Information and Communication Studies Research Collection
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- Publication3WS of Data Journalism Education: What, Where and Who?This paper explores data journalism education, with a particular focus on formal training in the higher education sector globally. The study draws on data from: (1) the 2017 Global Data Journalism Survey, to study the state of data journalism education and the requirements in terms of training and (2) a dataset of 219 unique modules or programmes on data journalism or related fields that were curated and examined in order to understand the nature of data journalism education in universities across the world. The results show that while journalists interested in data are highly educated in journalism or closely related fields, they do not have a strong level of education in the more technical areas of data journalism, such as data analysis, coding and data visualisation. The study further reveals that a high proportion of data journalism courses are concentrated in the United States, with a growing number of courses developing across the world, and particularly in Europe. Despite this, education in the field does not have a strong academic underpinning, and while many courses are emerging in this area, there are not enough academically trained instructors to lead and/or teach such interdisciplinary programmes in the higher education sector.
1251Scopus© Citations 30 - PublicationAging, Privacy, and Home-Based Computing: Developing a Design FrameworkApplications for "aging in place" focus on supporting elders and informing the caregiver but often at the risk of abrogating privacy. The authors developed and tested various prototypes to create a privacy framework for designing home-based computing for seniors.
884Scopus© Citations 28 - PublicationAlgorithmic governance: Developing a research agenda through the power of collective intelligenceWe are living in an algorithmic age where mathematics and computer science are coming together in powerful new ways to influence, shape and guide our behaviour and the governance of our societies. As these algorithmic governance structures proliferate, it is vital that we ensure their effectiveness and legitimacy. That is, we need to ensure that they are an effective means for achieving a legitimate policy goal that are also procedurally fair, open and unbiased. But how can we ensure that algorithmic governance structures are both? This article shares the results of a collective intelligence workshop that addressed exactly this question. The workshop brought together a multidisciplinary group of scholars to consider (a) barriers to legitimate and effective algorithmic governance and (b) the research methods needed to address the nature and impact of specific barriers. An interactive management workshop technique was used to harness the collective intelligence of this multidisciplinary group. This method enabled participants to produce a framework and research agenda for those who are concerned about algorithmic governance. We outline this research agenda below, providing a detailed map of key research themes, questions and methods that our workshop felt ought to be pursued. This builds upon existing work on research agendas for critical algorithm studies in a unique way through the method of collective intelligence.
527Scopus© Citations 119 - PublicationAPIs for IPAs? Towards End-User Tailoring of Intelligent Personal AssistantsIntegrated into smartphones or smart speakers, Intelligent Personal Assistants (IPAs) have grown into the most prevalent example of speech-based interfaces today. Enabling hands-free completion of tasks such as checking the weather, playing music, or controlling smart devices, IPAs have become a central feature of millions of homes. Yet, end-users are faced with barriers to understanding their `black box' devices, and a lack of opportunity to engage in end-user development (EUD) activities. Our current work considers the state of existing tools and platforms for development of IPAs, the key challenges to be overcome, and the potential benefits of doing so.
60 - PublicationThe application of RFIDs in libraries : an assessment of technological, management and professional issuesThis paper starts by outlining the technologies involved in RFIDs and reviews the issues raised by their general application. It then identifies their potential application areas within the library sector based on a generic process view of library activities. Finally it highlights the issues that are raised by their application in libraries and provides an assessment of which of these issues are likely to raise ethical concerns for library professionals. The purpose is to provide an overview of the technology within the context of the library process and to highlight issues which may raise ethical concerns for the profession. A second paper will focus specifically on these concerns within the context of the professional obligations of the librarian.
713Scopus© Citations 22 - PublicationBeyond the individual: Culture, nationalism, communitySocial changes over the past fifty years have seemed to encourage people to live increasingly isolated lives. Since World War II, people have left their urban neighbourhoods to live in anonymous suburbs. They have moved locations as their employers expect them to work anywhere in the world. With new technologies, people can work from home, shop from home, bank from home, and even socialize from home. The common experiences that created bonds amongst people in the same place seems to be diminishing. Yet, human beings are social creatures; we want to live in webs of social interaction, even if we have to create them ourselves.
