Committee.

So returning to my theme of living more joyfully andthankfully, let me close this column with my deep appreciationfor all that you do to actively engage with, promote andadvance ASIS&T. Every member of our Association is vitallyimportant. Please know that I am very grateful for your supportand participation in building the world’s premier informationassociation. �

PRES IDENT’S PAGE, con t .


I n the December/January issue of the Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology,we provided a brief news report of our 76thAnnual Meeting in Montreal. But the timing of both the meetingand this publication’s deadlines kept us from providing full photographic and text coverage of the fun, the

substantive, the social and the ridiculous at the successful ASIS&T confab.So join us throughout this issue of the Bulletin for a look at some of the work and fun that members and

guests enjoyed in Montreal at the 2013ASIS&TAnnual Meeting. Following a photo montage from the meeting,you’ll find coverage of theASIS&TAnnualAwards presented at the conference and an article by Chirag Shah,winner of theASIS&T James Cretsos LeadershipAward. Also in this issue, other Annual Meeting coverage includes reports from many of thepre-conference workshops and seminars; the plenary session headlined by Jorge García; the Award of Merit acceptance speech delivered byCarol Kuhlthau; and an article by our 2013 Research Award recipient Susan Herring.

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InsideASIS&T

2013 Annual Meeting Coverage


2013 ASIS&T Annual Meeting Coverage

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InsideASIS&T

O ne of the highlights of eachyear’s ASIS&TAnnual Meetingis the presentation of the

prestigious ASIS&TAnnual Awards.

AWARD OF MERITCarol C. Kuhlthau, professor emerita

in the School of Communication andInformation at Rutgers University, is the2013 recipient of the ASIS&TAward ofMerit, the highest honor presented byASIS&T. The award goes to an individualwho has made a noteworthy contributionto the field of information science,including the expression of new ideas, thecreation of new devices, the developmentof better techniques and outstandingservice to the profession.Professor Kuhlthau is internationally

recognized for her contributions to thestudy of information behavior. Her best-known work is her book SeekingMeaning: A Process Approach to Libraryand Information Services. In her rigorousresearch she observed student informationseeking, developed a model of theinformation search process and thentested the model in several ways overseveral studies to validate and refine themodel. This model has motivatedwidespread current research interest in theaffective components of the informationsearch process. Her life and work aremodels in several senses. Personallyhighly intelligent, judicious and modest,she has earned the highest respect fromscholars and students in the field ofinformation behavior as well as frompractitioners. Through example, CarolKuhlthau has taught many in the fieldhow to do rigorous research, how tomentor and how to teach.

WATSON DAVIS AWARDASIS&T’s Watson Davis Award

recognizes the contributions of someonewho has shown continuous dedicatedservice to ASIS&T. In 2013, the personwho most effectively lives up to that idealis Beata Panagopoulos.Beata has given much to the

Association for Information Science andTechnology (ASIS&T). Looking at her

list of contributions it is easy to ask,Whathasn’t she done to support ASIS&T andits membership over the past 20 years?On the national level, she has been electedto the Board of Directors as DeputyChapter Assembly Director and twice asthe Chapter Assembly Director. Inaddition to her many ex-officio committeeobligations, she has also served two termson and chaired the Awards and HonorsCommittee, five terms on the LeadershipCommittee, one term on the NominationsCommittee, one term on the Award ofMerit Jury, and she chaired the Task Forceon Chapter Structure and Activity. Shehas been a leader in the special interestarena by serving SIG/PUB asmembership records coordinator, chair-elect and chair. She has made logistical


2013 ASIS&T Award Winners

Then-president Andrew Dillon presents Award ofMerit to Carol C. Kuhlthau.

Bill Edgar presents Watson Davis Award to BeataPanagopoulos.


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InsideASIS&T contributions to Annual Meeting planningthrough the Leadership DevelopmentCommittee and SIG/PUB. On the locallevel, she has been elected to nearly everychapter position for the award-winningNew England Chapter, including programcommittee chair, co-chair/chair-elect,chair, past chair and treasurer. Shepublished the chapter's membershipdirectory, helped plan programs andcontributed to the chapter newsletter witharticles on chapter and national meetings.She has been active on the NEASISTprogram committee and chairs theStudent Travel Award Committee. Nosurprise that she was honored as the 2013NEASIST Chapter Member-of-the-Year.However, Beata is more than the sum

of her many volunteer accomplishments.She would be the first person to give along list of people who are deserving ofthis award and any other ASIS&T awardfor that matter. Conversely, she would bethe last person to nominate herself for anyhonor and that is what makes her trulyexceptional.

RESEARCH AWARDSusan Herring, professor of

information science and adjunct professorof linguistics at Indiana University, is therecipient of the 2013 ASIS&T ResearchAward. The documentation nominatingDr. Herring provides strong evidence ofher extensive contributions to the field ofcomputer-mediated communication(CMC), and she has also brought hundredsof researchers from different disciplinesto CMC research. Her own work has

theoretical, practical and methodologicalimplications for the field. Theoretically,her research on the role of gender in onlinecommunication opens up a new area ofinquiry related to CMC. Practically, Dr.Herring’s studies offer empirical resultsthat not only support her theoreticalarguments but also practical implicationsto facilitate computer-mediatedcommunication. Methodologically, Dr.Herring advances content analysis anddiscourse analysis in the area.The broad field of information science

has always benefited from rubbingshoulders with allied fields and from thecross-fertilization of concepts and methods.Not only is Dr. Herring’s research creativeand extremely productive and interesting,her work has been recognized widely witha high number of citations, invitations togive important presentations within andoutside the field, and research grants. Aresearcher like Susan Herring should berecognized for extending the boundaries

of the field in an original but meaningfulway that resonates with developments inthe information world as we know it today.

THOMSON REUTERS OUTSTANDINGINFORMATION SCIENCE TEACHERThe 2013 Thomson Reuters

Outstanding Information Science TeacherAward goes to Carole Palmer, who hasbeen teaching at the University of Illinoisat Urbana-Champaign since 1996. Dr.Palmer’s research has examinedcontemporary problems in scientific datamanagement, cultural heritage aggregationand scholarly communications. She hasintegrated her research into the classroomthrough innovative course and curriculumdevelopment, particularly in the areas ofdata curation.Her work in data curation has been

particularly noteworthy. She routinelyplaces her students in prestigiousinternships at research centers throughoutNorth America and acts as a mentor to

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Susan Herring accepts Research Award fromAndrew Dillon.

Andrew Dillon presents Outstanding InformationScience Teacher Award to Carole Palmer.


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InsideASIS&T students from the University of Tennesseethrough her work as a principalinvestigator of the IMLS-funded DataCuration Education in Research Centers(DCERC) grant. What is perhaps mostimportant about her work in data curationis that Dr. Palmer not only pushes theboundaries of what her student’s futurecareers might include, but as many of herletters of support confirm, she groundstheir education in a knowledge base thatdraws upon diverse information sciencesub-fields, including scholarlycommunications, scientometrics,information retrieval, information-seekingbehavior and knowledge organization.As her nominator wrote, “Dr. Palmer is

an exemplar educator, a passionate andcommitted mentor and above all else, aprofoundly kind and generous human beingthat has dedicated a significant portion ofher own career to the advancement ofothers.” For her ability to mentor andmotivate, for her transformative work incurricula development and for hersustained research and service ininformation science education, werecognize Dr. Palmer with the 2013ASIS&T Outstanding Information ScienceTeacher Award.

BEST JASIST PAPERThe 2013 Best JASIST Paper Award

goes to Ling-Ling Wu, Mu-Hsuan Huangand Ching-Yi Chen for Citation Patternsof the Pre-web and Web-prevalentEnvironments: The Moderating Effects ofDomain Knowledge.In their description of their work, the

with online accessibility. The currentstudy also hypothesizes that researcherknowledge level moderates such Interneteffects. The researchers chose the IT andGroup subject area and collected 241documents published in the pre-web period(1991-1995) and 867 documents publishedin the web-prevalent period (2006-2010)in the Web of Science database. Thereferences of these documents wereanalyzed to test the proposed hypotheses,which are significantly supported by theempirical results.

PRATT SEVERN BEST STUDENT RESEARCHPAPER AWARDThe 2013 Pratt Severn Best Student

Research Paper Award goes to HilaryZelko, master’s student at the Universityof North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for herpaper entitled Reasoning About Relevance.Completed in partial fulfillment of her

degree requirements, this empirical studycontributes to research on relevance as

authors/researchers note that the Internethas substantially increased the onlineaccessibility of scholarly publications andallowed researchers to access relevantinformation efficiently across differentjournals and databases (Costa &Meadows).Because of online accessibility, academicresearchers tend to read more, and readinghas become more superficial (Olle &Borrego), such that information overloadhas become an important issue. Given thiscircumstance, how the Internet affectsknowledge transfer, or more specificallythe citation behavior of researchers, hasbecome a recent focus of interest. Thisstudy assesses the effects of the Interneton citation patterns in terms of fourcharacteristics of cited documents: topicrelevance, author status, journal prestige andage of references. This work hypothesizesthat academic scholars cite more topicallyrelevant articles, more articles written bylower status authors, articles published inless prestigious journals and older articles

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Dr. Ling-Ling Wu accepts the Best JASIST PaperAward on behalf of herself and co-authors.

Hilary Zelko, right, accepts the Pratt Severn Awardfrom Krystyna Matusiak.


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InsideASIS&T multidimensional, dynamic and situational.Hilary’s research advisor states in thenomination that the research “surpasses insome cases the quality of work of manyof our Ph.D. students.” Jurors note that thescope of Hilary’s research is trulyimpressive for a master’s level project, andthey indicate that the research results offeruseful suggestions for future research.

JAMES CRETSOS LEADERSHIP AWARDChirag Shah, assistant professor at

Rutgers University, is the recipient of the2013 James Cretsos Leadership Award,honoring a newASIS&T member whohas demonstrated outstanding leadershipqualities in professional ASIS&T activities.Since joining the organization as a

student member, Chirag has shown a deepcommitment to ASIS&T that isdemonstrated in all of his activitiesinvolving scholarship, service and aboveall, leadership. As a faculty member atRutgers since 2010, Chirag has consistently

BEST INFORMATION SCIENCE BOOK AWARDThe 2013 Best Information Science

Book Award goes to Raya Fidel forHuman Information Interaction: AnEcological Approach to InformationBehavior (MIT Press).An elegant, comprehensive, carefully

sourced, well-informed look at an area ofresearch that is fast growing and central toinformation science, this book is alsorelevant to various related fields, such asinformation retrieval and human computerinteraction. Built on rigorous analysis ofresearch and practice in the field, Fidelprovides a fresh and innovativeconceptual framework and methodology(cognitive work analysis) to guideresearch and practice in informationbehavior (IB). Taking an ecologicalapproach, “Human InformationInteraction is one of the few books ininformation behavior – and in the designof information systems – that is based on

supported students’ efforts to attend andparticipate in ASIS&TAnnual Meetings.He recruits students for ASIS&Tmembership, guides them through theprocess of submitting and presentingscholarly works at the meetings, and hehelps secure funding for their travels. Since2012, Chirag has also served as facultyadvisor of the student chapter, called RUASIS&T. His advising and support havehelped RUASIS&T establish newcollaborations with other groups, such asUsability NJ and UXPA NJ, fostering newmemberships and stronger engagementamong existing ASIS&T members.Furthering his involvement with

ASIS&T, Chirag is also spearheadingefforts to revive the NJ ASIS&T localchapter. With this role, he is serving as avery important bridge between the localchapter (NJ ASIS&T) and the studentchapter (RUASIST&T).Chirag has also been very active

organizing events at the ASIS&TAnnualMeeting. He has taken initiatives toorganize Rutgers University receptions atthe meetings. He has served as reviewer forAnnual Meetings and for JASIST. He hasled various technical and social events forASIS&T, including chairing a poster trackat ASIS&T 2011, co-chairing a track atASIS&T 2012, co-organizing SIG/USE2012 workshop, and organizing the juniorfaculty lunch at ASIS&T 2012 meeting.For all these reasons and more, each of

which exemplifies leadership on behalf ofASIS&T and its members, Chirag Shah isthe 2013 James Cretsos Leadership Awardwinner.


Andrea Copeland presents Cretsos LeadershipAward to Chirag Shah.

Incoming ASIS&T president Harry Bruce, right,accepts Best Information Science Book Award onbehalf of his colleague Raya Fidel.


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InsideASIS&T well-defined theoretical and conceptualtraditions,” as one of the supporting letterstates. Human Information Interaction isan important scholarly contribution toinformation science and will have asignificant impact on both research andpractice. Clearly written by anoutstanding researcher and teacher, thebook also fills the need for IB textbooksin education.

