JasonMorrison.net

To complete my MS in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management at Kent State I did some research on folksonomies and how the can support information retrieval.  I compared social bookmarking systems with search engines and directories.  I’m hoping to see the results published in an academic journal.   In the mean time, you can see a pre-publication copy of my results:

Tagging and searching [pdf, 989K]

Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim line up of shows has become a real force in pop culture. It’s ratings now demolish late night mainstays like The Tonight Show and Late Show With David Letterman among 18- to 24-year olds (by 24 and 56 percent, respectively)¹. Aqua Teen Hunger Force, created by Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis, is an illustrative example of the kind of programming drawing viewers from more traditional fare to Cartoon Network. In the show, animated anthropomorphic fast food items Frylock, Master Shake and Meatwad deal with an equally colorful array of enemies, including the alien Mooninites, Inignot and Err. The three protagonists live in a house in New Jersey, next door to Carl, their human and not particularly friendly neighbor.

The show has reoccurring characters but little in the way of overarching themes, continuity, or logic. It commonly employs foul language (although the worst of it is beeped), explosions, and gross-out humor. It would be easy to dismiss it as yet another artifact of the steady decline of western civilization - although that attitude is probably premature. People have been bemoaning the decline of civilization at least since Socrates was put to death for corrupting the youth.² There is more to this show than a surface reading would betray, and the characters of the Mooninites provide a good example of why.

The Mooninites are very popular among the show’s fans. Proof can be found in online discussion forums - in one, they are voted funniest villains by four out of nine posters.³ The characters were obviously inspired by early arcade and Atari games. Their spaceship, for example, would fit in perfectly in Space Invaders, and the sounds made when they walk, jump, or fire their lasers seem to come directly from games like Pac Man. Their bodies are squared and pixelated, as if they were rendered with limited processing power. The theme of alien enemies descending randomly from space is seen in many classic games, from Space Invaders to Galaga.

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Systems of Knowledge Organization for Digital Libraries:

Beyond Traditional Authority Files

(G Hodge - 2000)

One thing I liked was this definition:

“A KOS serves as a bridge between the user’s information need and the material in the collection. With it, the user should be able to identify an object of interest without prior knowledge of its existence.”

I like the notion that a KOS helps users find resources they’re not even aware of. I think that’s an important goal.

An impression I get from a lot of LIS people is a mild disdain for the web. Obviously the web is in many ways unstructured and can be difficult to use in ways that library systems are not. At one point the article states that “Someone recently compared the Web with a large room filled with books that were scattered all over the floor.”

The description above is an example of the kind of lame metaphors this disdain fosters. If the web is a large room filled with books, it is the largest room that has ever existed; the vast majority of books are available virtually for free; and although they are scattered all over the floor, thousands of people will freely provide you with maps to find books on certain subjects, and everyone is provided with magical binoculars that let them see deep inside books and find a single phrase.

I’m not saying that bringing better standards to the web any devising better KOSs to organize web resources is bad, just that it seems like many LIS people take the existence of the web for granted.

One thing mentioned throughout this article is the high cost of indexing and cataloging or merging different cataloging schemes together. I think the costs may be exaggerated in some ways. For example, if you wish to catalog web resources for educators and for medical professionals, two groups that probably have different terminology for similar concepts, you don’t need to pay thousands of grad students to index everything under one, then the other scheme. Instead develop a mapping system that translates between the two types of terminology. The mapping system would be a big project and have to be very robust, but once it’s built it can run behind the scenes when anyone does any kind of searching. The article mentions cases where this has been done (with MESH terms, for example) but insists that it is a high-cost venture.

Similarly, what’s wrong with using the users of the indexing system as the workforce? Logs of search terms and phrases and how they are used together can be analyzed. Users can be tracked to see which titles or abstracts they click on when searching for certain terms, how long they spend at that resources, etc. Users can even be asked to rate resources and search results. If you are in the market for a hard drive or digital camera, I recommend you go to bizrate.com, pricegrabber.com, or any of a dozen services that allow users to rate both products and merchants, making it easy to find a good LCD monitor at a reputable dealer despite the massive anonymity of the Internet and the ease of creating fly-by-night stores or selling junk merchandise online. Something similar could be done to winnow out junk information and organize information resources.

