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Not Just Content

Not Just Content. Adam Worrall LIS 6279, Fall 2009 Dr. Melissa Gross 10/29/09. Supporting Community-Building and Collaboration in Digital Libraries. Research Problem. Existing DLs do not support well, through their content and services, the social context surrounding and within them

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Not Just Content

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  1. Not Just Content Adam Worrall LIS 6279, Fall 2009 Dr. Melissa Gross 10/29/09 Supporting Community-Building and Collaboration in Digital Libraries

  2. Research Problem • Existing DLs do not support well, through their content and services, the social context surrounding and within them • Should improve this support of social interactions to integrate better with social groups and communities (Lynch, 2005) • Propose that problem be examined with exploratory unobtrusive study • Examine levels of support for community-building and collaboration of a digital library prototype through content analysis LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  3. Research Setting • D-Scholarship2 • Prototype of a digital library for scholarly publications and gray literature • Currently under development and testing at FSU • Social features of interest • Social annotations • comments • keyword tags • Links to post / send messages about content • E-mail • Facebook • Twitter LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  4. Research Questions • How successfully does the D-Scholarship2 digital library prototype support community-building by those users, communities, and networks that use its content and services? • How successfully does the D-Scholarship2 digital library prototype support collaboration by its users? LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  5. Benefits • Short-term benefits for FSU students/faculty • Social annotation features and post/send message links in D-Scholarship2 to be evaluated • Generally (and more long term) • Greater ability for users to collaborate • Improved potential to network with other users • LIS field will gain better understanding of • social communities and networks of DL users • social / group information behavior in DLs • how DL collections and services are used • Better services provided to user communities LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  6. Literature Review Additions • Worm Community System (Star & Ruhleder, 1996) • Intended “to support the collaborative work of biologists … studying c.elegans, a tiny nematode [worm]” (p. 114) • Semi-structured interviews, observation • Grounded theory analysis • Results • WCS liked, easy to use, but… • …not widely adopted by biologists • Reasons: gaps caused by lack of consideration of context • usage, language, socio-technical, use contexts LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  7. Literature Review Additions • Virtual scientific collaboration (collaboratories) • Has its own rich literature and research history(see Sonnenwald, 2007, for a review) • Taxonomy of collaboratories (Bos et al., 2007) • Virtual Community of Practice • both content and services provided to a community of practice • Issues: usability, participation rates • Virtual Learning Communities • content and services provided to a community of learning • Issues: choice of software, aligning goals and assessments across institutional, geographic boundaries LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  8. Literature Review Additions • Bos et al.’s (2007) taxonomy (continued) • Sampling was not random or truly representative (although did take pains to try and ensure latter) • Unclear whether all collaboratories that serve communities of practice or learning would face exactly the same issues • Transferability to digital libraries not perfect… • …but still potentially useful • Issues identified align with studies of DLs • Can be expanded upon to study different types of DLs • Different types of DLs may face different issues with supporting community-building and collaboration LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  9. Units of Analysis • Messages about D-Scholarship2 or its content • Social annotation comments posted by users • E-mails sent by users • Users are FSU students and faculty • E-mails stored on FSU servers • Therefore, no informed consent required • Posts or “tweets” on Twitter • Within an eight-week period LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  10. Sampling • Social annotation messages • No sampling; entire population will be analyzed • Twitter posts • No sampling; entire population will be analyzed (within the eight week period) • E-mails sent by users • Systematic random sample of 200 e-mails • Starting point, sampling interval randomly generated • Will reduce amount of e-mails that require analysis to a manageable number LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  11. Data Collection Procedures • Social annotations • Collected from D-Scholarship2 itself • May be anonymous or may reveal identity • All identities to be stripped prior to content analysis • Twitter posts • Collected via Twitter’s search page (search.twitter.com) • Collection continuous over eight weeks • Search only finds posts within last nine days • All identifying information (usernames) to be stripped LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  12. Data Collection Procedures • E-mails • Messages sent that link to or mentionD-Scholarship2 or its content • System administrators will run predetermined queries • Identifying information removed automatically where possible • Other remaining information will be removed immediately when found by researcher • Limited only to those e-mails sent by users using FSU e-mail accounts • Older messages may be included in responses LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  13. Content Analysis Instrument • Manifest measures • Counting occurrences of words • Related to collaboration, interaction, community, tasks and research, information and knowledge, practice, interest, and learning • Words pre-grouped by these concepts, but groupings are not fixed • Themes may emerge during study • Counting mentions of D-Scholarship2 • “D-Scholarship2” as a word • Mentions of specific content • Links to D-Scholarship2 or content LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  14. Content Analysis Instrument • Latent measures • Type of community or network (practice, interest, learning) • Strength of ties of the users with other users • Successful community/network-building by user • Successful collaboration by user • Collaboration taking place (yes/no); if yes, how many appear to be collaborating • Other communication media mentioned • Opinions expressed about D-Scholarship2, content, support for community-building and collaboration • Successful support provided by D-Scholarship2 LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  15. Validity and reliability • Validity fairly high • Manifest measures may suffer some in validity • Latent measures should help make up for that • All measures expected to have concurrent validity • Further research necessary to fully establish this in a variety of settings • Reliability reasonable • High within specific population, setting • Will suffer due to latent analysis measures • Intra- and inter-coder reliability • Possible (but unlikely) internal consistency issues • Multiple measures should allow for post hoc adjustment if necessary (see Schutt, 2009, p. 141) LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  16. Limitations • Setting, population limitations • Transferability likely possible to messages sent and posted by everyone at FSU once D-Scholarship2 public • Generalizability to other DLs not possible • Some possibility of transferability • Further research required with other DLs • Data collection limitations • Twitter posts can be made private • Cannot collect Facebook messages (usually private) • Only e-mails sent by D-Scholarship2 users can be collected LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  17. Limitations and Ethics • Limitations • Cannot find best method • Only social annotations, links to post/send messages included in D-Scholarship2 prototype • Further research required with other methods • Ethical considerations • No principles expected to be violated • No informed consent required • No deception, harm, or risks expected • Confidentiality of all participants maintained • Most users will remain anonymous to researcher as well LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

  18. References • Bos., N., Zimmerman, A., Olson, J., Yew, J., Yerkie, J., Dahl, E., & Olson, G. (2007). From shared databases to communities of practice: A taxonomy of collaboratories. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(2). Retrieved from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue2/bos.html • Lynch, C. (2005). Where do we go from here? The next decade for digital libraries. D-Lib Magazine, 11(7/8). doi:10.1045/july2005-lynch • Schutt, R. K. (2009). Investigating the social world: The process and practice of research (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. • Sonnenwald, D. H. (2007). Scientific collaboration. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 41, 643-681. doi:10.1002/aris.2007.1440410121 • Star, S. L., & Ruhleder, K. (1996). Steps toward an ecology of infrastructure: Design and access for large information spaces. Information Systems Research, 7, 111-134. doi:10.1287/isre.7.1.111 LIS 6472 | Fall 2009

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