THOMSON REUTERS DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONPROPOSAL SCHOLARSHIPThe 2013 Thomson Reuters Doctoral

Dissertation Proposal Scholarship goes toKaitlin Costello, University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill, for her proposalentitled Investigating Information Seekingand Disclosure in Online Support Groupsfor Chronic Kidney Disease. Kaitlinproposes a grounded theory study thatfocuses on understanding the multipledimensions of how online support sites may

for new understanding for researchers,practitioners and users (patients). It isextensible and extremely relevant,particularly in the areas of chronic illness,information behavior, Internet use andprivacy/disclosure. . . . This will be . . .very possibly a benchmark for furtherstudy and application in multiple topics.”

PROQUEST DOCTORAL DISSERTATION AWARDThe 2013 ProQuest Doctoral

Dissertation Award is presented toSebastian K. Boell, University of NewSouth Wales, for the dissertation entitled,Theorizing Information and InformationSystems.

CHAPTER AWARDS

CHAPTER-OF-THE-YEARThe European Chapter is the worthy

recipient of the 2013 ASIS&T Chapter-of-the-Year Award. This chapter is very

be used for informational and emotionalsupport by patients. This proposalexpands upon existing research that looksat the intertwining of information andemotional support at such sites by takinginto account the possible processes thatinitiate and are initiated by self-disclosures of health-related informationand the impact of such disclosures on theinteractions. This study will provide apreliminary look at these processes asthey occur over time among patients withserious chronic conditions.Kaitlin’s faculty advisor notes that the

“research will provide a strong foundationfor additional studies into informationseeking among users of support groups,as well as studies of health informationdisclosure. . . . In short, her work willopen up fruitful paths for her own andothers’ future studies.” Jurors agree withthe advisor’s assessment, adding that theproposal “has a high degree of potential


Kaitlin Costello, left, receives the Thomson ReutersDoctoral Dissertation Proposal Scholarship fromNancy Roderer.

Will Senn presents Chapter-of-the-Year honors toFidelia Ibekwe-SanJuan, accepting on behalf of hercolleagues in the European Chapter.

Sebastian K. Boell, right, receives ProQuest DoctoralDissertation Honors from Andrew Dillon.


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InsideASIS&T active and involved and engages themembership locally and across theAssociation. During the last year, thechapter brought in 18 new members (witha total of 108 members), held eightmeetings and conducted 15 projects andservices. These included workshops andpanels, mentoring programs for doctoralstudents, round tables, oral histories andwebinars. Importantly, members of thechapter also played a large role in helpingto emphasize the multinational reach ofASIS&T which culminated in theAssociation’s recent name change. Inaddition, European Chapter membersassisted in establishing the nascent Asianchapter of ASIS&T. With 301 non-members attending the various chaptermeetings, there is ample opportunity forfurther growth. The chapter hasdemonstrated that it can surpass thedifficulties imposed by nationalboundaries and language differences. TheEuropean Chapter is an excellent chapterfor other chapters to emulate.

STUDENT CHAPTER-OF-THE-YEARFor 2013, Student Chapter-of-the-Year

Awards go to two chapters: SimmonsCollege and University of Denver.

The student chapter of Simmons hasdone excellent recruitment throughcreative methods. They have evendeveloped an impressive FAQs forrecruitment. These efforts have resulted inmore than 300 memberships. The studentchapter also hosted a number of heavilyattended events, including a tour ofGoogle Cambridge. The chapter invites

other organizations. It has also showncreative use of social media ascommunication tools. They not only havea well-maintained organization, but alsoclearly articulated future plans.

For these reasons and others, thestudent chapters of Simmons College andthe University of Denver are the 2013Student Chapters-of-the-Year.

SIG AWARDS

SIG-OF-THE-YEARThe ASIS&T 2013 SIG-of-the-Year

Award is presented to Special InterestGroup/History and Foundations ofInformation Science (SIG/HFIS) for itsmany efforts toward capturing thehistorical impact of ASIS&T and itsmembers. SIG/HFIS has, among otherthings, collected vital oral histories ofASIS&T and explored disparate archives

faculty from other universities as guestspeakers at their regular meetings, whichhelps broaden students' view of the field.They also actively work with andparticipate in events with NEASIS&T, theNew England Chapter. These activitiesand efforts have opened the door to manyexciting opportunities for its members andpropelled the chapter in the direction forcontinuous growth.

For a chapter of its size, the studentchapter at the University of Denver isextremely active. Among the particularlynoteworthy activities of this chapter arethe number and quality of local events, thefrequency and constancy ofcommunication with its membership, theoversight and concern for local chapterfinances and the quality administrationprovided by the officers. The chapteroffers many diverse and interestingactivities and has attempted to work with

C O N T E N T S T O P O F A R T I C L E N E X T PA G E > N E X T A R T I C L E >< P R E V I O U S PA G E

Chirag Shah, second from right, presents Student Chapter-of-the-Year honors to Simmons College students,from left, Jeremy Guillette and Graham Herrli and GSLIS faculty advisor Linnea Johnson. Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, accepting for the University of Denver student chapter, is on the far right.


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for images that illustrate that history. Inaddition, SIG members worked tirelesslytoward exhibiting and preserving elements

in person across two continents; and for along and continuing history in organizingsymposia, workshops and programsessions for her SIG.

SIG PUBLICATION-OF-THE-YEARThe 2013 SIG Publication-of-the-Year

Award is awarded to Special InterestGroup/International InformationIssues (SIG/III) for SIG/III’s 30thAnniversary Commemorative Publication.The SIG is particularly noted for itsefforts in gathering and publishing thehistory, including ensuring contributionswith diverse points-of-view across allareas of interest and for innovative andongoing use and support of social mediato communicate with members duringresearch, production and marketing of theanniversary volume. �

of that history with their contributions toboth the 2012 Pre-Conference on theHistory of ASIS&T and the subsequentprint and eBook publication of theproceedings of the event. SIG/HFIS alsonotably continues to develop the Portalfor Oral Histories in Information Scienceand Technology, while maintaining theregular SIG activities of recruiting andpublishing for its members.

SIG MEMBER-OF-THE-YEARJudit Bar-Ilan is the worthy recipient

of the 2013 SIG Member-of-the-YearAward. She is noted particularly for hercontributions to her SIG as both an officerand a mentor to junior members; for hercontributions to publications produced byher SIG; for service in recruitment andpromotion of her SIG electronically and


Sarah Buchanan accepts SIG-of-the-Year honorsfrom Chris Landbeck on behalf of her colleagues inSIG/HFIS.


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it was. I joined the organization in 2008 andpresented a paper at the Annual Meetingwhich was held in Columbus, Ohio.I still remember that first meeting. Other

than the folks from UNC, I didn’t knowanyone or so I thought. But then I startedseeing people about whom I had heard. Icouldn’t believe that people like TefkoSaracevic, Marcia Bates and CarolKuhlthau were “real!” I had been readingand been inspired by their groundbreakingworks, and now I was seeing them inperson. It was like having a backstageaccess to my favorite rock stars’ concert!I knew immediately that I wanted to keepcoming back to this meeting and makeASIS&T my intellectual home.The years that followed only

strengthened the tie with ASIS&T that Ihad made back in 2008. I started not onlysubmitting papers and posters to theAnnual Meeting, but also volunteering fordifferent activities at SIGs (specialinterest groups) and at the organizationallevel. Since joining ASIS&T, I have never

U nlike, perhaps, many LIS oriSchool doctoral students, I didn’tjoin ASIS&T right away. ASIS&T,

and even the whole field of informationscience, was quite new to me as I came tothe School of Information and LibraryScience (SILS) at University of NorthCarolina, Chapel Hill from computerscience. During my first two years as adoctoral student I saw that many of thefaculty members and students took off fora few days in October-November to go tosome professional event called ASIS&TAnnual Meeting. It seemed veryimportant to them. And so I wondered ifthat’s something that I should also lookinto. Fortunately, my advisor was GaryMarchionini, who was deeply engaged,not only in ASIS&T, but also in the fieldof information science in general. Hiscontinual participation in ASIS&T (helater became ASIS&T president) andencouragement to me to do the samesealed the deal for me. I had to go to thisAnnual Meeting and find out myself what


JAMES CRETSON LEADERSHIP AWARD

A Tale of Finding My Intellectual Home with ASIS&Tby Chirag Shah

EDITOR’S SUMMARYA converted computer scientist, the authorlooks back to his early intrigue with ASIS&T, hisexcitement at meeting notable scholars andsubsequent history of participation. Shahpresented a paper at his first meeting and everyyear since and has expanded his engagement,becoming active in SIGs, volunteering at theorganizational level and advising a studentchapter. Though this level of engagementinvolves significant work, Shah sees it not as aburden but as an important aspect of his career.As student chapter advisor, Shah encouragesstudents to join ASIS&T early, attend as manyactivities as possible and interact broadly withothers. New members should join a localchapter and a SIG and take advantage ofscholarly opportunities through the Association.Attention to specific issues from organizationaltransparency to outreach will improve theAssociation.

KEYWORDS

information associations

career development

students

meetings

Chirag Shah is the 2013 recipient of the James Cretsos Leadership Award, which recognizes a newASIS&T member who has demonstrated outstanding leadership qualities in professional ASIS&Tactivities. He can be reached at chirags<at>rutgers.edu.

mailto:chirags<at>rutgers.edu


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InsideASIS&T missed an Annual Meeting, and everytime that I attend, I find myself more andmore connected to this community.Reflecting back on my association and

experiences with ASIS&T, I recommend afew things to my students that I hope willbe relevant:

� Join ASIS&T as early as you can asa student. The membership is veryaffordable, and the benefits aretremendous. It’s really a no-brainer.

� Go to the Annual Meeting andparticipate in as many studentactivities that you can. Theseactivities include the student party(typically on the first evening),student design competition anddoctoral seminar.

� In your first meeting, definitely go tothe newcomer’s brunch. That’s thetime you get to sit down with otherfirst-timers and hear fromASIS&Tleadership about variousopportunities that the organizationoffers. Look out for SIGpresentations and try to identify atleast one or two SIGs that arerelevant to you.Your ASIS&Tmembership includes one SIGmembership of your choice.

� At these meetings, go talk to people– no matter how big name scholarsthey are. You’ll be pleasantlysurprised to see how nice andpersonable these distinguishedpersonalities are.

� With your membership, you also getmembership to your local chapter.

of service and scholarship that I havebeen engaged in with ASIS&T so it hasnever been a burden. I believe it is veryimportant for all career-savvy professionalto identify themselves with such anorganization where working for it meansworking for themselves.Currently I am privileged to be

advising the Rutgers University StudentChapter of ASIS&T and also to beguiding the resurrection efforts of NewJersey Chapter of ASIS&T. As theStudent Chapter representative to theASIS&T Chapter Assembly, I am alsoinvolved in overlooking and helping withall the student chapters. These past andongoing associations with ASIS&Tbodies have made me identify severalissues that we need to address:

See what that chapter offers. Someplaces have both a local chapter anda student chapter, and often they areexcellent places to root yourself, takeleadership positions and start gettingthe most out of your ASIS&Tmembership.

� As you move forward in your studiesor professional career, you are likelyto have a better idea of the area ofinformation and/or library sciencethat you want to focus on. Thisdevelopment should allow you toidentify a SIG that you can be moreinvolved with and invest your timeand energy into. See if you canvolunteer and even take leadershippositions in this SIG. They arealways looking for energetic peopleto join and contribute.

� Finally, look out for scholarlyopportunities that both ASIS&T andits SIGs offer – not just publishingand presenting at ASIS&TAnnualMeetings, but also awards andscholarships that you can apply for.

Personally, I have been publishing andspeaking every year at the annualmeetings since I joined ASIS&T. I havealso organized events (panels, workshops)and contributed by reviewing and chairingresearch tracks and sessions. Yes, all ofthese require a lot of work, but as someonesaid, when you love what you do, younever really work. Love essentiallycharacterizes my association withASIS&T and the work I have done for theorganization. I love the various activities



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InsideASIS&T � We need more transparency betweenASIS&T and its components,including SIGs and local/studentchapters. For instance, chapterofficers should be able to extracttheir membership roster and changedetails about their chapter onASIS&T website whenever needed.

� While mostASIS&T members and theattendees to its annual meetings arecoming from academia,we should notforget our non-academic members. Infact, ASIS&T should extend itsprograms to make the membershipmore relevant to those members.

In these comments I want to take theopportunity to thank all those withoutwhose help I wouldn’t be where I am inASIS&T and in the field of informationscience. I am extremely grateful to thosewho wrote letters in support of mynomination for the Cretsos award, as wellas countless individuals who haveprovided constant support and inspirationthroughout my association with ASIS&T.Finally, I will always be indebted toASIS&T for including me – an outsiderwho came from a different field – andallowing me to make this organization myintellectual home. �

� The organization’swebsite needswork.While it’s usable,many of the functionsare hidden in corners or unclear to atleast new members. The website needsto be refreshed with more inviting,accessible content more relevant toits members and the outside world.