Note: this report shows the results of a usability test of the Information Architecture and Knowledge Management program web site at Kent State University in 2003. The site has since been redesigned.

1. Introduction

In usability study of the IAKM web site I found a number of serious problems. Current IAKM students were asked to complete a series of tasks using the site. Although participants were able to complete the tasks 91.67 percent of the time, they met all performance goals for each task only 36.11 percent of the time. The site is not fundamentally broken, but clearly there is room for improvement. Through statistical analysis, observations of the students, and remarks made by the students a number of issues were uncovered.

Many of the problems were global problems with site navigation and labeling, but there were also a number of prominent local problems. The severity of problems were rated via three categories:

• Severe—prevents the user from completing a task or results in catastrophic loss of data or time.
• Moderate—significantly hinders task completion but users can find a work-around.
• Minor—irritating to the user but does not significantly hinder task completion. (Artim, 1).

Problems are also rated by scope. Any problem can be either global, meaning it applies to most pages or the site as a whole, or local, meaning it is particular to a page or specific section. Global problems are generally more pressing than local ones.

Findings are presented first in order of importance, followed by a description of the study methods.

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Visualizing the web

Although web technologies are constantly changing, most users still browse the web the same way they did back in 1995–typing keywords into search boxes, clicking from home page, to section, to subsection on a navigation bar, or following link, to link, to link. The fact that it is called a “web” suggests that there should be other ways of navigating websites, and there are a number of projects attempting to employ information visualizations and spatial maps to do so.

All web pages organize information visually, but “information visualization centers around helping people explore or explain data that is not inherently spatial, such as that from the domains of bioinformatics, data mining and databases, finance and commerce, telecommunications and networking, information retrieval from large text corpora, software, and computer-supported cooperative work.” (“InfoVis 2003 Symposium”) Spatial metaphors are used to communicate different levels of information. A simple, static example would be a personal homepage built to look like the designers home, with links to favorite movies in the living room and recipes in the kitchen. A more advanced example would be a customer relationship management system for a large company which instead of presenting a list of technical support problems and solutions, displays an interactive map of problems, with more common problems in a larger font size, and recent problems in red. In both cases, users get an immediate grasp of complex information.

Such visualizations are intended to help solve two current web usability problems: the lack of a wide view to web structure, and the lack of query refinement based on relationships of retrieved pages (Ohwada 548). But they must do so without creating additional usability barriers. This paper will describe three current information visualization projects and describe some of the usability issues these sorts of projects face.

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Writing samples:

Thurgood Marshall: Making the First Amendment effective

Existentialism and art essay

Impact of the exotic invasive zebra mussel

Writing Samples:

Searching for Internet addiction at Ohio Wesleyan

Visitors few to University bell tower

College online journalism: thinking outside the page

Vitamins and supplements gain popularity

Compiled by Jason Morrison

Last updated 28 Oct 1999

The following links send you to sites I’ve found useful in my search for a system of ethics for the internet. The plan is to eventually compare this ethical system or series of systems with those used by journalists. Because of the structure of the net, it may prove useful to define three different groups for which systems of ethics may be written:

1. Users (who view web pages, purchase products, etc.),
2. Publishers (who create and maintain web pages, write articles, and sell products),
3. and Governing Bodies (who maintain domain names, national governments, and other groups in a position to enhance/alter the flow of information between the above).

The third category seems to have the most rigorous ethical systems devised, not by members of that category but usually by watchdog-type organizations and free speech organizations. In short, those with a vested interest in the actions of members of category three.

Category one, on the other hand, is a bit less interesting. Most of what I’ve found so far are lists of ‘netiquette’ dos and don’ts. Still, there may very well be something more out there, and I will continue to look.

I have yet to find much in category two, but I believe that is because most web publishers approach their work as and extension of their current profession, i.e. journalists, advertisers, scholars, etc. It is also interesting to note that because of the ease of publishing on the web, John Q. User from category one may also have a homepage placing him in category two as well. The lines between one and two are often blurred by the nature of the medium.

Please note: the links within each category are not organized by relevancy. I do not guarantee the veracity of the information contained in any of these sites.

1. Users

Netiquette Home Page (albion.com) — very comprehensive, but typically newbie-oriented, netiquette resource. Includes the entire book Netiquette by Virginia Shea.

The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette — Seems to be Florida Atlantic University’s netiquette page. Contains guidelines for FTP, Newsgroups, etc. in addition to the web, but isn’t very interesting.

