Annotation evolution: how Web 2.0 technologies are enabling a change in annotation practice

Are Web 2.0 tools and technologies changing how and why scholars annotate their research sources? We begin to answer this question by assessing current technology and tools that support new functions for one of the most common scholarly research activity: taking notes. The results suggest a new approach to personalized information retrieval.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

When citing data, what thing are you actually citing?

When citing data, what thing are you actually citing? In particular, when a data identifier "like a DOI" is included in the citation, what, exactly, does that identifier actually denote? The trivial answer "that data" will not help us understand the practical implications of assigning identifiers to scientific products and evolve identifier systems that support data sharing, linked open data, and service oriented architectures. Identifiers included in citations often function as citable locators (Duerr et al., 2011), supporting discoverability, retrieval, and access: "such an identifier should lead readers at any time in the future to the exact data used in the work that led to the publication" (Duerr et al., 2011). This works reasonably well in communities with shared practices and expectations. But it leaves open a precise understanding of what sort of thing it is that we are being lead to, or, how we can interpret an identifier as referring to a thing rather than leading us to it. For instance, when the same data is made available in different encoding formats, what is the actual thing identifiers denote? And what is the expected outcome of their resolution? Drawing from previous work conducted by the Data Conservancy Data Concepts group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Renear et al., 2010, Sacchi et al., 2011, Sacchi et al., 2012, Wickett et al., 2012), this poster is intended to engage the data curation community in a discussion of how we might begin an approach to this problem by assigning identifiers at different levels of abstraction. To initiate this discussion we propose three major levels: (a) data content (the scientific content carried by a set of data), (b) data itself (the primary expression of that content), and (c) data product (encodings of that data) (Sacchi et. al, 2011). By asking the community to discuss how they use existing identifier schemes and what levels are important to them, we hope to elicit new implications for consistent data citation practice and data reuse

Significant Properties of Complex Digital Artifacts: Open Issues from a Video Game Case Study

In this poster we present the preliminary output of a study meant to analyze the applicability of the InSPECT Assessment Framework to a particular kind of complex digital artifact: video games. We discuss open issues and possible improvements in the assessment workflow

No thing is preserved in digital preservation. A preservation–as–communication approach towards modeling information preservation

When we look at the kinds of things that participate in the representation of information in digital form, it appears that preservation as traditionally conceived does not literally apply. No thing appears to be literally preserved in digital preservation. If digital preservation is not about preserving things, what is it about, exactly

Digital preservation and the flow of information in a digital environment: Towards sound conceptual and modeling foundations for digital preservation

This poster presents the first component of a formal framework for digital preservation. Digital resources are modeled from a cognitive perspective that addresses their communication function as information–carrying entities. Preservation expectation are expressed according to four basic units of analysis

A comprehensive analysis of expenditure decentralization and of the composition of local public spending

Many industrialized countries have recently implemented fiscal decentralization reforms assigning more competences and spending responsibilities to sub-national governments. In this paper we investigate what leads to the decentralization of different categories of public expenditure in 19 developed countries over the period 1980-2006. Adopting a general-to specific empirical approach, we estimate different models for each of the spending functions under analysis. Our results confirm existing findings on the negative link between regional income disparities and expenditure decentralization. A similarly negative relationship is found for a set of demographic variables, leading to the conclusion that macroeconomic and, more importantly, political factors are the key to explain the recently increased decentralization levels in most industrialized countries. Finally, we complete our analysis by studying what determines the sub-national expenditure composition, finding that political and demographic changes are the most important factors in shaping the local spending mix

What do we mean by 'preserving digital information'? Towards sound conceptual foundations for digital stewardship

Digital preservation is fundamental to information stewardship in the 21st century. Although much useful work on preservation strategies has been accomplished, we do not yet have an adequate conceptual framework that articulates precisely and formally what preservation actually is. The intention of the account provided here is to bring us closer to this goal. Following an initial analysis of the concept of preservation as it occurs in ordinary discourse around digital stewardship, several influential preservation models are analyzed, identifying both useful insights and problems. A framework of interrelated concepts is then developed that analyzes the challenges of long term digital stewardship through the lens of information communication. Successful digital stewardship is understood as reliable, mediated, intentional communication with an emphasis on the agents involved in the process and the roles they play in supporting the intended flow of information through time and inevitable changes in the underlying mediating communication technology. The complex notion of the digital object, commonly considered the persistent unit of digitally–communicated information, is unpacked into its fundamental abstract and concrete components, avoiding the common category mistakes that pervade digital preservation discourse and impede a clear understanding of the nature of preservation. This conceptual framework makes use of the conceptual machinery of Situation Theory [Devlin, 1995] and the Gricean theory of meaning [Grice, 1957,Grice, 1968]. The notion of an interpretive frame [Dubin et al., 2011] is adopted here to model the contingent mapping between the fundamental components involved in the representation of information and extended with the notion of a constraint (from Situation Theory) to clarify the role of agent intentionality in the process of establishing the appropriate mappings that ultimately support the successful communication of units of information. This agent–based intentional perspective not only captures the social and contextual nature of successful digital stewardship, but also promises to support a finer grained analysis of preservation expectations from different stakeholders and the potential practical strategies to fulfill them. This research is intended as a contribution to the overall digital preservation agenda by bringing us closer to sound conceptual foundations for the long–term stewardship of our digital scientific and cultural heritage

Content, Format, and Interpretation

The connection between notation and the content it expresses is always contingent, and mediated through complex layers of interpretation. Some content bears directly on the encoder's intention to convey a particular meaning, while other content concerns the structures in and through which that meaning is expressed and organized. Interpretive frames are abstractions that serve as context for symbolic expressions. They form a backdrop of dependencies for data management and preservation strategies. Situation semantics offers a theoretical grounding for interpretive frames that integrates them into a general theory of communication through markup and other notational structures

Will Formal Preservation Models Require Relative Identity?

The problem of identifying and re–identifying data put the notion of of ”same data” at the very heart of preservation, integration and interoperability, and many other fundamental data curation activities. However, it is also a profoundly challenging notion because the concept of data itself clearly lacks a precise and univocal definition. When science is conducted in small communicating groups, with homogeneous data these ambiguities seldom create problems and solutions can be negotiated in casual real-time conversations. However when the data is heterogeneous in encoding, content and management practices, these problems can produce costly inefficiencies and lost opportunities. We consider here the relative identity view which apparently provides the most natural interpretation of common identity statements about digitally–encoded data. We show how this view conflicts with the curatorial and management practice of “data” objects, in terms of their modeling, and common knowledge representation strategies

Definitions of Dataset in the Scientific and Technical Literature

The integration of heterogeneous data in varying formats and from diverse communities requires an improved understanding of the concept of a dataset, and of key related concepts, such as format, encoding, and version. Ultimately, a normative formal framework of such concepts will be needed to support the effective curation, integration, and use of shared multi-disciplinary scientific data. To prepare for the development of this framework we reviewed the definitions of dataset found in technical documentation and the scientific literature. Four basic features can be identified as common to most definitions: grouping, content, relatedness, and purpose. In this summary of our results we describe each of these features, indicating the directions a more formal analysis might take