� Finally,ASIS&T has to startbecoming more relevant and cater toits international membership as weofficially change our name toAssociation of Information Science& Technology, projecting boldly thatit is no longer exclusive to onlyAmerican participants.


ASIS&T History Fund Wants Your HelpEstablished in 2000 by the ASIS&T

Board of Directors, the ASIS&T HistoryFund encourages research in the historyof information science and technology.Each year the fund supports varioushistorical projects and research work. Inthe past year, the fund provided cashawards for its annual research grant andbest paper award; supported student travelto the ASIS&TAnnual Meeting; andcontinued its support of the ASIS&T oralhistory project.While the History Fund is in the black,

there is not enough cash to continue thekinds of historical research projects thatthe fund’s board of advisors hopes tosupport. These projects include theongoing oral history project, as well aspreservation and access to ASIS&Thistorical resources.Current members of the Board of

Advisors are Sarah Buchanan, Universityof Texas at Austin, chair; MichaelBuckland, University of California,Berkeley, emeritus; Samantha Hastings,University of South Carolina; TrudiBellardo Hahn, Drexel University;Kathryn La Barre, University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign; Lai Ma, UniversityCollege Dublin; and Robert Williams,University of South Carolina, emeritus.The Board of Adivsors urges all

ASIS&T members to indicate theirinterest in preserving the history of thefields of information science and

RDAP14 – ResearchData Access andPreservation Summit2014 – is once againco-located with the IA

Summit. For three days, March 26-28,RDAP14 will feature programmingfocused on practical approaches toresearch data management, access andpreservation, including success storiesand lessons learned, innovativeresearch, and resources and toolsdeveloped by and for the RDAPcommunity. The RDAP14 program isonline at www.asis.org/rdap/program.

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IA and RDAP Summits Just Ahead

T wo huge conferences in the ASIS&T portfolio are just ahead. Mark yourcalendars and make your plans to participate in the 15th IA Summit andRDAP14 in San Diego in late March.

ASIS&T Constitutional Change SoughtAn amendment to the ASIS&T

Constitution, mirroring the change madein the bylaws last summer updating thewindow for voting, will be coming soon.The constitution is a separate documentlegally and needs to be separately amended.

A Physical Move in the WorksAround the middle of FebruaryASIS&T

HQ will be moving to 8555 16th Street,Suite 850, Silver Spring, MD 20910.Phone and fax numbers will remain thesame. Other move-related information willbe posted on the website as needed.

For its 15th annualgathering, the IA Summitwill bring professionalstogether from March 26-

30 to reflect upon current challengesand opportunities, as well as the richhistory of the annual gatherings andthe conversations that have begun.Under the theme The Path Ahead,organizers of the IA Summitencouraged submissions addressingways to make the most of theopportunities created by therecognition the field has received. Andthe results are in – a fantastic programis planned for all who join the crowd inSan Diego. Get full details athttp://2014.iasummit.org/


News from ASIS&T Headquarters

The hotel venue for both summits is the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina.

http://2014.iasummit.org/

www.asis.org/rdap/program

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InsideASIS&T technology as well as the history of theone professional organization that hasserved the changing foci of research andpractice throughout the development ofthe information age.How can you help?You can donate in a

variety of ways including dedicating bookroyalties, committing to challenges,providing matching funds and throughindividual contributions.Donate today by sending your

contribution to the fund:

ASIS&T History FundAttention: Richard Hill1320 Fenwick Lane, Suite 510Silver Spring, MD 20910

Please indicate in your correspondencethat the donation is intended for theASIS&T History Fund.You will receivean acknowledgement of your tax-deductible gift for your tax records.

SIG/III Seeks Candidates for InfoShareAwardASIS&T SIG/International

Information Issues (SIG/III) will onceagain in 2014 offer complimentaryASIS&T memberships to a group ofinformation professionals fromdeveloping countries. The InfoShareMembership Award is available tomaster’s and Ph.D. students, as well asworking professionals. Nominations arenow sought for the one-yearmemberships, renewable for a secondyear, based on their ASIS&T activities.Nominations of worthy individuals

must include one-page curriculum vitaand one-page descriptions of why thenominees are deserving of membership,including their willingness to promoteASIS&T within their networks. Thedeadline for nominations is February 16,2014.Nominations should be sent to

Devendra Potnis (dpotnis<at>utk.edu) orSelenay Aytac (selenay.aytac<at>liu.edu).

Former ASIS&T president GaryMarchionini, dean and Cary C. BoshamerDistinguished Professor in the School ofInformation and Library Science, Universityof North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has beennamed digital preservation pioneer in anarticle in the Library of Congress’ TheSignal. The recognition notes howMarchionini’s interest in informationretrieval, human/computer interaction andinformation architecture grew from hisexperience as a junior high school mathteacher in the days when teletypemachines networked to computers wereused for electronic drills and practices.

Kenneth R. Fleischmann, University ofTexas at Austin, is the author of the latestentry in Morgan & Claypool’s series onInformation Concepts, Retrieval andServices. In the author’s description,Information and Human Values “seeks toadvance understanding of the relationshipbetween information and human values bysynthesizing the complementary but typicallydisconnected threads in the literature.”

C O N T E N T S T O P O F A R T I C L E N E X T PA G E > N E X T A R T I C L E >< P R E V I O U S PA G E

News about ASIS&T Members News from an ASIS&T SIG

The International Calendar of Information Science Conferences (icisc.neasist.org/) is a nonprofit collaboration

between the Special Interest Group / International Information Issues (SIG/III) and the European (ASIST/EC) and

New England (NEASIST) chapters of the Association for Information Science and Technology, with the additional

support of Haworth Press.

icisc.neasist.org/

mailto:selenay.aytac<at>liu.edu

mailto:dpotnis<at>utk.edu

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N o sooner does one ASIS&TAnnual Meeting end than a newcommittee launches headlong

into the process of planning the next one.With the successful venture into Canadafor the first Annual Meeting since therenaming of our society to better reflectour international interests, now theAssociation for Information Science andTechnology plans to meet in the beautifulcity of Seattle, Washington.The ASIS&TAnnual Meeting is the

premier international conference dedicatedto the study of information, people andtechnology in contemporary society. Themeeting gathers leading scholars andpractitioners from around the globe toshare innovations, ideas, research andinsights into the state and future ofinformation and communication in play,work, governance and society. TheASIS&TAnnual Meeting has an established recordfor pushing the boundaries of informationstudies, exploring core concepts andideas, and creating new technological andconceptual configurations – all situated ininterdisciplinary discourses.For 2014, ASIS&T will explore the

connections among collections, culturesand communities. The conference planning

simulation, theoretical development,analysis or application. Submissions willbe judged on quality of content,significance for theory, method, design,education or engagement, originality andlevel of innovativeness, and quality ofpresentation. Papers will be refereed in adouble-blind process, and accepted paperswill be published the digital conferenceproceedings. The maximum length for apaper is 10 pages, single-spaced.

PANELS: Proposals for panels, lighteningtalks, fishbowls, Pecha Kucha, etc., areinvited on topics that include emergingcutting-edge research and design,analyses of emerging trends, opinions oncontroversial issues, analyses of tools andtechniques, and contrasting viewpointsfrom experts in complementary areas ofresearch. Panels are not a substitute for aset of contributed papers, but must have acohesive theme and promote livelyinteraction between panelists and audiencemembers. Submit 3-5 pages that providean overview of the issues to be discussedby the panel. Proposals should also listpanelists who have agreed to participateand indicate the qualifications andcontribution that each panelist will offer.


CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

Connecting Collections, Cultures and Communities77th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and TechnologyOctober 31-November 4, 2014, Sheraton Seattle Hotel, Seattle, Washington

committee welcomes contributions fromall areas of information science andtechnology. TheAnnual Meeting celebratesplurality in methods, theories andconceptual frameworks; it has historicallypresented research and development froma broad spectrum of domains.Four types of submissions that address

the broad theme of the meeting areencouraged: papers, panels, posters andworkshops.

PAPERS: Papers should discuss, analyze orcritique theories and concepts or reportoriginal, unpublished research,substantiated by experimentation,

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InsideASIS&T POSTERS: Posters are a vehicle for face-to-face presentations and interactions usingtraditional posters, short videos or livedemonstrations. These formats provideopportunities for interactive discussionand feedback about the work. Posterpresentations are expected to invitequestions and discussion in a personal andless-formal setting. Posters offer a uniqueopportunity to present late-breaking results,work in progress or research that is bestcommunicated in an interactive or graphicalformat. Please note, however, that postersdescribing work that is simply a proposalwill not be accepted. Submissions forrefereeing should be in the form of anextended abstract of up to 4 pages.

WORKSHIPS: The purpose of pre-conferenceworkshops, symposia and tutorials is toprovide a more informal setting for theexchange of ideas on a focused topic andsuggest directions for future work. Assuch, workshops and tutorials offer a

PANELS CO-CHAIRS: Howard Rosenbaumand Pnina Fichman, Indiana University

POSTERS CO-CHAIRS: Nadia Caidi,University of Toronto, and Lai Ma,University College Dublin

PAPER CO-CHAIRS:WORKSHOPS &TUTORIALS, LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS AND

LOGISTICS: Richard Hill, ASIS&T

Important Dates and DeadlinesAll submissions for papers, panels,

workshops and tutorials must be in handby April 30. Notifications of acceptancewill be sent in June. Submissions forposters, demos and videos are due by July 1,with notifications following at the end ofJuly.

Additional Conference InformationAs always, please look to the ASIS&T

website – www.asist.org – for additionalinformation and updates on all AnnualMeeting-related activities. �

good opportunity for researchers andprofessionals to present and discuss workwith an interested community. Workshopsmay be mini-focused research presentations,a series of working events, brainstormingand idea sharing, or even teaching/learninga new skill. In particular, SIGs are invitedto submit proposals for half-day or full-day events on topics that are pertinent tothe goals of the SIGs. Proposals that arenot SIG-related or sponsored are alsowelcome. Only one submission per SIG ispermitted for a workshop, and additionalparticipation fees will apply.

Conference CommitteeJens-Erik Mai, University of

Copenhagen, chairs the 2014 ASIS&TAnnual Meeting. The followingcommittee members will assist:

PAPER CO-CHAIRS: Melanie Feinberg,University of Texas at Austin, andJonathan Furner, University of California,Los Angeles


www.asis.org


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ASIS&T ANNUAL MEETING PRE-CONFERENCE ACTIVITIES

The 9th Annual Social Informatics Research Symposiumby Pnina Fichman and Howard Rosenbaum

Stacy Surla is the Bulletin’s associate editor for IA. She serves on the IA Institute Boardof Directors and is a past chair of the IA Summit. She can be reached at

T he 9th Annual Social Informatics Research Symposium, held onNovember 2, 2013 at the 76th ASIS&TAnnual Meeting inMontreal, was a great success. Sponsored by ASIS&T SIG/SI

(Special Interest Group/Social Informatics) and the Rob Kling Center forSocial Informatics and co-organized by the authors, the theme of thesymposium was The Social Informatics of Information Boundaries.Following an inspirational keynote address, six thought-provokingpresentations addressed the symposium theme, and two posters werepresented, as well as two best-paper awards.

The purpose of this annual research symposium is to disseminate anddiscuss current research and research-in-progress that investigates the socialaspects of information and communications technologies (ICTs). Thesymposium defines social broadly to include critical and historicalapproaches as well as empirical work and contemporary social analysis. Italso defines technology broadly to include traditional technologies as wellas state-of-the-art computer systems and mobile and pervasive devices. As aconsequence, the symposium typically attracts members of many otherASIS&T special interest groups.

In light of the theme for the Annual Meeting, Beyond the Cloud:Rethinking Information Boundaries,” the 9th Annual Social InformaticsResearch Symposium solicited work that focused on the issues ofinformation boundaries that employed a social informatics perspective. Weasked several questions in our call for papers to encourage participation bya wide range of researchers and others interested in social informaticstopics. What can a social informatics approach tell us about the nature ofinformation boundaries, boundary crossing and boundary work? What arethe social and technological forces that enable and constrain information


EDITOR’S SUMMARYAt its 9th annual symposium, ASIS&T Special Interest Group/Social Informatics (SIG/SI)explored information boundaries from a social informatics perspective. William Jones’keynote address focused on dissolving boundaries around personal information andpractical approaches to managing appropriate access. Contributed papers examinedboundaries of big data, the diverse forces shaping information boundaries and technologyuse in human service and barriers preventing equal information access for native Spanishspeakers. Presenters discussed location-based services’ ability to overcome boundaries asconvenient or creepy and museums’ use of indigenous groups’ artifacts as an insensitiveboundary violation. Since social informatics spans many interest groups, SIG/SI looksforward to further stimulating cross-topical research.