68 - PublicationA bibliometric study of video retrieval evaluation benchmarking (TRECVid) : a methodological analysis(Sage, 2011-12-19)
; ; ; This paper provides a discussion and analysis of methodological issues encountered during a scholarly impact and bibliometric study within the field of computer science (TRECVid Text Retrieval and Evaluation Conference, Video Retrieval Evaluation). The purpose of this paper is to provide a reflection and analysis of the methods used to provide useful information and guidance for those who may wish to undertake similar studies, and is of particular relevance for the academic disciplines which have publication and citation norms that may not perform well using traditional tools. Scopus and Google Scholar are discussed and a detailed comparison of the effects of different search methods and cleaning methods within and between these tools for subject and author analysis is provided. The additional database capabilities and usefulness of “Scopus More” in addition to “Scopus General” is discussed and evaluated. Scopus paper coverage is found to favourably compare to Google Scholar but Scholar consistently has superior performance at finding citations to those papers. These additional citations significantly increase the citation totals and also change the relative ranking of papers. Publish or Perish (PoP), a software wrapper for Google Scholar, is also examined and its limitations and some possible solutions are described. Data cleaning methods, including duplicate checks, expert domain checking of bibliographic data, and content checking of retrieved papers are compared and their relative effects on paper and citation count discussed. Google Scholar and Scopus are also compared as tools for collecting bibliographic data for visualisations of developing trends and, due to the comparative ease of collecting abstracts, Scopus is found far more effective.1788 - PublicationBig Data: Rewards and Risks for the Social Sciences(2013-03)
; Both applicants have been extensively involved in science data (Big Data, Small Data, and the transitions among them) and have conducted ethnographic and qualitative studies of data creation and use, but have recently shifted their interests and work to social science data. Although they have not formally worked together, they have worked on the same large science data project (Center for Embedded Networked Sensing at University of California, Los Angeles). More recent interactions and conversations have brought them together to share interests and concerns. To perhaps begin collaboration, they are interested in jointly applying for this workshop. In this paper, we briefly discuss three issues that are of interest to us in the realm of big data and the social sciences.119 - PublicationBiomedical Information and Its UsersThe purpose of this chapter is to introduce the information science reader to the wide range of data and other resources that constitute “biological information”. Attention is paid to both paper and digital sources and the use of digital libraries and cyberinfrastructure for the creation, use, and re-use of information. The chapter discusses various user communities and their needs, including scientists, educators and students, policymakers, and other secondary users. The chapter concludes with challenges for data sharing, preservation, and access.
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62 - PublicationBrokerageBrokerage is a process in which individuals (brokers) act as intermediaries between individuals or groups who do not have direct access to each other. The broker provides a link between these segmented or isolated groups or individuals, so that access to goods, services or information is enabled. Brokers possess specialist knowledge or resources that enable them to act more effectively than individuals or groups could themselves.
167 - PublicationBrokerage or friendship? politics and networks in IrelandStudies of Irish politics have often emphasised clientelist relations between voters and politicians. A survey carried out in the 1970s indicates that the importance of politicians has been overstated. A significant percentage of people chose non-political figures as brokers between themselves and the state. Differences in urban and rural community social structures, which are not reflections of age, education, or socio-economic status, correlate with different brokerage choices. Such findings cast doubt on both modernization and dependency explanations of brokerage. Further research on social networks of friendship and exchange are necessary, since informal personal networks emerge as important links between individuals and the state.
