IS298A Week 9 Class Notes Tibbo and Duff

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IS 298A Class Notes Week 9

 

AccessNet loose collaboration on user studies

Duff is now at Toronto

Tibbo at UNCCH

 

 

Computer conferences..mainly threads of discussion with links across them

How much should be automated, how much manual

 

When do we throw out old methods

Quantitative statistical methods

Ist in Archivist to use statistics

Richard Cox editor, said this is what we should be running in Archivist

 

User research is hellaciously difficult to get archival researchers to participate, that’s why there is so little research

 

Conference study was a way to look at this without having to get ppl to participate

Ethnography is a way to do this

 

ADEPT project

To get the IRB protocol approved is very difficult

Universities’ students are a protected class

 

Couldn’t have done an automated analysis then, but could do it today.

 

Yakel, Bost

How could you study the shifting role in information provision. What are the implications of having the role of the archivist have less top-down authority?

 

Context keeps shifting. How can a study done now still be relevant. Need to keep studying, not stop once one group have done a single study.

 

Lit review very info retrieval study. Writing for an audience that doesn’t know the lit, so need to explain more. Relying on the ignorance of the audience.

 

American Archivist is most highly read journal in the field

 

 

Premise that university administrations is unsubstantiated

 

Anne: we could study institutional archives, first boss is the institution

Primary user of finding aid is the archivist, or the user?

 

IR: low recall high precision

Archival: want high recall search, not concerned abt the precision

Bc historians want to find the thing that no one else has seen

Tangential is valuable

 

Admin just wants the known item

 

Like ii

 

Anne writing on IR and digital archives—ask her if I can contribute?

 

 

They call it a longitudinal study, but only 5 years

They talk abt the academic calendar being unique. I disagree.

Put the best possible spin on 5 years of data

 

 

2007 Yakel, Torres

conceptual framework of community of records

 

rsh question

significance

method

lit review

find

conclusion

 

this paper does it in a more sophisticated way

the lit rev is integrated into the findings

not acceptable in some journals

 

authority and evidence

archives used for supporting narratives and storytelling. Not concerned as much with truth as with meaning. User groups with same evidence understand it differently

 

qualitative study

quotes from interviews and observations were the evidence

community informatics, ethnographic, trying to get the dynamics and workflow of the community

underserved community—genealogists; archivists are not part of this. They avoid the archivist; get at the voice of people who are not in the archival field

archivists as non-participants

 

 

what forms of evidence are more reliable/convincing? Why?

What are the most important aspects of end user studies to look at

Anne: Is there anything different abt archival end use compared to others? What is it we really want to study, how do you get at it?

 

 

 

Polar Bear

Theory framework for the paper

Keeping the theory consistent throughout

Pulled everything together

Lit rev went into archives and ??

Looking for what increases accessibility. A lot of what the attribure to increasing accessability, was inherent init being online. Ashley said the distinction didn’t quite come around

Tunner vision, recording the paths of users

Depends on audience: precision and recall

 

Anne: corollary research in education technology structuring. Process of going through a process is a learning ex[erience. When they get to a certain level, can they go out of that system?

 

Literacy acquisition

What’s different bt building literacy vs. making it easier to be used?

 

Post-modern ideas of the archivist in the finding aids

Current finding aids are not decipherable for the user? Can we do both? How can we make them dso they can serve both?

 

MT: is automated metatagging an approach here? To translate from one type to the other

 

Better way to explain in the paper: Put in a couple sentences that summarize pros and cons of using social media, then state what you’re going to use

 

Diplomacy of writing an article. You believe the research study is well conceived and then something doesn’t work. Often out of your control.

How do you address something that’s being debated in your field? Peer reviewers may not agree,and you don’t know who they are. They might just say, “this is wrong”

 

Add research question: why is this important to begin with?