KEYWORDS

social informatics

social aspects

information access

personal information management

location based services

cross disciplinary fertilization

Special Section

Pnina Fichman and Howard Rosenbaum, co-chairs of ASIS&T SIG/SI, are on the facultyof the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University. Pnina Fichman is thedirector of the Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, and Howard Rosenbaum isassociate dean for graduate studies. They can be reached respectively atfichman<at>indiana.edu and hrosenba<at>indiana.edu.

mailto:hrosenba<at>indiana.edu

mailto:fichman<at>indiana.edu

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Special Section2013 Annual Meeting Coverage

F I C H M A N a n d R O S E N B A U M , c o n t i n u e d

boundaries and boundary work? How do social, technological andinformational boundaries evolve and shape each other? How and to whatextent can we enhance our understanding of information boundaries bydrawing on sociological, organizational and other social science theories?As usual, we received a set of high quality papers and posters that werepresented at the event.

Following the opening remarks by Pnina Fichman, Indiana University,the symposium began with a keynote address, Towards Places of Our Ownfor Digital Information: Constructing Roads and Walls on the Web byWilliam Jones, who is a research associate professor in the InformationSchool at the University of Washington. He has published in the areas ofpersonal information management, human computer interaction,information retrieval and human cognition.

In his talk, Jones addressed the theme of the symposium by unpackingthe concept of information boundaries through the lens of personalinformation management. There were clearer and more solid boundariescordoning off personal information in the years before the web. Whether itwas personal in the sense that “it might be owned by us, about us, directedtowards us, shared by us with others, experienced by us or simply(potentially) relevant to us,” information was more easily separated intosilos for home, school, work or other settings. As more and more of thisinformation moved online and into networked environments, theseboundaries dissolved, replaced by ones more permeable and dynamic.

Jones argues that as a consequence of these changes, informationboundaries in this new world both enable and hinder our attempts to controlour personal information as access becomes easy and available frommultiple locations and devices. He points out that “information about us …that was once effectively hidden from the prying eyes of others, eitherbecause access was too difficult or because access attempts would reveal theidentity of the snooping party,” is now easily accessible through searchengines and is revealed in social networks. At the same time, technologiesare emerging on the web that return some measure of control but at a cost.There are what he called “application sandboxes” that silo off personalinformation, restricting access and creating digital analogs to the cordoning

of information in the days before the web. However, a consequence of thisdevelopment is the fragmentation of information across locations and devices.

Jones concluded his talk by discussing practical means by which peoplecan implement useful boundaries to protect their own personal informationand “ways we might traverse (through road construction) other boundariesin order to realize a more effective cross-application, cross-device use ofour information.” During the question-and-answer period, there was a livelydiscussion about a number of issues raised in this provocative talk, whichhad to be brought to a close by the moderator as time ran out.

After William Jones’ well-received keynote, six papers were presented.First, Eric Meyer presented his work with Ralph Schroeder and LinnetTaylor, from the Oxford Internet Institute, about “The Boundaries of Big Data.”He discussed various boundaries in big data research beyond the definingboundary of what is big enough to be big data; specifically he described thedisciplinary and dataset boundaries, as well as the boundaries betweenacademia and business, which see the value in big data in very different ways.

Next, Colin Rhinesmith from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign presented “From Paper to the Cloud: The Social Informatics ofInformation Boundaries in Human Service.” As he focused on informationboundaries, he built on Kling’s argument that ICT implementation revealsassumptions about its potential benefits and costs to different groups insociety. This paper was taken from his dissertation research in which heseeks to problematize the stage of ICT implementation in order tocontribute new knowledge about the structural, cultural and technical forcesshaping technology in human services.

AdamWorrall, from Florida State University, presented “‘Back Onto theTracks: Convergent Community Boundaries in LibraryThing and Goodreads.”He identified three boundaries while studying two digital library projects,Librarything and GoodReads: values, structure and social structure.

Next, Madelyn Sanfillipo from Indiana University discussed her paper“Government Information Access by Native Spanish Speakers: Social andTechnical Barriers.” She synthesized a theory of information behavior withsocial informatics insights as she analyzed the complex relationshipsbetween information inequality and social inequality. This theory allowed her

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to understand better the sociotechnical nature of the information environmentwith respect to barriers and boundaries in information behavior domain.

Sydneyeve Matrix from Queen’s University presented “Beyond Maps,News and Weather: Everyday Geomobile Media Use and the ChangingPerceptions of Location Based Services” in which she critically examinedthe ways in which we perceive location-based services. She proposed thatattitudes about mobile technologies range along a continuum from viewingthem as convenient utilities, such as finding friends and desired locations, to“creepy” technologies, such as unwanted surveillance and that the successof these services would depend on the ability of marketers to moveperceptions to the convenience end of the continuum.

The last paper, “A Failure of Digital Diplomacy: Social, Cultural andInformation Boundaries in Online Cross-cultural Communication,” waspresented by Natalia Grincheva from Concordia University. She used onlinecultural heritage diplomacy as her theoretical framework in a case study ofthe Virtual Museum of the Pacific in which she argued that insensitive useof cultural artifacts by the museum violated epistemic boundaries ofmemory preservation by the indigenous groups that owned the artifacts.

During a break following the first paper session, the 30 or so participantsviewed two digital posters. Ingrid Erickson from Rutgers University presentedthe poster, “The Borders and Boundaries of Coworking,” and Shuheng Wuand Besiki Stvilia from Florida State University presented “WorkOrganization of a Sociotechnical System: The Case of Gene Ontology.”

The last session began with Pnina Fichman giving the 2012 SocialInformatics Best Paper Award to Monica Garfield, Bentley University, andAlan Dennis, Indiana University, for their paper “Toward an IntegratedModel of Group Development: Disruption of Routines by Technology-Induced Change,” published in Journal of Management InformationSystems. The 2012 Social Informatics Best Student Paper Award was givento Eden Litt, Northwestern University, for her paper “Knock, Knock. Who’sThere? The Imagined Audience,” published in Journal of Broadcasting &Electronic Media. Full citations are provided below. Garfield and Littpresented their papers, and Noriko Hara from Indiana University discussedthe contribution the papers made to social informatics research.




9th Annual SIG/SI Symposium Program

PAPERS� Eric Meyer, Ralph Schroeder and Linnet Taylor, Oxford Internet Institute – “The

Boundaries of Big Data”

� Colin Rhinesmith, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – “From Paper to theCloud: The Social Informatics of Information Boundaries in Human Service”

� Adam Worrall, Florida State University – “Back Onto the Tracks: ConvergentCommunity Boundaries in LibraryThing and Goodreads”

� Madelyn Sanfillipo, Indiana University – “Government Information Access byNative Spanish Speakers: Social and Technical Barriers”

� Sydneyeve Matrix, Queen’s University – “Beyond Maps, News and Weather:Everyday Geomobile Media Use and the Changing Perceptions of Location BasedServices”

� Natalia Grincheva, Concordia University – “A Failure of Digital Diplomacy: Social,Cultural and Information Boundaries in Online Cross-cultural Communication”

POSTERS� Shuheng Wu and Besiki Stvilia, Florida State University – “Work Organization of a

Sociotechnical System: The Case of Gene Ontology”

� Ingrid Erikson, Rutgers University – “The Borders and Boundaries of Coworking”

BEST PAPERS AWARDS� 2012 Best Social Informatics Paper ($1,000) – Garfield, M. J., & Dennis, A. R.

(Winter 2013). “Toward an Integrated Model of Group Development: Disruption ofRoutines by Technology-induced Change.” Journal of Management InformationSystems, 29 (3), 43-86.

� 2012 Best Social Informatics Student Paper ($500) – Litt, E. (September 11,2012). “Knock, knock. Who’s there? The imagined audience.” Journal ofBroadcasting and Electronic Media, 56 (3), 330-345.

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As in previous years, the symposium was a success with high qualitypapers, lively discussion and an international audience. Authors fromEurope, Canada and the United States presented the papers and posters. Weare pleased to report that the state of research and theorizing in socialinformatics is healthy and exciting. SIG/SI is already planning the 10thanniversary symposium for the 2014 ASIS&TAnnual Meeting to be held inSeattle, and we expect to have another stimulating event.

Further InformationThe full symposium schedule and other symposium information is

available at the following locations:http://asistsigsi.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/schedule-for-the-9th-annual-social-informatics-research-symposium/SIG/SI (Facebook): www.facebook.com/groups/134354579994052/?fref=tsRob Kling Center for Social Informatics: http://rkcsi.indiana.edu �




http://rkcsi.indiana.edu

www.facebook.com/groups/134354579994052/?fref=ts

http://asistsigsi.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/schedule-for-the-9th-annual-social-informatics-research-symposium/

http://asistsigsi.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/schedule-for-the-9th-annual-social-informatics-research-symposium/

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Denise E. Agosto is associate professor in the College of Computing & Informatics,Drexel University, and editor of the Journal of Research on Libraries & Young Adults.She can be reached at dea22<at>drexel.edu.Lorri Mon is associate professor and chair of the MS-IT program in the Florida StateUniversity College of Communication and Information. She can be reached atlmon<at>fsu.edu.Rong Tang is associate professor and director of the Simmons Usability Lab in theGraduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College. She can bereached at rong.tang<at>simmons.edu.

A SIS&T SIG/USE held its 13th Annual Research Symposium at theASIS&TAnnual Meeting in Montreal on November 2, 2013.Information Behavior on the Move: Information Needs,

Seeking and Use in the Era of Mobile Technologies drew more than 50information behavior researchers, professionals, students and othersinterested in examining the implications of increasingly mobile informationenvironments on the study of information behavior. The symposiumfeatured a keynote address by the University of British Columbia’s CarolineHaythornthwaite, a series of 10 Ignite talks, a research award presentationby Joy Joung Hwa Koo of Mongolia International University and thepresentation of the 2013 SIG/USE awards.

The 2013 SIG/USE Symposium Planning Committee was co-chaired byMega Subramaniam, University of Maryland, and Beth St. Jean, Universityof Maryland. Committee members included Isto Huvila, Åbo AkademiUniversity; Eric Meyers, University of British Columbia; Pei Lei, NanjingUniversity; Michael Olsson, University of Technology Sydney; MariaSouden, University College Dublin; and Xiaojun (Jenny)Yuan, Universityat Albany, State University of NewYork. Amanda Waugh and AdamWorrellwere the official Tweeters and Storifyers for the event. The SymposiumPlanning Committee worked with SIG/USE chair Denise Agosto, chair-elect Rong Tang and immediate past chair Lorri Mon in planning the event.

Keynote AddressCaroline Haythornthwaite, director and professor in the School of

Library, Archival, and Information Studies at the University of BritishColumbia, delivered the keynote address. In “Expertise on the Move,”Haythornthwaite addressed the meanings and implications of mobile in themodern information world. She considered what expertise means in light of


EDITOR’S SUMMARYThe 13th Annual SIG/USE Research Symposium focused on ways mobile technologies haveinfluenced information needs, seeking and use. In her keynote address, CarolineHaythornthwaite framed movement as changing contributorship, interactions andparticipation in multiple knowledge communities. A series of Ignite talks on the commontheme of mobility followed, with topics ranging from mobile phones as the preferredInternet access device, credibility of mobile applications and online resources and publiclibraries’ use of social media and mobile applications to mobile apps promoting healthinformation literacy and supporting teleworking. Small groups brainstormed onopportunities, challenges and research ideas inspired by the theme. Annual SIG/USEawards recognized scholars for innovative work on topics including refugees’ informationseeking, factors influencing scholars’ data sharing and drawings as visual representationsof information. The symposium closed with encouragement to consider how information onthe move influences perspectives and research into information behavior.

KEYWORDSinformation use social websearch behavior mobile applicationsinformation needs mobile communicationsuser generated content honors

Special Section



Information Behavior on the Move: 2013 ASIS&T SIG/USE ResearchSymposiumby Denise E. Agosto, Lorri Mon and Rong Tang

mailto:rong.tang<at>simmons.edu

mailto:lmon<at>fsu.edu

mailto:dea22<at>drexel.edu

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the increase of the role of crowds and communities in the production andevaluation of information and asked the audience to think about whatmotivates people to contribute to bodies of co-constructed knowledge.

In considering why we can say that not just information, but expertise, is“on the move,” Haythornthwaite stressed the importance of understandingindividual and shared motivations for contributing to knowledgecommunities, highlighting the role of what Wellman has called “networkedindividualism”[1], in which contributors have many partial memberships inmany different networks. Haythornthwaite suggested that levels ofparticipation vary from networked community to community, in acontinuum between lightweight and heavyweight participation. In eithercrowd-based or community-based environments, motivations to participatecan be personal or shared, based on either internal or external need. Ingeneral, lightweight/crowd-sourced information sources have a low bar toentry, and they use “bragging rights” to motivate and reward contribution.These changes have important implications for learning and education,since via the Internet information and expertise have broken the bonds ofprint and formal institutions, enabling the current shift from learning beingself-directed toward a more participatory learning culture in both formaland informal learning environments.

