51,786 research outputs found
Preserving Social Media: the Problem of Access
As the applications and services made possible through Web 2.0 continue to proliferate and influence the way individuals exchange information, the landscape of social science research, as well as research in the humanities and the arts, has the potential to change dramatically and to be enriched by a wealth of new, user-generated data. In response to this phenomenon, the UK Data Service have commissioned the Digital Preservation Coalition to undertake a 12-month study into the preservation of social media as part of the âBig Data Networkâ programme funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The larger study focuses on the potential uses and accompanying challenges of data generated by social networking applications.
This paper, âPreserving Social Media: the Problem of Accessâ, comprises an excerpt of that longer study, allowing the authors a space to explore in closer detail the issue of making social media archives accessible to researchers and students now and in the future. To do this, the paper addresses use cases that demonstrate the potential value of social media to academic social science. Furthermore, it examines how researchers and collecting institutions acquire and preserve social media data within a context of curatorial and legislative restrictions that may prove an even greater obstacle to access than any technical restrictions. Based on analysis of these obstacles, it will examine existing methods of curating and preserving social media archives, and second, make some recommendations for how collecting institutions might approach the long-term preservation of social media in a way that protects the individuals represented in the data and complies with the conditions of third party platforms. With the understanding that web-based communication technologies will continue to evolve, this paper will focus on the overarching properties of social media, analysing and comparing current methods of curation and preservation that provide sustainable solutions
JISC Preservation of Web Resources (PoWR) Handbook
Handbook of Web Preservation produced by the JISC-PoWR project which ran from April to November 2008.
The handbook specifically addresses digital preservation issues that are relevant to the UK HE/FE web management communityâ.
The project was undertaken jointly by UKOLN at the University of Bath and ULCC Digital Archives department
DOBBS: Towards a Comprehensive Dataset to Study the Browsing Behavior of Online Users
The investigation of the browsing behavior of users provides useful
information to optimize web site design, web browser design, search engines
offerings, and online advertisement. This has been a topic of active research
since the Web started and a large body of work exists. However, new online
services as well as advances in Web and mobile technologies clearly changed the
meaning behind "browsing the Web" and require a fresh look at the problem and
research, specifically in respect to whether the used models are still
appropriate. Platforms such as YouTube, Netflix or last.fm have started to
replace the traditional media channels (cinema, television, radio) and media
distribution formats (CD, DVD, Blu-ray). Social networks (e.g., Facebook) and
platforms for browser games attracted whole new, particularly less tech-savvy
audiences. Furthermore, advances in mobile technologies and devices made
browsing "on-the-move" the norm and changed the user behavior as in the mobile
case browsing is often being influenced by the user's location and context in
the physical world. Commonly used datasets, such as web server access logs or
search engines transaction logs, are inherently not capable of capturing the
browsing behavior of users in all these facets. DOBBS (DERI Online Behavior
Study) is an effort to create such a dataset in a non-intrusive, completely
anonymous and privacy-preserving way. To this end, DOBBS provides a browser
add-on that users can install, which keeps track of their browsing behavior
(e.g., how much time they spent on the Web, how long they stay on a website,
how often they visit a website, how they use their browser, etc.). In this
paper, we outline the motivation behind DOBBS, describe the add-on and captured
data in detail, and present some first results to highlight the strengths of
DOBBS
Chemical information matters: an e-Research perspective on information and data sharing in the chemical sciences
Recently, a number of organisations have called for open access to scientific information and especially to the data obtained from publicly funded research, among which the Royal Society report and the European Commission press release are particularly notable. It has long been accepted that building research on the foundations laid by other scientists is both effective and efficient. Regrettably, some disciplines, chemistry being one, have been slow to recognise the value of sharing and have thus been reluctant to curate their data and information in preparation for exchanging it. The very significant increases in both the volume and the complexity of the datasets produced has encouraged the expansion of e-Research, and stimulated the development of methodologies for managing, organising, and analysing "big data". We review the evolution of cheminformatics, the amalgam of chemistry, computer science, and information technology, and assess the wider e-Science and e-Research perspective. Chemical information does matter, as do matters of communicating data and collaborating with data. For chemistry, unique identifiers, structure representations, and property descriptors are essential to the activities of sharing and exchange. Open science entails the sharing of more than mere facts: for example, the publication of negative outcomes can facilitate better understanding of which synthetic routes to choose, an aspiration of the Dial-a-Molecule Grand Challenge. The protagonists of open notebook science go even further and exchange their thoughts and plans. We consider the concepts of preservation, curation, provenance, discovery, and access in the context of the research lifecycle, and then focus on the role of metadata, particularly the ontologies on which the emerging chemical Semantic Web will depend. Among our conclusions, we present our choice of the "grand challenges" for the preservation and sharing of chemical information