 

Assumption that what’s being used in technology can’t be worked around

 

“Archivists are in the time business” – Anne

we still have this job of explaining what was going on at the time

context--archaeological

the site is no longer there

is there a difference bt when academics and when professionals do research/studies/build prototype systems? No facility for sustainability in university bc funding is over

 

 

when writing, take a stand and position yourself, whereas a professional may not be able to make as strong a statement

academics not responsible for what happens, but professional is

 

some of that tension in these pieces bc academics can push harder

 

Ashley: do people just hate researchers?

Anne: do researchers hate archivists?

 

Genealogists function as a different enityt, bc archivists don’t like working woth them

Anne: As you move more mtl into the digital world, does it change how archivists think abt the users, bc don’t see them in person as much?

 

Duff & Cherry

Interested in developing tools

Impact of this one-time class on the student users and their relationship to the archive

Relationship bt archivist and researcher “has eroded” no we don’t have to look at them

Impact scale. They didn’t return to it, but might be good to use across different studies. Goes all the way down to hostility

Comes from education research, which requires a control; no control group

Roderic: The idea of impact—they are careful what they’re doing, but shouldn’t have used the word impact

 

They never tell us what n was in the questionnaire

Discrepancy bt who completed the first and who completed the second surveys

Non-ideal scenario

 

No statistical evidence of significance

 

Roderic: does this work like LIS approach? Thought they were explicitly using a comparison

 

Anne:

One of the huge user studies Conway

Conway said ppl learn abt archives: word of mouth

Would be interesting – ask students what did they tell their friends abt the project/orientation

 

MT: put the ppl together with the control group and see what they talk abt and where the interest lies. Do the control ppl wish they’d had the instruction, as well?

 

Yakel puts all of her research protocols

This one exposes the questionnaires

What are the pros and cons of publishing interview protocols?

Most dissertation committees require it

 

 

Anne: In findings, may say if we were doing it again, we’d change the protocols in TK way.

 

Normally goes in the appendix, though that’s not what I have seen so far.

 

Anne: if doing marketing or psych research, might not want ppl to see it

On the whole, in terms of research transparency and ethics, you should

 

Journals with short pieces, but archival journals often

Often a link to instrunments

 

How to make the links persistent over time

Anne: dissertation: all rules for the expert system had to go into the dissertation

 

Embargoing dissertation for commercial developments, further research

Is a possibility

 

In theory, ppl should be able to replicate what you’ve done

 

Anne: building a cumulative trajectory – her note, not sure what it relates to

There have been here in the library. There have been lawsuits abt ppl trolling theses that are in the library.

Formula for Viagra was developed as part of a students’ work then the faculty got the patents

Same has happened with software development, as well

Have to protect your work, but have to deposit thesis/dissertation, etc.

You want ppl picking up on your work

 

Exploratory studies not ok in LIS, but in a new field, it’s ok/common

Have to do exploratory work

 

See how one research has built her career trajectory

Does the work get more sophisticated over time. Always one-off exploratory studies? InterPARES is one aof few examples of work building on cumulative work

Affected by fundung agencies, ethos of the university where you work, hot topics research is highly problematic at the in the professional school. Doesn’t help the professional field to do one small study and then move onto something else

 

MT: stick to previous research and add in the hot topics

 

Political situation affects funding agencies

 

Which studies and evidence were most convincing to you?

 

For which rsch questions are each mothod most appropriate

 

MT: does anyone do parallel studies? One quant and one qual?

Can this be the basis for career trajectory?

 

Journals usually only publish resch with positive results

 

You do see ppl now doing more sophisticated quantitative/statistical work and ethnographic work

 

 

Could you develop a really cool participative study geared toward your audience?

 

Anne:

Often can see the reading list of a class in early doctoral works

 

Tenure track system, you need a good 3 refereed articles a year – makes it hard to do longitudinal studies

MT: then should you partner with a tenured faculty member to get your name on some longitudinal stuff?

 

Fast work is tought. No historical methods or ethnography

HCI, surverys, interviews, rapid protoyping

Could you restructure academia so it supports the kind of research the field needs? Happens in other fields

 

LIS is very end-user oriented, whereas archival field is very document-focused

 

 

 

Next week, print out for everyone copies of what you have, but bring electronic copy as well. So as we talk, if you need to modify, can do so on the fly

We’ll be going through your research questions. Turn in the electronic copy. Include a bibliography, as well.