In light of these changes, Haythornthwaite suggests a social networkperspective for studying information behavior on the move, emphasizinginteractions and actors tied by relations that form networks; she alsosuggests that new mobile information environments represent a change inthe authority and control of information and knowledge. According toHaythornthwaite, information “wants to be free” – free of location and timeconstraints. She concluded by proposing six dimensions to consider ininformation systems design: contributions, contributors and their networks,learning and commitment, authority and control, recognition-reputation-reward, and motivations and coordination.

Following the keynote address, Haythornthwaite led the audience in asmall-group activity focusing on the information technology designimplications of these six dimensions in various information contexts.

Ignite TalksThe next portion of the symposium featured 10 refereed Ignite talks,

selected by jury from a total of 25 submissions. In the first talk, Rafa Absarand Heather O’Brien presented “Information Behavior as SharedExperience in Mobile Interactions,” a diary and interview study of 19participants. They found 28% of participants’ searching activities to besocial in nature, with shared experiences and shared meanings createdthrough shared social searching and other online interactions.

Renee Bennett-Kapusniak, Hye Jung Han and Wooseob Jeong thendiscussed their “Digital Inclusion Survey.” Based on 638 telephoneinterviews, they found 69% of respondents had mobile phones, yet 83% stillused computers on a regular basis. Mobile devices were the most importantway to access the Internet for 88% of people who owned mobile phones,with 70% of students using phones more frequently than computers toaccess the Internet. The top three reasons for using the Internet were forcommunication and social network participation, for obtaining news andother information and for entertainment purposes, with 55% of respondentswanting smartphone and/or tablet training at public libraries.

For the third Ignite talk, Wonchan Choi presented his work with RobertCapra about “Credibility Assessment of Online Resources and PerceivedQuality of Mobile Applications.” The researchers used semi-structuredinterviews with older adults to study the concept of credibility in relation tohealth information websites, showing credibility to lie at the intersection oftrustworthiness and expertise.

Next, Lorri Mon presented “Libraries on the Move: The Public Libraryin Social Space,” an examination of U.S. public libraries’ use of socialmedia and mobile apps for the delivery of library services. She traced theskyrocketing development of mobile apps for libraries and mapped theengagement of libraries in social space. Her work examines the lifecycle ofengagement with particular technologies and investigates how librariespresent themselves to different audiences in different digital environments.

AdamWorrall then presented “A Boundary-Centric Approach toStudying Mobile Information Sharing.” Worrall considered how individual

A G O S T O , M O N a n d T A N G , c o n t i n u e d



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and group information sharing spans group, community and otherboundaries, suggesting that information sharing can be physical or socialand sometimes both.

Moving into the arena of youth and game design, Ingrid Eriksonpresented “Playing the Neighborhood: Learning, Game Design andMediated Storytelling While on the Move,” in which the project leaders areteaching children to use iPhones to create gaming apps. Their projectrepresents a switch from thinking of children as information and technologyconsumers to thinking of them as creators of digital content.

In the seventh Ignite talk of the day, Safirotu Khoir, Jia Tina Du and AndyKoronios discussed “Information Behavior Captured by Study Participants'Mobile Phones.” They used questionnaires, Photovoice [2] and interviews tostudy the everyday life information behaviors of immigrants to Australia.They recommended combining the two data-gathering techniques to enablethe creation of rich portrayals of participants’ information behaviors, butcautioned that combining the methods has challenges, such as difficulty inunderstanding the context and meaning of participants’ photos.

Next, Rachel Magee discussed “Methods for Movement: CapturingCompelling Mobile Data with Voicemail Diaries,” focusing on thevoicemail data collection method she has developed for her dissertationstudy of teens’ use of technologies in their everyday lives. The method is alow-tech technique for capturing participants’ audio dairies, enabling self-reflection on the fly and use in a private personal settings.

In “HackHealth: EngagingYouth in Health-Related Information Seeking,Sharing and Use,” Beth St. Jean, Mega Subramaniam, Natalie GreeneTaylor, Rebecca Follman, Gary Goldberg and Dana Casciotti described anNLM-funded project that is seeking to promote interest in health sciencesamong middle school students from disadvantaged backgrounds whileteaching them to improve their ability to look for and evaluate health-related information. The project works with middle school librarians andemploys a range of digital technologies, including mobile apps.

Lastly, in “Information Behavior beyond the Office Doorway and Back,”Leslie Thomson analyzed mobile information behavior in non-permanentwork locales. She studied work-related information behavior in home

offices, coffee shops and other non-traditional office environments,gathering data at multiple points per day to understand how non-permanentwork environments influence users’ information needs and uses.

Breakout Session: Small Group DiscussionsBuilding on the Ignite presentations, symposium chairs Subramaniam

and St. Jean led the audience in a small-group activity focused on bringingtogether topics and ideas from the individual presentations. Each smallgroup brainstormed challenges and constraints of studying information onthe move, opportunities and benefits of studying information on the move,research ideas inspired by the Ignite presentations and other thoughtsrelated to the study of information on the move. The combined summary ofresponses, illustrated in Table 1, is also available online via Padlet athttp://padlet.com/wall/siguse2013.




Results of the breakout groups following the Ignite presentations at the 2013 ASIS&T SIG/USESymposium

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http://padlet.com/wall/siguse2013

Aspects Opportunities Challenges Research Ideas& Themes & Benefits & Constraints Inspired

Mobile Context is complex and key Defining mobile; capturing The importance ofContext context comparing mobile

information behavior ordemographic groups andin varying context

Data The mobility of data Trying to capture mobile New method for dataCapturing capturing technologies to behavior across devices collection

enable the capturing of & time; capturing context;richer contexts capturing mobile data

Data Types Mobile information Capturing mobile data New types of data tobehaviors and interaction collect and to analyzenaturally generate a broadrange of data types

Research Managing constraints of theConstraints research context: privacy

issues, institutional reviewboard restrictions, thefleeting nature of mobilecommunication events andinformation behaviors, etc.

TABLE 1. Information Behavior on the Move: Research Opportunities and Challenges

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The small-group exercise results suggest some interesting possibilitiesfor the theme of next year’s symposium, such as capturing context ininformation behavior research. The 2014 SIG/USE Research Symposiumplanning committee is currently thinking about how to build on this work innext year’s symposium.

Elfreda A. Chatman Research Award PresentationsFor this year’s research awards presentation, 2012 SIG/USE Elfreda A.

Chatman Research Award winner Joy Joung Hwa Koo discussed the resultsof her research project, conducted withYong Wan Cho and Melissa Gross ofFlorida State University. In “Is Ignorance Really Bliss? Understanding theRole of Information-Seeking in Coping with Severe Traumatic StressAmong Refugees,” Koo and her colleagues studied North Korean refugees

living in South Korea, with a focus on the relationship between levels ofpost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and refugee information needs andinformation-seeking behaviors.

The researchers used a survey to measure participants’ levels of PTSD,their engagement in active information seeking and the types of informationsources they used, with follow-up interviews to probe these topics moredeeply. As a group, the refugees had left North Korea hoping to escapestarvation, poverty and the lack of hope for a better future. After arriving inSouth Korea, they tended to experience culture shock, neglect ordiscrimination, communication difficulties and financial difficulties. Mostof them needed information to help them adjust to their new environmentand to find work. Major sources of information included the local refugeecenter, churches, mass media and other North Korean refugees.

Koo, Cho and Gross found no relationship between levels of PTSD andinformation source types used. However, PTSD was found to be a factor inactive versus passive information seeking. Participants with higher levels ofPTSD tended to seek information more passively than those with lowerlevels of PTSD. Those with higher levels of PTSD engaged in increasedlevels of information avoidance and were often afraid to ask questions and

to seek help from others, making theiradjustment to their new country slowerand more difficult than for those withlower levels of PTSD.

Koo suggested that in order to meetrefugees’ information needs moreeffectively service providers should movefrom a first-come, first-serve servicemodel to one that includes more activelyseeking out refugees who might be




Elfreda A. Chatman Research Award winner Joy JoungHwa Koo discusses the results of her research project,conducted with Yong Wan Cho and Melissa Gross ofFlorida State University, at the 2013 ASIS&T SIG/USESymposium.PH

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hesitant to pursue available services. She stressed the importance of user-friendly interface design and mediators who can help refugees use unfamiliarinformation systems and sources.

Looking beyond their specific population, Koo, Cho and Gross’s workcan help us to understand how stressful life experiences influenceinformation behaviors and how to design information sources and systemsthat take into account both affective and cultural factors.

2013 SIG/USE Research and Travel AwardsThis year SIG/USE received a large number of submissions for the

annual SIG/USE research and travel awards. Awards committee chair GaryBurnett presented this year’s winning submissions at the symposium andreminded the audience to consider applying for the 2014 awardscompetition. More information about the SIG/USE awards is located athttp://siguse.wordpress.com/awards/.

The 2013 Best Information Behavior Conference Paper Award went to“Institutional and Individual Influences on Scientists’ Data Sharing Behaviors:A Multilevel Analysis” byYoungseek Kim, University of Kentucky, andJeffrey M. Stanton, Syracuse University. Their paper investigates institutionaland individual factors that influence scientists’ data-sharing behaviors acrossdisciplines, drawing on institutional theory and the theory of planned behavior.The findings suggest that because practices, requirements and expectationsmay differ across and even within disciplines, future research should focuson those differences, as well as on data reuse issues and data sharing.

Vanessa Kitzie, Eric Choi and Chirag Shah, all of Rutgers University,received the 2013 Best Information Behavior Conference Poster Award for“From Bad to Good: An Investigation of Question Quality andTransformation.” The poster considers the problem of question quality insocial question-answering services such asYahoo! Answers. Kitzie, Choiand Shah’s work reveals the elements that make a difference in questionquality in these services. Their findings have implications for developingsystems that can automatically flag questions of poor question quality.

The 2013 Elfreda A. Chatman Research Proposal Award went to“Information Needs: A Conceptualization, Operationalization and Empirical

Validation” by WaseemAfzal, Charles Sturt University. The proposal drawson psychology and LIS literatures with the goal of conceptualizing,operationalizing and empirically validating a construct of informationneeds. The study has strong potential to contribute to our understanding ofinformation behavior by providing concrete linkages between theory andempirical research. Afzal will present the results of the work at the 2014SIG/USE Research Symposium.

Jenna Hartel, Karen Pollock and Rebecca Noon, all of University ofToronto, received the first-ever SIG/USE Innovation Award for their panelpresentation, “The Concept Formerly Known as Information.” The panelexamined visual data in the form of drawings from participants as a novelway to investigate how people define information in their everyday lives.The awards committee deemed the theoretical focus, data collection methodand panel format all innovative and compelling and the integration ofvisual, non-verbal research methods into the study of information andinformation behavior as showing strong potential to open up and expandhow we think of information.

Doctoral candidate Devon Greyson, University of British Columbia,received the 2013 SIG/USE Student Travel Award for her proposal entitled“Rethinking Information Boundaries Across Disciplinary Boundaries.”Greyson’s research focuses on public health interventions targeting high-risk populations, using an information practice [3] perspective. Herinvestigation of the ways in which health information interventions do and donot interact with personal information practices has important implicationsfor how those interventions can have positive influence on health behaviors.

Lastly, long-time ASIS&T member Nick Belkin, Rutgers, received the2013 SIG/USE Outstanding Contribution to Information Behavior Researchaward. This award promotes scholars who have, over a period of time,contributed in an outstanding way to the development of the informationbehavior research field. In giving him this award, the SIG/USE Cabinetrecognized Belkin as a pioneering researcher who introduced the concept ofinformation-seeking behavior to the field of information retrieval and whoshowed researchers in a broad range of fields how information behaviorresearch can have important implications for designing and developing




http://siguse.wordpress.com/awards/

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information retrieval systems. In receiving the 2013 OutstandingContributions to Information Behavior Award, Belkin joins the SIG/USEAcademy of Fellows. The full list of Fellows can be found online athttp://siguse.wordpress.com/academy-of-fellows/.

Symposium Conclusion and Wrap-UpIncoming SIG/USE chair Rong Tang offered closing remarks for the

2013 SIG/USE Research Symposium. She prompted the audience tocontinue to think about information behavior on the move in their futurework and studies, asking the following thought-provoking questions:

� Has information behavior ever not been on the move?

� Does on-the-move technology take us to a new horizon of informationbehavior?

� Or is it a broader on-the-move context that takes us there?

� What is new, magnificently interesting and fascinatingly exciting about“information behavior on the move” and its research front?

For more information about the symposium, visit the Storify page createdby AdamWorrall and Amanda Waugh at http://storify.com/adamworrall4/siguse2013. �




Resources Mentioned in the Article[1] Wellman, B. (2001). Physical place and cyber-place: The rise of networked individualism. International Journal for Urban and Regional Research, 25, 227–52.

