ibibliometrics: Measuring Ten Years of Free-Range Academic Web Publishing

This research is a bibliometric study of descriptive information on the individual sites comprising the ibiblio.org academic web server. It hopes to acquire a snapshot of the general content, age, and sizes of the collections as a whole, and to look for any patterns or similarities among the publishing habits of its contributors. Initial measurements of dates, sizes and genres of ibiblio collections and other web directories revealed that one of the Internet's oldest and largest public archives suffers little of the stagnation and collection role that would be expected of such an organization. Its content slants towards the Arts and Entertainment, Technology, and History UDC categories, and that most of its physical collections web space is consumed by multimedia content

Proceedings, MSVSCC 2013

Proceedings of the 7th Annual Modeling, Simulation & Visualization Student Capstone Conference held on April 11, 2013 at VMASC in Suffolk, Virginia

Youth as E-Citizens: Engaging the Digital Generation

"Youth as E-Citizens: Engaging the Digital Generation" provides a groundbreaking overview of Web-based efforts to increase youth civic engagement. Beginning with a close-up examination of website content, the report also examines the organizations and institutions creating that content, and the larger environment in which civic sites function. The full report offers:Case studies of high-profile sites' strategies for launch, visibility and funding; the online response to 9/11; and online youth activism.Discussion of the potential that websites offer to build lasting habits of civic involvement. Current developments in technology, regulation and law that raise urgent questions about the viability of the civic Web.In addition, the project has created an online showcase of top youth civic websites. To see how they use the Internet to facilitate civic involvement and learning, take the Online Tour (http://centerforsocialmedia.org/ecitizens/index.htm)!"Youth as E-Citizens" was initiated by the Center for Media Education. With the closing of the Center in the fall of 2003, the project joined the Center for Social Media. Initial funding for this multi-year research project was provided by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). The Ford Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Packard Foundation, and the Surdna Foundation also provided critical support

TV in the Age of the Internet: Information Quality of Science Fiction TV Fansites

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, Information Science, 2011Communally created Web 2.0 content on the Internet has begun to compete with information provided by traditional gatekeeper institutions, such as academic journals, medical professionals, and large corporations. On the one hand, such gatekeepers need to understand the nature of this competition, as well as to try to ensure that the general public are not endangered by poor quality information. On the other hand, advocates of free and universal access to basic social services have argued that communal efforts can provide as good or better-quality versions of commonly needed resources. This dissertation arises from these needs to understand the nature and quality of information being produced on such websites. Website-oriented information quality (IQ) literature spans at least 15 different academic fields, a survey of which identified two types of IQ: perceptual and artifactual fitness-related, and representational accuracy and completeness-related. The current project studied websites in terms of all of these, except perceptual fitness. This study may be the only of its kind to have targeted fansites: websites made by fans of a mass media franchise. Despite the Internet's becoming a primary means by which millions of people consume and co-produce their entertainment, little academic attention has been paid to the IQ of sites about the mass media. For this study, the four central non-studio-affiliated sites about a highly popular and fan-engaging science fiction television franchise, Stargate, were chosen, and their IQ examined across sites having different sizes as well as editorial and business models. As exhaustive of samples as possible were collected from each site. Based on 21 relevant variables from the IQ literature, four qualitative and 17 exploratory statistical analyses were conducted. Key findings include: five possibly new IQ criteria; smaller sites concerned more with pleasing connoisseuring fans than the general public; larger sites being targeted towards older users; professional editors serving their own interests more than users'; wikis' greater user freedom attracting more invested and balanced writers; for-profit sites being more imposing upon, and less protecting of, users than non-profit sites; and the emergence of common writing styles, themes, data fields, advertisement types, linking strategies, and page types

Assessment of agricultural information needs in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States for CTA’s Products and Services: Phase II: Caribbean: Country Report: Belize

Objectives of the Study The objectives of this study are (i) to identify agricultural information needs of key actors / beneficiaries for CTA products and services; (ii) to identify needs of potential actors / beneficiaries of CTA activities and services in terms of building capacity for information and communication management; (iii) to identify potential partners / beneficiaries for CTA activities and services; (iv) to develop some baseline data to facilitate subsequent monitoring activities.This study commissioned by CTA aims to identify agricultural information needs of key actors / beneficiaries for CTA products and services, potential actors ..and, to develop some baseline data to facilitate subsequent monitoring activities

Theories of Informetrics and Scholarly Communication

Scientometrics have become an essential element in the practice and evaluation of science and research, including both the evaluation of individuals and national assessment exercises. Yet, researchers and practitioners in this field have lacked clear theories to guide their work. As early as 1981, then doctoral student Blaise Cronin published "The need for a theory of citing" —a call to arms for the fledgling scientometric community to produce foundational theories upon which the work of the field could be based. More than three decades later, the time has come to reach out the field again and ask how they have responded to this call. This book compiles the foundational theories that guide informetrics and scholarly communication research. It is a much needed compilation by leading scholars in the field that gathers together the theories that guide our understanding of authorship, citing, and impact

Theories of Informetrics and Scholarly Communication

Scientometrics have become an essential element in the practice and evaluation of science and research, including both the evaluation of individuals and national assessment exercises. Yet, researchers and practitioners in this field have lacked clear theories to guide their work. As early as 1981, then doctoral student Blaise Cronin published The need for a theory of citing - a call to arms for the fledgling scientometric community to produce foundational theories upon which the work of the field could be based. More than three decades later, the time has come to reach out the field again and ask how they have responded to this call. This book compiles the foundational theories that guide informetrics and scholarly communication research. It is a much needed compilation by leading scholars in the field that gathers together the theories that guide our understanding of authorship, citing, and impact

Network Analysis of Scientific Collaboration and Co-authorship of the Trifecta of Malaria, Tuberculosis and Hiv/aids in Benin.

Despite the international mobilization and increase in research funding, Malaria, Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS are three infectious diseases that have claimed more lives in sub Saharan Africa than any other place in the World. Consortia, research network and research centers both in Africa and around the world team up in a multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach to boost efforts to curb these diseases. Despite the progress in research, very little is known about the dynamics of research collaboration in the fight of these Infectious Diseases in Africa resulting in a lack of information on the relationship between African research collaborators. This dissertation addresses the problem by documenting, describing and analyzing the scientific collaboration and co-authorship network of Malaria, Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in the Republic of Benin. We collected published scientific records from the Web Of Science over the last 20 years (From January 1996 to December 2016). We parsed the records and constructed the coauthorship networks for each disease. Authors in the networks were represented by vertices and an edge was created between any two authors whenever they coauthor a document together. We conducted a descriptive social network analysis of the networks, then used mathematical models to characterize them. We further modeled the complexity of the structure of each network, the interactions between researchers, and built predictive models for the establishment of future collaboration ties. Furthermore, we implemented the models in a shiny-based application for co-authorship network visualization and scientific collaboration link prediction tool which we named AuthorVis. Our findings suggest that each one of the collaborative research networks of Malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB has a complex structure and the mechanism underlying their formation is not random. All collaboration networks proved vulnerable to structural weaknesses. In the Malaria coauthorship network, we found an overwhelming dominance of regional and international contributors who tend to collaborate among themselves. We also observed a tendency of transnational collaboration to occur via long tenure authors. We also find that TB research in Benin is a low research productivity area. We modeled the structure of each network with an overall performance accuracy of 79.9%, 89.9%, and 93.7% for respectively the malaria, HIV/AIDS, and TB coauthorship network. Our research is relevant for the funding agencies operating and the national control programs of those three diseases in Benin (the National Malaria Control Program, the National AIDS Control Program and the National Tuberculosis Control Program)