Mixed reality participants in smart meeting rooms and smart home enviroments
Humanâcomputer interaction requires modeling of the user. A user profile typically contains preferences, interests, characteristics, and interaction behavior. However, in its multimodal interaction with a smart environment the user displays characteristics that show how the user, not necessarily consciously, verbally and nonverbally provides the smart environment with useful input and feedback. Especially in ambient intelligence environments we encounter situations where the environment supports interaction between the environment, smart objects (e.g., mobile robots, smart furniture) and human participants in the environment. Therefore it is useful for the profile to contain a physical representation of the user obtained by multi-modal capturing techniques. We discuss the modeling and simulation of interacting participants in a virtual meeting room, we discuss how remote meeting participants can take part in meeting activities and they have some observations on translating research results to smart home environments
Eavesdropping Whilst You're Shopping: Balancing Personalisation and Privacy in Connected Retail Spaces
Physical retailers, who once led the way in tracking with loyalty cards and
`reverse appends', now lag behind online competitors. Yet we might be seeing
these tables turn, as many increasingly deploy technologies ranging from simple
sensors to advanced emotion detection systems, even enabling them to tailor
prices and shopping experiences on a per-customer basis. Here, we examine these
in-store tracking technologies in the retail context, and evaluate them from
both technical and regulatory standpoints. We first introduce the relevant
technologies in context, before considering privacy impacts, the current
remedies individuals might seek through technology and the law, and those
remedies' limitations. To illustrate challenging tensions in this space we
consider the feasibility of technical and legal approaches to both a) the
recent `Go' store concept from Amazon which requires fine-grained, multi-modal
tracking to function as a shop, and b) current challenges in opting in or out
of increasingly pervasive passive Wi-Fi tracking. The `Go' store presents
significant challenges with its legality in Europe significantly unclear and
unilateral, technical measures to avoid biometric tracking likely ineffective.
In the case of MAC addresses, we see a difficult-to-reconcile clash between
privacy-as-confidentiality and privacy-as-control, and suggest a technical
framework which might help balance the two. Significant challenges exist when
seeking to balance personalisation with privacy, and researchers must work
together, including across the boundaries of preferred privacy definitions, to
come up with solutions that draw on both technology and the legal frameworks to
provide effective and proportionate protection. Retailers, simultaneously, must
ensure that their tracking is not just legal, but worthy of the trust of
concerned data subjects.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, Proceedings of the PETRAS/IoTUK/IET Living in the
Internet of Things Conference, London, United Kingdom, 28-29 March 201
The Research Object Suite of Ontologies: Sharing and Exchanging Research Data and Methods on the Open Web
Research in life sciences is increasingly being conducted in a digital and
online environment. In particular, life scientists have been pioneers in
embracing new computational tools to conduct their investigations. To support
the sharing of digital objects produced during such research investigations, we
have witnessed in the last few years the emergence of specialized repositories,
e.g., DataVerse and FigShare. Such repositories provide users with the means to
share and publish datasets that were used or generated in research
investigations. While these repositories have proven their usefulness,
interpreting and reusing evidence for most research results is a challenging
task. Additional contextual descriptions are needed to understand how those
results were generated and/or the circumstances under which they were
concluded. Because of this, scientists are calling for models that go beyond
the publication of datasets to systematically capture the life cycle of
scientific investigations and provide a single entry point to access the
information about the hypothesis investigated, the datasets used, the
experiments carried out, the results of the experiments, the people involved in
the research, etc. In this paper we present the Research Object (RO) suite of
ontologies, which provide a structured container to encapsulate research data
and methods along with essential metadata descriptions. Research Objects are
portable units that enable the sharing, preservation, interpretation and reuse
of research investigation results. The ontologies we present have been designed
in the light of requirements that we gathered from life scientists. They have
been built upon existing popular vocabularies to facilitate interoperability.
Furthermore, we have developed tools to support the creation and sharing of
Research Objects, thereby promoting and facilitating their adoption.Comment: 20 page
- âŠ