[2] Wang C. C., & Burris, M. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education & Behavior, 24, 369-387.

[3] Savolainen, R. (2008). Everyday information practices: A social phenomenological perspective. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow.

http://storify.com/adamworrall4/siguse2013

http://storify.com/adamworrall4/siguse2013

http://siguse.wordpress.com/academy-of-fellows/

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Vincent Larivière is 2014 chair of ASIS&T Special Interest Group/Metrics (SIG/MET). Heis an assistant professor in the School of Library and Information Science, Université deMontréal, a regular member of the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la scienceet la technologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, and associate researcher at theObservatoire des sciences et des technologies, Université du Québec à Montréal. Hecan be reached at vincent.lariviere<at>umontreal.ca.

F ounded in 2010 in order to regroup the increasingly importantcommunity of information scientists working on metrics, SIG/METis the Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T)

Special Interest Group for the measurement of information production anduse. It encourages the development and networking of all those interested inthe measurement of information and, thus, encompasses not onlybibliometrics, scientometrics and informetrics, but also measurement of theweb and the Internet, applications running on these platforms and metricsrelated to network analysis, visualization and scholarly communication.

On November 2, 2013, SIG/MET held its third annual Workshop onInformetric and Scientometric Research, during the ASIS&TAnnualMeeting in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The full-day event, sponsored byboth Elsevier and Thomson Reuters, attracted 30 attendees. The symposiumconsisted of two poster and 13 paper presentations by authors from ninecountries (Canada, Finland, Germany, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Sweden,United Kingdom and United States).

The meeting opened with the two poster presentations. The first, byJongwook Lee, a doctoral student at Florida State University, was on themeasurement of the research dimension of academic mentoring. The otherwas by Burak Özkösem, a Ph.D. candidate in experimental surgery atMcGill University, on the conversion of meeting abstracts to articles inpeer-reviewed journal articles in the field of reproductive biology.

The first paper session, “Application of Metrics,” started with apresentation by Katherine McCain from Drexel University, who analyzedthe first 25 years of research on the Zebrafish, an increasingly importantmodel organism for research in the biomedical sciences. Her findingprovided evidence of an increased internationalization of the field and of the


EDITOR’S SUMMARYSIG/MET presented its third Workshop on Informetric and Scientometric Research at theASIS&T November 2013 Annual Meeting. Established in 2010, the group brings togetherthose interested in all aspects of informetrics, including bibliometrics, scientometrics andwebometrics, as well as metrics related to citation network analysis, visualization andscholarly communication. The meeting featured posters on measuring research in thecontext of academic monitoring and on the transition of meeting abstracts to peer-reviewed journal articles. Thirteen papers were presented in sessions addressing theapplication of metrics and new indicators. A session on topics beyond the journal articleincluded discussions on Twitter hashtag use, motivations for blog posts and advisees’career success relative to advisers’ scholarly activity. SIG/MET recognized students foroutstanding contributions on statistical analysis of citation rates, cognitive aspects of peerreview and indicators for research evaluation. The symposium concluded with discussionof the availability of a Scopus dataset for arts and humanities journals for research use.

KEYWORDS

bibliometrics research data sets

scientometrics meetings

webometrics honors

quantitative analysis

Special Section



Full Room for the Third SIG/MET Workshopby Vincent Larivière

mailto:vincent.lariviere<at>umontreal.ca

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number of research groups working on the model. Next up was BradfordDemarest, Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University, presenting a novelmachine-learning-based metric applied to politically partisan subreddits onthe website Reddit. The session ended with a talk by librarians KimberlyPowell and Shenita Peterson, who compared the citation counts, journalquality metrics and h-indexes obtained from Scopus and theWeb of Sciencefor faculty in the discipline of nursing.

The second paper session, “New Indicators,” started with DietmarWolfram, Feifei Wang andYuehua Zhao, from the University of Wisconsin

and Beijing University of Technology, who presented the results from twoinvestigations of journal similarity based on citation journal topicality.Dangzhi Zhao, University of Alberta, and Andreas Strotmann, GESIS,Germany, showed how the combination of author co-citation andbibliographic coupling could help predict future trends in research. The lastpresentation of the session, by Masaki Eto of Keio University, Japan,demonstrated a novel graph-based method for retrieval of documents basedon co-citation networks, which increased the number of retrieved documentswithout reducing precision.

L A R I V I È R E , c o n t i n u e d



Symposium Program

POSTERS Jongwook Lee,Measuring a Research Dimension of Academic MentoringBurak Özkösem, Conversion of Reproductive Biology Meeting Abstracts to Publications

PAPERS APPLICATION OF METRICS

Katherine McCain, Charting the Rise of the Zebrafish as a Model Organism: Persistent Co-author Networks, 1980-2004Bradford Demarest,Measuring Identities and Differences in Epistemic Communities in Political Sub-reddits: A Novel Machine-Learning-based MetricKimberly Powell and Shenita Peterson,Measuring Nursing Publication Impact and Faculty Metrics: Web of Science vs. Scopus

NEW MEASURES

Dietmar Wolfram, Feifei Wang and Yuehua Zhao, The Assessment of Journal Similarity Using Citation Journal Topicality: Results from Two InvestigationsDangzhi Zhao and Andreas Strotmann, Combining Author Co-citation and Bibliographic Coupling Analyses for the Study of Research TrendsMasaki Eto, Document Retrieval Method Using Random Walk with Restart on Co-citation Network

BEYOND THE JOURNAL ARTICLE

Timothy Bowman, Isabella Peters, Stefanie Haustein and Kim Holmberg, #twinkletweet: Hashtag Use of Astrophysicists on TwitterChaoqun Ni and Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Doctoral Mentoring and Protégé Scholarly Performance: A Preliminary Examination in SociologyHadas Shema, Judit Bar-Ilan and Mike Thelwall, Classifying Motivations for Research Blog Posts – Preliminary ResultsStaša Milojević, Cassidy Sugimoto, Vincent Larivière, Mike Thelwall and Ying Ding, The Role of Handbooks in Knowledge Creation and Diffusion: A Case of Science Studies

POSTERS STUDENT PAPER AWARD WINNERS

Fereshteh Didegah and Mike Thelwall,Modelling Article Citation Impact Factors Using an Integrated Statistical MethodEhsan Mohammadi and Mike Thelwall,Mendeley Readership Altmetrics for the Social Sciences and Humanities: Research Evaluation and Knowledge FlowsQi Wang and Ulf Sandstrom, Cognitive Distance and Peer Review: A Study of a Grant Scheme in Infection Biology

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As in previous years, the SIG recognized outstanding studentcontributions. The third session was devoted to presenting these awards andpresentations by the recipients. This year’s winner was Fereshteh Didegahfrom the University of Wolverhampton, United Kingdom, for her paper, co-authored with her advisor Mike Thelwall, on the modelling of the factorsaffecting articles’ citation rates using an integrated statistical method. Twoadditional student submissions were also recognized for high merit: EhsanMohammadi’s paper, in collaboration with Mike Thelwall, on newindicators for research evaluation in the social sciences and humanitiesbased on Mendeley readership, and Qi Wang of the KTH-Royal Institute ofTechnology in Sweden, in collaboration with Ulf Sandstrom, for theiranalysis of the relationship between cognitive distance and peer review ininfection biology.

The last session, “Beyond the Journal Article,” started with TimBowman, Indiana University, and colleagues from Kiel University,Germany; Université de Montréal, Canada; and Åbo Akademi, Finland, onthe use of hashtags by a sample of astrophysicists active on Twitter. It was

followed by Chaoqun Ni and Cassidy R. Sugimoto’s investigation of therelationship between the advisers’ scholarly behavior and advisees’ careersuccess based on large-scaled data for sociology. Hadas Shema, Judit Bar-Ilan, Bar-Ilan University, and Mike Thelwall then provided preliminaryresults of a classification of motivations for research blog posts in healthresearch. The session ended with a talk by Staša Milojevi� and colleaguesfrom Indiana University, Université de Montréal and University ofWolverhampton on the role of handbooks on knowledge creation anddiffusion, based on five handbooks from the discipline of science studies.

The 3rd symposium concluded with a teleconference by Gali Halevi,senior research analyst and program director of the Informetics ResearchGroup of Elsevier, Inc., who outlined the availability of a Scopus datasetconsisting of bibliographic content and download information of all paperspublished in 56 arts and humanities journals. The dataset is being madeavailable freely to participants for scholarly investigation.

More information about SIG/MET and this year’s symposium may befound on the SIG’s website at www.asis.org/SIG/SIGMET/. �

L A R I V I È R E , c o n t i n u e d



www.asis.org/SIG/SIGMET/

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Jorge García is a senior analyst with Technology Evaluation Centers. He can bereached at jGarcía<at>technologyevaluation.com.

Steve Hardin is associate librarian, Indiana State University. He can be reached atsteve.hardin<at>indstate.edu.

N ew information technologies begin as abstractions and ultimatelyassimilate into human life. Jorge García – a senior analyst withTechnology Evaluation Centers – described the process at the keynote

session at the ASIS&TAnnual Meeting in Montreal on November 3, 2013.García began by offering accounts of how information and technology

were viewed in the past. He showed an old ad: “Chat with your family andfriends – even when they’re miles away.” Visionaries and futurists were ableto envision today’s world. They already had an impression of how we dealwith information today.

He showed a 1964 interview with author and futurist Arthur C. Clarke.Clarke predicted that the city as it existed then would not exist in the future.Technology, he said, would make possible a world where we would be ininstant contact with friends around the world. People won’t commute; they’llcommunicate. Clarke said we might have brain surgeons in Edinburghoperating on patients in New Zealand. The whole role of a city as a meetingplace will cease to exist. García noted that, of course, we still commute tothe office, but we all have the idea that we should communicate.

García showed a slide outlining a circular process. The real world leadsto an abstraction, which leads to augmentation, which leads to assimilation,and the process repeats.

In the abstraction portion of the cycle, we take reality and make anabstraction of its most important features. Then we create a model to representit. The idea is to enable people to communicate. It involves extracting themost important aspects of data transmission and creating a model from that.

García presented another video showing how people envisioned theInternet 50 years ago. It showed a woman in the future shopping from home:a camera showed wares; a woman made her choices by pushing a button. A


EDITOR’S SUMMARYAt the 2013 ASIS&T Annual Meeting, Jorge García discussed the transformation of newinformation technologies from imagined abstractions to reality. Through old and currentadvertisements and interviews with futurist Arthur C. Clarke and communication theoristMarshall McLuhan, García illustrated the progressive revolutions embodied by thetelephone, a shift from commuting to communicating, early visions of the Internet, newmedia and big data. Handling the change requires a continuous process of abstractingreality, augmenting, assimilating and creating models to represent its key features. Garcíarecognized data as an asset to be distilled and classified, stored in expanding volumes andtransmitted at astounding speeds. Layered with contextual information and supportivetechnology, data can be used to enhance human intelligence and capability. García closedwith an admonition to limit potential negative effects of technology by implementing clearand ethical practices in data and information use.

KEYWORDS

information technology

trends

innovation

computer mediated communications

information models

ethics

Special Section


ASIS&T ANNUAL MEETING PLENARY SPEAKER

Jorge García Highlights 2013 ASIS&T Annual Meetingby Steve Hardin

mailto:steve.hardin<at>indstate.edu

mailto:jGarc�a<at>technologyevaluation.com

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console maintained a watch on her home.What the wife saw on her console was paidfor by her husband at his console. (Theaudience gasped and laughed at thisvisionary assumption.) At the touch of abutton, the husband got a printout of thefamily’s financial situation. Also at hisdisposal was a home post office thatallowed for instant communicationworldwide. A monitor checked circuitsevery few seconds and inserted backups asnecessary. García remarked that the idea ofhaving a central place where informationwould reside was already established 50years ago. People already understood howimportant communication would be.

“The medium is the message,” Marshall McLuhan said. It’s not justabout content – it’s about how we communicate. A 1960 interview withMcLuhan showed him stating that everything points in direction of “tribalman” and away from “individual man.” “We’re getting rid of individuals,”McLuhan said. García noted that as books are being replaced by new media,we won’t be so concerned with self-definition and finding our ownindividual way; we’ll be selecting with the group instead of apart from it.Print as a medium changed our sense of ourselves in the Middle Ages. Newmedia will do the same.

A 1965 Marshall McLuhan video posed the question: “Why do wheelscontinue to carry us downtown?” All the materials that can be accesseddowntown could be available on closed circuit back home. But, he said, westill have an obsessive drive to fit into patterns and classifications. Garcíasaid McLuhan knew we have an obsession with data. Back in 1965, futuristsknew we’d face the challenge of data moving with many different speeds,types and sizes. They saw the rise of social media. Among U.S. adults, onein three persons aged 65 or more now uses a social network. The challengeis to generate the right models to interpret this data explosion.