“Scientology v. the Internet,” The Skeptics Society — Very old, but very interesting look at Scientology’s actions against users of a Usenet newsgroup. Brings up ethical use issues.

2. Publishers

“Ethics in Journalism,” Society of Professional Journalists Includes the SPJ Code of Ethics, a well established guide journalists should follow.

Books: Computer Aided Research - Information Malpractice (Poynter Online) — decent rundown of opportunities for error in electronic database based reporting.

Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility — This site, from Grate Britain, has information pertaining to category three as well. It is an excellent resource–has links to many professional ethics systems and a wealth of scholarly publications and other periodicals. Though their own commentary is not incredible, the site is impressively comprehensive.

Search Engine Watch — This site could be said to be aimed at the standards and practices of a specific type of internet content provider: search engines. Has info on how much of the web each covers and how well they do it, as well as updates on new technology, pay listings, etc.

Center for New Media — Part of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Very little on ethics, but they do have some interesting prototypes–new ways of doing journalism on the web.

Cyberwire Dispatch — Though it seems to have ceased publication in February, 1998, this site gathered and released some very well written articles about the net, written primarily by professional journalists. No longer up to date, it contains a great deal of context for net ethical issues.

Professional Presence Network — Perhaps the best site for category two yet. Has its own code of ethics for net publishers which seems very comprehensive and interesting.

HateWatch : An Educational Resource Combating Online Bigotry — Perhaps more concerned with morals than ethics (?), hatewatch is one of the authorities on hate groups and movements on the web.

3. Governing Bodies

Computer Science Professionals for Social Responsibility — Very good, comprehensive site, includes a set of seven principles.

Electronic Privacy Information Center — Concerned with privacy, free speech, and cryptography.

Global Internet Liberty Campaign — coalition of other rights groups, GILC is slightly more concerned with speech than privacy.

Digital Future Coalition — Organization for the establishment of intellectual property/fair use rights and practices.

Database Data Site — Property/use site, with big players signed on to its mission statement, follows specific bills in Congress.

World Intellectual Property Organization (United Nations agency) — a sort of world authority on property/fair use. Includes the Standing Committee on Information Technology (SCIT).

EFFweb - The Electronic Frontier Foundation — Group responsible for the blue ribbon internet free speech campaign. They provide updates, releases and commentary, usually on legislation dealing with online speech, privacy, etc. Some of the best commentary around, but few links.

Worthwhile Periodicals

Salon.com — Web based magazine with very complete coverage of a number of net issues and cultural issues.

• “Inside the Columbine High investigation” — This Salon article by Dave Cullen is a good example of the net serving as a watchdog of other news media.

The New York Times on the Web — We all know what the NYT is. The often have links to related sites in articles, though usually official sites (government, corporate, etc).

FEED Magazine — Their technology section sometimes covers internet ethical concerns. This site, though it takes some getting used to, also has a wealth of discussion.

Slashdot — Very up-to-date, very tech savvy publication. Not a magazine, but a magazine-styled message board for those on the cutting edge. May contain tons of info on different ethical concerns, but some of it may turn out to be inaccurate.

Sites of Some Interest

“An Atlas of Cyberspace,” Cyber-Geography Research — Though not concerned with ethics, really, this site gives interesting perspectives on the growth and organization of the web, along with some beautiful images.

Ethics Updates Home Page — This seems to be a very comprehensive site with resources on the entire field of ethics. Because it is not internet-specific, it may or may not apply to this study.

HotBot Directory/ Computers & Internet/ Ethics — HotBot is one of the few engines/directories with a section specific to this subject. Duplicates many of the links here.

Rhodes Philosophy Internet Resources — Very large directory of philosophy sites online, though not directy usefull for this investigation.

The Project

This started as a journal-style project for The News and the Net, a course at Ohio Wesleyan University. The more I looked, the more interesting the state of ethics on the web seemed. In journalism, just as in law and medicine, there are written systems of ethics. The net competes with and complements traditional journalism–is there any system of ethics for those distributing information through it?

This is a project attempting to answer that question and then compare it to the accepted system of ethics in journalism. The first step is research, and since this is a project about the web, the research is primarily on the web. This is also an experiment–usually no one gives out lists of their sources before they write a paper.