As an additional document, not just in spreadsheet

AERI and our own school wants to see it as well. Overall matrix and then a bibliography.

Bullet point, not abstract

For the heading, provide a definition

A sentence or two abt the scope of that area

Can reconcile overlap at the research-question level

What are the major research questions showing up, and related archival questions

Explaining the archival related areas takes a bit of abstract thinking. Add a few sentences of explanation of the area before the questions themselves

Bite-size questions that deal with building over time

Any question you ask must be achievable

The ppl developing these statements and agendas, haven’t had people dealing with these issues

What part of this work is sthg we could help with

If anyone is enunciating something in this framework, they haven’t solved the problem

Think abt entry-point, more sophisticated, complex questions for each

We can’t be comprehensive, but want can indicate contributions at different levels

 

If any of the archival research interests you, you are all eligible to come to AERI next June16  in U of Texas

Announcement in early January

Funding is covered

Always highly subscribed. Apply early.

Everybody needs to contribute sthg (paper, poster, presentation, workshop)

 

What were the decision points? How did we decide what questions to include/exclude?

 

Include commentary about what was easy and difficult abt the grand challenges work

 

 

Human Rights/Social Justice

Defining

This including the following aspects, including the different ways those aspects are understood

 

Define terms and scope

Use footnotes here

How can the archivist assist in social justice issues?

Examples: enabling logistical access to archives—can access

Protecting equal access to archives—allowed to access

“fullest-possible access” footnote why

 

pertinence

creating rkkg systems when archives where none exist; ensuring they are used and effective

 

ensuring implemented and effective rkkg systems in every environment

break that down into research questions

  1. why aren’t there imp, eff
  2. what does effective mean

ask the questions in ways the can be operationalized

raising those issues is opp for further research to ameliorate the situation/s

 

ensuring authenticity/reliability trust is an overarching theme

ensuring memory in the digital age

community archiving, ensuring that access remains culturally appropriate

UN declaration on Indigenous Rights

 

 

MT: footnote lists of relevant funding agencies and bibliographies

 

Ownership and intellectual property issues

 

Look at areas where archival research is happening now from table Anne gave us first class

 

IPINCH

 

 

Accountability, data mgmt., ensuring adequate documentation/metadata, ensuring widest possible access, cultural representation and accessibility

Policy questions abt ownership, what is a record? Legally effective?

 

Peace security human rights, record is useless if it can be challenged in court

 

Cultural preservation as well as documentary

Loss of memory

Relationship bt citizen and state

 

WIPO

Preserving rights to intellectual property rights

Can be at odds with some of the other grand challenges

 

Every time you run into sthg you’re not sure what to do with, turn it into a question

 

Who sets the rkkg standards, power dynamic

 

Evidence-based decision making – incredibly political in most cases

Very important theme

Kind of data, how it is interpreted

How to evaluate effectiveness

 

Ethics clearance to do research – very sophisticated rkkg system

 

Accountable rkkg system

Parallelism and scalability

 

Why particular funding agencies justify literary warrant. These agencies have important stature, we’re using

Home in on specific words

He needs aren’t articulated from our perspective and expertise

Here’s what we can do with those kinds of problems

 

 

Climate change

All of the organizations have lists of priorities

Developing innovation

Crowdsource data collection projects

Thinking about how to create infrastructure to susatian crowdsource and commubity created

Bit forcus on industry

Intel stndarads of reporting

Where does the money go in rkkg requirements?? Citizen science projects. Sustainability and long-term project intl policy and rkkg requirements for corporations

Costcutting

Social justice within climate change

Meet needs of underserved

**Funding as well as risk assessment

advocacy..how does it relate to rkkg?