The data explosion, García said,consists of huge amounts of data comingwith many different names. Some call itBig Data. We are very concerned with realtime. García said he get lots of questionsalong this line: “I want to conduct mybusiness in real time.” Maybe that’s not theconcern – the concern is for business tohandle data at different speeds in differenttimes. Data is now polystructured. It comeswith variety.

Some experts think that by 2020 we’llhave 35.2 zettabytes of data storedsomewhere. One zettabyte equals roughlyone-quadrillion gigabytes. How will westore that much data?

One approach to the problem is cloud computing. Data is stored onservers not necessarily within our firewall. We’ve also sorted informationinto various classifications. We need to abstract those models because weknow social media is a huge business nowadays. Data is now an asset.

Data can be used as a process of augmentation. Steve Jobs used to say acomputer was like a bicycle for the brain – an enhancer of our intelligence.So we’re looking for ways to use data as an enhancer. One example:mobility. We expect that in near future, mobile gadgets will be surfing theweb more than traditional desktop gadgets. Does more human informationmean less human interaction? We now realize information is being storedwithout us knowing about it. Some of it is produced by humans, but some isnot. For every interaction we do on the Internet, there are some of whichwe’re unaware. Let’s use that information and try to augment ourcapabilities, he said.

García showed a video from Space Time Insight. This company collectshuge amounts of data and uses it to help make better decisions. There was abig blackout in the northeastern United States that led to 11 deaths in 2003.California responded with “situational intelligence” – like looking at an


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MRI (magnetic resonance image). The benefit is letting the consumer knowwhat the real price of electricity is. We need not only new technology but tobecome better integrators of that technology.

Consider the Reactive Manifesto (www.reactivemanifesto.org/): Garcíadoesn’t entirely agree with it, but it presents a very good case to lead us intowhat we need to build modern systems. We need to build systems that arereactive by nature. They need to react to the load of data, to events, tofailure and, most importantly, to users and their needs.

Event-driven design is becoming increasingly important in the industry.We need to create a virtual cycle to handle our roles as informationproducers and consumers. If we create systems that are naturally scalableand resistant to failure, we will be able to create systems that will be moretransparent, provide the context we need and provide resiliency. That enablesus to build systems that are even more reactive. If we achieve the ability toguide reactions, we could achieve not only the ability to be reactive butproactive.

If we abstract the necessary data, we can add layers to our data:augmented reality. It’s simple to describe – we put layers of contextualinformation on top of a real object. This enables the user to react to it andlearn from it in the best possible way.

García showed another video: an ad showing you how you can workusing augmented reality glasses; you can do more when you know moreabout objects you’re using. He said the important question is, “How can weapprove our data in real time?”

The most important part of these technologies is their relationship withdata systems. The process of assimilation, as he sees it, makes things lessdisruptive, less distractive and friendlier. He showed a Microsoft video oftotal assimilation, a view of the future in five to 10 years. It predicted thedigital and the physical would come together. New interactive surfaces willlet you bring your ideas to life naturally. Work and create freely onwhatever device you choose. Technology can amplify our senses, transformthe world we care about and help us live, work and play.

García’s final video pointed out a remaining problem: every piece oftechnology has a good and bad side. The semantic web can expand accessto information, but can also make it easier to block content. Digital identitymanagement can enhance privacy and security but can allow collusion andprofiling by identity keepers. Privacy, accuracy, property and access are allvalid concerns. How can we be secure? How can we protect ourselves frommisleading information? We need to take these concerns into account whilewe’re creating this technology. Information ethics argues that we mustdiscover what is good for an information entity and the infosphere ingeneral. We need to discover what is good and bad for us.

A few weeks ago, he read a paper that called for an ethical code for datapractices. We need clarity of practices – we need to tell people how wecollect, process and deliver information. We need simplicity of privacysettings. We need to design information systems with privacy in mind.

He closed with a quote from Victor Hugo: “An invasion of armies can beresisted, but not an idea whose time has come.” �


www.reactivemanifesto.org/

I am delighted and honored to receive the ASIS&TAward of Merit. It is especially gratifying to berecognized for my work on the information

search process (ISP), which has grown over the yearsand continues to be important. Back in the late 80swhen I was starting out, bringing emotion into theconversation seemed more than a little strange tomany in information science. But early on ASIS&Twas open to giving me a hearing by accepting mypapers for conferences and publication.

ASIS&T has been a wonderful affiliation for me. This association providesa collaboration and dialog of research and researchers that has been immenselyimportant for me. I have benefited from being able to share ideas withresearchers in the field and hear their work year after year. It has been anannual conversation of sharing and learning over the years. I have receivedgood feedback on my ideas and some very practical advice. I remember aftermy first ASIS&T presentation, one I approached with considerable trepidation,Evelyn Daniel kindly took me aside to let me know that my slides wereterrible – way too cluttered and not readable from the back of the room.Youcan be sure that I didn’t make that mistake again. ASIS&T enabled me to seehow my research fit into the whole spectrum of information science research.Our recent name change reflects the international nature of the field, and manyof my most interesting collaborations have been with international colleagues.

This year – 2013 – marks the 30th anniversary of my work on the ISP,starting with my doctoral dissertation in 1983. I began by wanting tounderstand more about how students learn from multiple sources and why itseemed so hard for them to engage in their own inquiry. My research intotheir perspective of information seeking opened up the “big problem” thatgot me started on my scholarly journey and that still intrigues me today.

ASIS&T ANNUAL MEETING AWARD WINNERS

Award of Merit Acceptance SpeechBy Carol Collier Kuhlthau

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EDITOR’S SUMMARYAs the recipient of ASIS&T’s Award of Merit, Carol Collier Kuhlthau expressed appreciationfor the association’s influence on her scholarly development. Kuhlthau recounted the field’sexpansion and evolution from library school studies to information science, communicationand social construction. Her focus on the information search process has been driven byquestions about purpose in information seeking, user experience and affect. Her researchinto information seeking in learning has led pragmatically to Guided Inquiry, an educationaldesign framework based on the scholar’s research into the information search process.Highlighting information as central to people’s everyday lives, Kuhlthau urged informationscientists to focus on the practical implications of their work and how their research canbe broadly applied to improve society.

KEYWORDS

honors

information seeking

information models

search behavior

user experience

psychological aspects

Special Section


Carol Kuhlthau is professor emerita in the Department of Library and InformationScience at Rutgers University, where she directed the program in school librarianship.She can be reached at kuhlthau<at>rutgers.edu.

mailto:kuhlthau<at>rutgers.edu

K U H L T H A U , c o n t i n u e d

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When I studied for myMLS at Rutgers in the early 70s, it was called libraryschool. But it was very much a library and information science program. Sofrom the beginning I took an information science perspective of librarianship.

I have been interested in theories on the boundaries of library andinformation science. My undergraduate work was firmly grounded inDeweyan philosophy of education along with other learning theorists,particularly the constructivists as opposed to the behaviorists. In light of thisorientation, while studying for my master’s degree I realized that I was mostinterested in libraries for learning. So in the early 80s, when working on mydoctorate, I concentrated on information behavior that resulted in learning, andKelly’s personal construct theory from psychology clearly influenced myinformation search process model.

When I joined the Rutgers faculty, library and information sciencehad recently merged there with communication and journalism bringing ina wide range of converging perspectives. Tefko Saracevic and Nick Belkinjoined the LIS faculty as senior professors. The Ph.D. was a joint programacross the school prompting lots of discussion on theories and application.Communication brought social construction into the conversation, and thatwas particularly pertinent to my work. It was an especially fruitfulenvironment for exploring ideas, and it was fascinating to be a part of it all.

Of course the 1990s were a time of tremendous advances in informationtechnology. I started researching information behavior in a contained-collection library world, and everything changed in amazing ways within ashort time. It was a fantastic time to be doing research in library andinformation science and still is.

Three important changes in information science occurred during that time:

1. Use became an important area of interest. Questions of purposebecame important. Why do people seek information? What’s theirpurpose? How do they use it after they find it? That was right up myalley. Today it may seem strange to think of purpose not beingimportant, but only as information became available “where you areall the time” did serious questions of use come to the fore. SIG/USEis now one of the most active special interest groups in ASIS&T.

2. Users’ experiences in information seeking became an area of interest.

When I came into this field emotions were thought to be outside theparadigm of information science. But once the “black box” of users’experience was opened there was no denying the importance ofemotions in information behavior.

3. The concepts underlying information behavior became an increasinglyimportant area of interest. Researchers looked into their findings forconcepts to build the theoretical framework of information science.

It may sound like the really interesting work is behind us. I don’t thinkso. The broad range of information science research offers importantinsights into the most pressing problems of the complex informationenvironment of the 21st century. But information science research issomething of an insiders’ game. We are interested in each other’s researchfindings and build on each other’s work. For the most part there has beenonly minimal transport outside the field in this time when it would seem ourwork would be most valued. We each need to ask, “What is the value-addedthat my work brings to society as a whole?”

My own area of information seeking for learning is an example in point.Educators are struggling to transform schools to prepare students for living inthe information society. My research offers some important insight into theprocess of learning from multiple sources of information, which is central tothis task. We have developed a design framework called Guided Inquiry,based on the ISP model, that makes these concepts and insights accessiblefor school administrators, teachers and librarians to put into action in schools.

Information science is a relatively young discipline, but it is right at thecenter of every aspect of people’s lives. We are just at the beginning of the ageof information that holds tremendous potential for the future of informationscience. The big question is how information retrieval and informationbehavior research influence the way systems and services enable people tobe smarter, wiser, more creative, productive and perhaps even happier. In myview this is the challenge before every researcher in information sciencetoday. What are the implications of your work? I urge you to consider thisquestion seriously. How does your research contribute to the good of society?How can you make your findings accessible outside the field? This is awonderful time to be in this field. There is much work ahead. Let’s get going.�

Editor’s Note: Each year that the ASIS&T Research Awardis given we invite the recipient to share his or her researchgoals and discoveries with Bulletin readers. This year’srecipient is Susan C. Herring from Indiana University.

W hen I began studying computer-mediatedcommunication (CMC) in 1991, it was anovel topic of research in most academic

disciplines and by no means generally recognized aslegitimate. CMC back then consisted mainly of emailand asynchronous discussion groups – newsgroups,

mailing lists and privately hosted bulletin board systems. Internet relay chat(IRC), invented a few years before, had not yet attracted much attention;there was noWorld WideWeb; and blogs, wikis, instant messaging, textmessaging, virtual worlds, social network sites and audio and video chat hadyet to be introduced. Impoverished as this state of affairs may seem topresent generations of digital media users, to early adopters and researchersCMC appeared rich with possibilities. In attempting to come to grips with aprofoundly new set of technologies, some of my contemporaries focused onthe positive and others on the negative aspects, but few of us remainedunmoved. The potential of CMC to bring about social, organizational andlinguistic change attracted passionate speculation and debate and stimulatedempirical studies across the disciplinary spectrum.

My generation was not the first. In 1978, Roxanne Hiltz and MurrayTuroff published The Network Nation [1], in which they made foundationalobservations about communication in an experimental computer network,back when the Internet was the ARPAnet. Their book, along with a 1984article by Sara Kiesler and her colleagues, “Social Psychological Aspects ofComputer-Mediated Communication,” [2] were my earliest sources of

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Susan C. Herring is the recipient of the ASIS&T Research Award for 2013, whichrecognizes researchers whose program of research has made a major contribution toinformation science. At Indiana University, Herring is professor of information science,adjunct professor of linguistics and a fellow of the Center for Social Informatics and ofthe Center for Research on Learning Technology. She can be reached atherring<at>indiana.edu.


EDITOR’S SUMMARYOn receiving the 2013 ASIS&T Research Award, Susan Herring reflected on her earlyinterest in computer-mediated communication (CMC) in 1991, when the field was novel,limited and barely recognized. The intersection of linguistics and digital technology wereintriguing and offered potential for rich discovery. Data sources have grown from thefoundational ARPAnet to the World Wide Web and expanded from the exchange of basictextual messages to incorporate all modes of digitally mediated communication acrossunlimited platforms. The result is a vast amount of computer-mediated data, but there isstill the pressing need for structured methods and theoretical frameworks for effectiveanalysis. Herring applies discourse analysis and other linguistic approaches to CMCanalysis, increasingly in combination with a big data perspective to identify communicationpatterns in large datasets. She is eager to see further research on new analytical methods,cultural influences and the integration of telepresence robots in CMC.

