Driving usage – what are publishers and librarians doing to evaluate and promote usage?

Although a relatively recent phenomenon, measuring the usage of published research has rapidly become one of the most important ways to evaluate the relative value of different publications. Libraries and publishers are also investigating the impact of interface and technology provision in improving resource discovery and content usage. Demand for such data is increasing throughout the industry, partly in response to greater scrutiny of return on investment. As a result the techniques used by publishers and librarians to promote and evaluate usage are also developing. This paper looks at some of the methods currently adopted and examines the issues faced by the industry in driving forward the application of usage data

Platforms and the Fall of the Fourth Estate: Looking Beyond the First Amendment to Protect Watchdog Journalism

Journalists see the First Amendment as an amulet, and with good reason. It has long protected the Fourth Estate—an independent institutional press—in its exercise of editorial discretion to check government power. This protection helped the Fourth Estate flourish in the second half of the twentieth century and ably perform its constitutional watchdog role. But in the last two decades, the media ecology has changed. The Fourth Estate has been subsumed by a Networked Press in which journalists are joined by engineers, algorithms, audience, and other human and non-human actors in creating and distributing news. The Networked Press’s most powerful members are platforms. These platforms—companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter—shun the media label even as they function as information gatekeepers and news editors. Their norms and values, including personalization and speed, stymie watchdog reporting. The Networked Press regime significantly threatens watchdog journalism, speech that is at the core of the press’s constitutional role. Yet, limited by the state action doctrine, the First Amendment cannot shield this speech from a threat by private actors like platforms. Today, the First Amendment is insufficient to protect a free press that can serve as a check on government tyranny. This article argues that we must look beyond the First Amendment to protect watchdog journalism from the corrosive power of platforms. It describes the limits of the First Amendment and precisely how platforms threaten watchdog journalism. It also proposes a menu of extra-constitutional options for bolstering this essential brand of speech

Exploring the information behaviour of users of Welsh Newspapers Online through web log analysis

Purpose – Webometric techniques have been applied to many websites and online resources, especially since the launch of Google Analytics (GA). To date, though, there has been little consideration of information behaviour in relation to digitised newspaper collections. The purpose of this paper is to address a perceived gap in the literature by providing an account of user behaviour in the newly launched Welsh Newspapers Online (WNO). Design/methodology/approach – The author collected webometric data for WNO using GA and web server content logs. These were analysed to identify patterns of engagement and user behaviour, which were then considered in relation to existing information behaviour. Findings – Use of WNO, while reminiscent of archival information seeking, can be understood as centring on the web interface rather than the digitised material. In comparison to general web browsing, users are much more deeply engaged with the resource. This engagement incorporates reading online, but users’ information seeking utilises website search and browsing functionality rather than filtering in newspaper material. Information seeking in digitised newspapers resembles the model of the “user” more closely than that of the “reader”, a value-laden distinction which needs further unpacking. Research limitations/implications – While the behaviour discussed in this paper is likely to be more widely representative, a larger longitudinal data set would increase the study’s significance. Additionally, the methodology of this paper can only tell us what users are doing, and further research is needed to identify the drivers for this behaviour. Originality/value – This study provides important insights into the underinvestigated area of digitised newspaper collections, and shows the importance of webometric methods in analysing online user behaviour

ShenZhen transportation system (SZTS): a novel big data benchmark suite

Data analytics is at the core of the supply chain for both products and services in modern economies and societies. Big data workloads, however, are placing unprecedented demands on computing technologies, calling for a deep understanding and characterization of these emerging workloads. In this paper, we propose ShenZhen Transportation System (SZTS), a novel big data Hadoop benchmark suite comprised of real-life transportation analysis applications with real-life input data sets from Shenzhen in China. SZTS uniquely focuses on a specific and real-life application domain whereas other existing Hadoop benchmark suites, such as HiBench and CloudRank-D, consist of generic algorithms with synthetic inputs. We perform a cross-layer workload characterization at the microarchitecture level, the operating system (OS) level, and the job level, revealing unique characteristics of SZTS compared to existing Hadoop benchmarks as well as general-purpose multi-core PARSEC benchmarks. We also study the sensitivity of workload behavior with respect to input data size, and we propose a methodology for identifying representative input data sets

Reports Of Conferences, Institutes, And Seminars

This quarter\u27s column offers coverage of multiple sessions from the 2016 Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) Conference, held April 3–6, 2016, in Austin, Texas. Topics in serials acquisitions dominate the column, including reports on altmetrics, cost per use, demand-driven acquisitions, and scholarly communications and the use of subscriptions agents; ERMS, access, and knowledgebases are also featured

Digital Transitions: Nonprofit Investigative Journalism: Evaluation Report on the Center for Public Integrity

Summarizes outcomes of a one-year grant to CPI to transform itself into a leader in digital nonprofit journalism. Examines CPI's track record, use of new tools and methods, capacity as an effective and credible online presence, and areas for improvement

Linking Audiences to News: A Network Analysis of Chicago Websites

The mass media model, which sustained news and information in communities like Chicago for decades, is being replaced by a "new news ecosystem" consisting of hundreds of websites, podcasts, video streams and mobile applications. In 2009, The Chicago Community Trust set out to understand this ecosystem, assess its health and make investments in improving the flow of news and information in Chicagoland. The report you are reading is one of the products of the Trust's local information initiative, Community News Matters. "Linking Audiences to News: A Network Analysis of Chicago Websites" is one of the first -- perhaps the first -- research projects seeking to understand a local