Accessibility/reporting is a form of advocacy

To advocate you have to have organization; infrastructure

Help them develop their infras to promote advocacy

Data collection. Policymakers sometimes don’t accept community generated data

Often need access to other people’s data and can’t have it

Land rights. Need to be able to trace ownership of land – property tracing

Indigenous water rights structure, settlers formalized water rights, then big industries those three layers of ideas abt property don’t intereact well together

Water land, juridical systems is part of that, too

Oral versus written

Negotiate on an international level

Sharing of cap and trade points

Policy

Interacting epistemologies, ontologies, cultural systems. How do you not squeeze out the less empowered?

Climate change is all abt longitudinal. Trying to read across and merge all different kinds of data (stories, memories, statistics)

This is the evidence stuff

Rights tracing

Responsibilities

Educational aspect, too

 

 

Sustainability – our piece has a lot to do with preservation, resilience, documentation that can support cultutral sustainability

Recovery, repatriation,

Natural disaster: relationship to protecting documents as well as data collection

Vulnerability of records to natural disaster

A lot of physical infrastructure came down with Northridge eqrthquake. Unincorporated areas emergency surfaces not permitted to cross

What they learned abt the value of forward-thinking and valuation

Making sure comm and rkkg systems could speak to each other plus prior permissions on file in the case of natural disasters

 

 

Data sharing after war-related events, too

Collaborative research across communities of conflict and intl standards that govern those types of projects

Need to know what data is out there, where the rkkg systems are, if everything is too close together, you may lose all of that at the same time

 

How do you produce evidence that will stand up to challenges? Comes up in health care as well – esp epidemiology

Archival theme – make sure the data is trustworthy. Need all the controls and access and process things taken care of

 

Communicating to the public is completely different from legal records

Lawyers only want the documents that will strengthen their case

Litigation support systems – huge archival issue to find just those things that will win you the case

 

When you have to convince the public, actually trying to convince the public that the archives are trustworthy

Dealing with uninformed ppl

New data-gathering techniques can be helpful – i.e. cloudsourcing

Doctoral exam question:

Where does citizen science data fit in the form of the archive?

Corp governance and info society

 

They haven’t delved into this area at all

What the different agencies have funded is very pragmatic toward how do you run a business

Maximizing profit

Which role role does borad composition/voting rights paly?

Investor responsibility

Interaction with public sphere

Stakeholder issues

How research into corp governance itself – relationship with academia

Sarbanes-oxley act

Are corporations really thinking seriously bt the relationship bt records mgmt. and their bottom line

Risk management and enterprise mgmt. done through rkkg structure

 

Corporate questions in healthcare – pass to morten

 

Corp issues versus corp governance

Board/leaders have responsibilities, which ties into archival issues

 

Privacy info society

Social economic justice

Balance of power

Human rights

Freedom of speech

Public poly confidence and trust

Egovernment

Specific cases in big data

Logic of big data’s knowledge base

Data mining

Logic of a small part of the knowledge base, extrapolate out

Privacy issues: preserving technologies for long-term research

NASA

Ethical issues in the archive field bc development of technology is confidential

Taxpayers fund vast amts of work, but they can’t release it

Urban legend is that NASA lost a vast amt of data – what does it mean when taxpayers pay, and then  organization loses

 

Some questions are unique to info sci

Ethics issues, equitable access to info tech and data stores, pace of technological change (fundamentally an info problem)

 

Next week, get down to talking about specific questions. Come back with a print out to work through in class. Help each other refine questions, level of granularity

 

Scale? To hit the high points, if you didn’t have them there, ppl would criticize. Expecred topics, most often surfacing topics, include some that operate at diff levels of granularity.

 

Operationalizable? Research project around the question? Bite-sized? Implemented in multiple diff settings, basis for more advanced research? Is there anything that is obvious that we’re missing?

 

Immediate impact that a funding agency would actually put money behind

 

How do we get rrkg issues on the map in this field?

 

Specific examples and then the narrative we do with the crosscutting themes

 

See how ppl arrive at research questions, articulate it and explain what this field does that can contribute