KEYWORDS

computer mediated communications discourse analysis

analytic models cultural aspects

linguistics honors

digital communications

Special Section


ASIS&T ANNUAL MEETING AWARD WINNERS

Research: Computer-mediated Communicationby Susan C. Herring

mailto:herring<at>indiana.edu

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inspiration when I began investigating gender differences in CMC in 1991.Later, after I had made the decision to make CMC my main research focus, Iundertook to read everything that had ever been published about CMC (anear-impossibility back then). I came to know a number of other pioneeringstudies from the 1980s, including communication research by Ronald Rice,linguistic studies by Denise Murray and applications to teaching compositionby Gail Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe. These scholars were the real pioneers.Yet my generation had something in common with them, which was that weworked outside the mainstream in our respective disciplines; CMC was still anovelty in the early 1990s.

That condition started to change in the mid-1990s, with the impact of theWorld WideWeb and the rise in popularity and diversification of CMCsystems. Researchers rushed to characterize and analyze the latestdevelopments, which included virtual communities, virtual teams, e-commerce and online relationship formation, along with less desirabledevelopments such as deception, trolling, cyberstalking and spam. In theprocess, they published more of their work online, where it would reachaudiences faster. The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication wascreated in 1995 to publish CMC research in an online format. I had the honorof editing JCMC a decade later.Yet while many CMC researchers foundappreciative audiences and were sought out for interviews by the massmedia, they sometimes still encountered difficulties in getting their worktaken seriously by university tenure and promotion committees. Ultimately,however, the momentum proved irresistible: by the turn of the millennium,only the most conservative holdouts could deny that a new digital era was athand and that the Internet and other new digital media had significantlyaffected communication, publication and many other personal andprofessional occupations.

Today, it has become imperative to understand and manage these effects;no one questions the legitimacy of conducting research on CMC anymore.Moreover, the body of research that CMC researchers have produced hasgrown so large that no one could read all of it. True to its origins, thisresearch is broadly interdisciplinary and encompasses theoretical, empiricaland applied perspectives. The definition of CMC itself has changed over the

years, as well, from the exchange of textual messages between individualstyping on the keyboards and reading the screens of networked computers, toany digitally mediated communication. For example, although HTMLdocuments were often considered a separate phenomenon in the past, incontrast to reciprocally interactive forms of online communication, there isno longer any question that web communication is CMC.Wikis, blogs,microblogs and social network sites have blurred the boundary, together withthe ongoing tendency for older CMC modes such as email and chat to beintegrated into web browser interfaces, a phenomenon known as convergencein media studies. Mobile telephony has also come to be included in thedefinition of CMC, largely because of the resemblances between textmessaging on mobile phones and traditional modes of CMC such as IRC andinstant messaging.

One side effect of these developments has been a proliferation ofcomputer-mediated data. Such data are easy to collect, given the persistentand self-archiving nature of CMC, and they are a potentially rich source ofinsight into human behavior.Yet for all their ready availability, the cognitive,cultural, expressive, political and social meanings of online data are nottransparent: structured methods and theoretical frameworks are necessary inorder to analyze them.

When I first became interested in researching CMC, I turned to discourseanalysis for methodological inspiration. As a linguist trained in discourseanalysis techniques, I knew that the study of discourse – the “microprocessesof human communication” [3] – offered tried and true methods for analyzingspoken and written communication, with specialized paradigms for theanalysis of spontaneous conversation, institutional discourse, therapeuticinterviews, storytelling, scientific writing and the like. It seemed only naturalto extend this approach to discourse on the Internet. Thus, in the mid-1990s Ibegan adapting discourse analysis methods to the study of computer-mediated interaction. The resulting paradigm, computer-mediated discourseanalysis (CMDA), is a language-focused specialization within the broaderinterdisciplinary study of CMC [4]. CMDA differs from other forms ofdiscourse analysis in that its descriptive and interpretive apparatus cruciallytakes into account the technological affordances of CMC systems. Moreover,

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its methodological toolkit is customized toaddress common phenomena in CMC, and itsanalyses are socially, culturally and historicallysituated in the larger digital media context. Atthe same time, CMDA shares with other formsof discourse analysis the theoretical premisethat choice of word and expression ispotentially significant, beyond the requirementsof lexicon and grammar. It seeks to identifypatterns in language structure and use that mayhave been produced unconsciously, yet shedlight on broader phenomena such as decisionmaking, gender ideology, cultural identity andthe social construction of knowledge.

CMDA is a bottom-up approach, in contrastto top-down approaches that are currently popular for analyzing big datamined from the Internet. In fact, these two approaches are complementary.Of special interest to me is where they meet – where patterns can beidentified in large datasets, leveraging the power of computational analysis,that are interpretable in terms of medium and situational (social, contextual)variables such as those I have identified as influencing computer-mediateddiscourse [5]. Towards this end, I envisage an important future role forcomputational approaches to social-media analysis that are informed bydiscourse analysis and other linguistic approaches.

My students sometimes ask me where CMC research and CMDA fit inrelation to information science. I see both paradigms as overlapping with theintersection of HCI and social informatics, but with connections tocomputational approaches on one side, and to the social sciences andphilosophy of science on the other side. CMC also plays an important role inmany professional contexts, including distance education, virtual

organizations, library reference services, onlinepsychotherapy and the mass media, and, assuch, has connections to applied disciplines.Some of these relationships are depicted inFigure 1.

The future will see even more widespreaduse of CMC.What started in the United Statesas theARPAnet in the 1960s has today become atruly global Internet, with human communicationas its primary use. More studies along the linesof those collected in [6] are needed to correctthe bias in the existing literature towardsEnglish-speaking users in North Americancontexts. Digital media have also becomeincreasingly multimodal, calling for the addition

of new methods of analysis to the CMDA paradigm (see, for example,Herring 2013 [7]). Finally, communicators in virtual worlds can be embodiedin graphical avatars that have the ability to navigate in three dimensions.Recently I have become interested in communication mediated bytelepresence robots, a phenomenon that extends avatar-mediatedcommunication into physical space and adds to mobile devices theaffordance of remote navigability. CMC has indeed come a long way in afew short decades.

AcknowledgmentModified versions of the first four paragraphs of this article are

reproduced, with the permission of the publisher, from Herring, S. C. (2008).Foreword. In S. Kelsey & K. St. Amant (Eds.), Handbook of research oncomputer-mediated communication (Vol. 1, pp. xxxv–xxxvi). Hershey, PA:Information Science Reference. �

FIGURE 1. CMC scholarship in relation to other academic disciplines

Resources on following page

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FIGURE 1.

Resources Mentioned in the Article[1] Hiltz, M., & Turoff, S. R. (1978). The networked nation. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

[2] Kiesler, S., Seigel, J., & McGuire, T. W. (1984). Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated communication. American Psychologist, 39, 1123-1134.

[3] Rice, R. E., & Gattiker, U. (2000). New media and organizational structuring. In F. Jablin & L. Putnam (Eds.), New handbook of organizational communication (pp. 544–581). Newbury Park,CA: Sage.

[4] Herring, S. C. (2004). Computer-mediated discourse analysis: An approach to researching online behavior. In S. A. Barab, R. Kling, & J. H. Gray (Eds.), Designing for virtual communities inthe service of learning (pp. 338-376). New York: Cambridge University Press.

[5] Herring, S. C. (2007). A faceted classification scheme for computer-mediated discourse. Language@Internet, 4, article 1. Retrieved January 5, 2014, fromwww.languageatinternet.org/articles/2007/761.

[6] Danet, B., & Herring, S. C. (Eds.). (2007). The multilingual Internet: Language, culture, and communication online. New York: Oxford University Press.

[7] Herring, S. C. (2013). Discourse in Web 2.0: Familiar, reconfigured, and emergent. In D. Tannen & A. M. Tester (Eds.), Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics2011: Discourse 2.0: Language and new media (pp. 1-25). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

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D ata-intensive research is producing ever-highervolumes of digital data, and pressures are mountingto make that data openly accessible. Research

funding agencies, both in the United States and abroad,want to demonstrate a strong return on investment bymaking the results of federally funded research – botharticles and data – openly accessible to the public.Therefore, managing data with long-term preservation andreuse in mind is important; however, many people taskedwith managing research data, such as graduate students,have very little data management training and oftenemploy inconsistent practices. The revolving door ofincoming and outgoing graduate students also createsuncertainty about the data, its whereabouts, its status andsometimes even its accuracy.To establish data trustworthiness, data management

training programs are needed within higher educationresearch institutions. Ideally, training for these skills wouldbe integrated within the science, social science andengineering curricula so that students learn them within thecontext of their chosen fields. However, until this long-term

goal is realized, institutions are introducing trainingprograms, often from within the library, to educateresearchers in effective data management practices.What options are available to information professionals

planning data management programs at their institutions?Several programs of varying approaches are alreadyavailable, so it is not necessary to create a new trainingprogram from scratch. I briefly discuss here threerepresentative programs that I used when developing training.The first program is the New England Collaborative Data

Management Curriculum (NECDMC) (http://library.umassmed.edu/necdmc/index), which was developed by the LamarSoutter Library at the University of Massachusetts MedicalSchool in partnership with libraries from the MarineBiological Laboratory andWoods Hole OceanographicInstitution, Northeastern University, Tufts University andUniversity of Massachusetts at Amherst. The NECDMCcomprises seven modules. One module is an overview ofthe entire curriculum, and the other six modules coverdifferent aspects of managing data such as data sharing, datapreservation and metadata. PowerPoint slides and lecturecontent are available for download for each module. Onestrength of the NECDMC lies in its use of research casestudies to demonstrate and apply the concepts in practice.These case studies cover fields such as medical, engineeringand qualitative research. Another advantage of this programis its flexibility in delivery method and timeframe. For

Educating Researchers for Effective Data Managementby Christopher Eaker

Christopher Eaker is the data curation librarian at University ofTennessee Libraries. He is the first recipient of the Dr. DeborahBarreau Memorial Award for his service in the ASIS&T SpecialInterest Group/Digital Libraries (SIG/DL). He can be reached atceaker<at>utk.edu.

EDITOR’S SUMMARYAttaining the goal of long-term, openaccess to research data requiresconsistent data management, ideallyby contributing scholars. Of severalprograms available to present datamanagement instruction, three aredescribed, compared and contrastedfor use by graduate students. Thecollaborative product of six institutions,the New England Collaborative DataManagement Curriculum includes anoverview and six additional modules.Based on case studies, it features aflexible delivery method andtimeframe. The DataONE DataManagement Education Modulescover comparable topics in greaterdepth. Like the others, the Universityof Edinburgh’s MANTRA is modular. Itoffers different perspectives basedon roles and provides quizzes andadditional resources. Each of theprograms can be used for self-pacedtraining, adapted to a one-dayworkshop or spread over a semester.Research institutions should considercustomizing a program for theirspecific needs and researcher skills.

KEYWORDSdata set managementdata curationscholarsgraduate studentstraining

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those wanting a short overview session, the first module canbe covered easily in 60-90 minutes. Alternatively, all of themodules can be the foundation of a one-day workshop or beexpanded to fit a semester-long course.The second program consists of the DataONE Data

Management Education Modules(www.dataone.org/education-modules), which are a series oflessons covering tools and best practices for each stage in theDataONE Data Life Cycle. Like the NECDMC, this programis modular and can be used as the foundation for shorter orlonger courses. Although the topics covered are similar, theDataONE modules cover more than the NECDMC modules.For example, the DataONE modules include topics such asworkflows, data entry and quality control, which are veryimportant for researchers, especially those within the earthand environmental sciences, the intended audience forDataONE resources. Also, they are designed to be used as aself-study course, so the content on the presentation slidesis heavy. If used as the basis for lecture-style sessions, theslide content should be reduced to minimize the text.The third program for teaching researchers data

management best practices is the MANTRA(http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra/) course developed by theUniversity of Edinburgh. This program is modular, entirelyweb-based and uses the Xerte online learning environment,so the training modules are self-paced and interactive. Thecreators provide suggestions on where to begin the coursebased on role, such as research student, career researcher,

senior academic or information professional. Each moduleprovides an overview of the topic and provides videos,short quizzes and additional resources. Keep in mind thiscurriculum is geared towards researchers in the UnitedKingdom, so modification for the United States may benecessary in some parts.At the University of Tennessee, I have offered graduate

students from various scientific and engineeringbackgrounds a one-day data management workshop whichwas based entirely on the NECDMC.While this deliverymethod may be feasible for some, it was very preparation-heavy and ostensibly overwhelming for the students. I amapplying these lessons to future workshops by designing aseries of one-hour sessions on relevant topics and tailoringeach to different disciplines.I believe the long-term goal of injecting data

management principles into the science, engineering andsocial science curricula is the most effective way forstudents, both undergraduates and graduates, to synthesizethese skills. However, until the time such integrated datatraining exists, students will need to learn these skillselsewhere. Each institution will want a uniquely tailoredprogram best suited to its environment; for example, youmay decide a semester-long, for-credit course is mostappropriate at your institution. Whatever your chosenmethod, I hope one or a combination of these threeeducational programs will help you to meet an immediateneed on your campus. �

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