79 - PublicationChallenges of Designing and Implementing Simulation Models of Peer Review(2019-05-04)
; ; ; Science relies on peer review. Through this mechanism, manuscripts are selected for publication and grant proposals for funding. However, the processes of peer review do not operate in a vacuum; they reflect the priorities, norms, and practices of the institutions in which they are embedded, such as scientific communities, funding agencies, publishers, and scholarly societies, each with their own perspectives and logics (Bollen et al. 2014; Benner & Sandstrom 2000). Peer review is a multi-level system. At the macro level a funding agency sets its priorities and goals for funding based on national priorities and legal mandates. At the meso level, funding agencies use peer review to select which proposals to fund, but also integrate their own strategic objectives (gender balance, geographical diversity, disciplinary needs for example) into the selection process. At the micro level, individual reviewers and panels bring their own perspectives to bear on the review processes. In particular, the dynamics of meso- and micro-level complexity provides an area of exploration that could benefit from simulation studies for two reasons. Simulation studies help us understand what features of the peer review process emerge from different norms, relationships, attitudes and behaviors of the actors and organizations involved. These methods also allow us to develop and test policy recommendations for the improvement of peer review in these same organizations. In our own project we started by mapping existing simulation models of peer review and identified knowledge gaps in the literature, then started developing a simulation model to address these gaps. We found that numerous researchers had studied peer review systems by means of formal and computational modeling, such as agent-based models (ABM) (Squazzoni & Takács 2011). We counted 44 papers on simulation models of peer review published since 1969: some were used to compare the efficiencies of alternative peer review systems (e.g. Kovanis et al. 2017); some compared different behavioral strategies of authors, editors or reviewers (e.g. Thurner & Hanel 2011; Squazzoni & Gandelli 2013); some sought the origin of the issues of peer review, such as biases, high costs and inefficiencies (e.g. Righi & Takács 2017).109 - PublicationThe CogSIS Project: Examining the Cognitive Effects of Speech Interface Synthesis(2018-07-06)
; ; Speech interfaces are becoming a more common dialogue partner. With the growth of intelligent personal assistants, pervasive and wearable computing and robot-based technologies, the level of spoken interactions with technology is unprecedented. However, while the technological challenges around the production of natural synthetic voices have been widely researched, comparatively little is understood about how speech synthesis affects user experience and behaviour. The CogSIS Project examines the psychological and behavioural consequences of synthesis design decisions in human interactions with speech technology. In particular, we explore how design decisions around politeness, accent, naturalness and expressivity impact the assumptions we make about speech interfaces as communicative actors (i.e. our partner models). The project fuses knowledge, concepts and methods from psycholinguistics, experimental psychology, human-computer interaction and speech technology to 1) understand how synthesis design choices impact users’ partner models, 2) how these choices interact with partner models and impact user experience and evaluations and 3) how these choices impact users’ own language production. The project will lead to a set of theory-driven practical and actionable guidelines for speech synthesis and speech interface design.297 - PublicationCommunities of Practice or Communities of Trust? global culture and information technologyLet me begin by noting what will soon be obvious in any event -- the paper that follows has a strong polemic element. Anthropologists in Ireland are dispersed thinly, and this journal provides an opportunity to encourage debate and discussion of issues that might concern anthropologists who either study Ireland or reside in Ireland. Hopefully, this working paper will spark further discussion; it is certainly intended to do so!
56 - PublicationCommunity and inclusion: The impact of new communications technologiesCan new information and communications technologies increase citizen participation in civic life and promote community development? Worldwide studies of community information systems demonstrate that new technologies can enhance the effectiveness of activists, However, there has been little evidence that they bring in new participants. This article argues that e-government systems can, if properly designed and implemented, involve citizens who have not previously been active in local community life, and describes an Irish pilot project which has this capacity. The success of such systems depends not only on design issues, but also on the willingness of government to respond to the resulting policy inputs by citizens.
295Scopus© Citations 10 - Publication
122 - PublicationThe Constituency Role of Dáil DeputiesIn Chapter 7 we examined the legislative and scrutinising roles of Dáil deputies. In this chapter we concentrate on a different aspect of the work of TDs, looking at the business on which they spend a lot of their time, namely constituency work. Some people wonder whether constituency work is really part of the duties of a TD at all; after all, the Irish constitution says nothing about it. Yet, judging by the large amount of time it occupies, it seems in practice to be more important in the working life of a TD than narrowly-defined parliamentary duties such as speaking in the Dáil chamber or examining legislation. In most countries, it is taken for granted that parliamentarians will work assiduously to protect and further the interests of their constituents, and that constituency work forms part of an MP’s parliamentary duties rather than conflicting with them, but in Ireland there is a body of opinion that sees a constituency role as aberrant and outdated, labels it ‘clientelism’, or believes that it is taken to excess. We shall ask whether there is anything distinctive about Irish practice in this area, looking at the reasons why TDs do so much constituency work, and then consider the consequences it has for the political system.
1232 - Publication‘The COVID-19 crisis is not the core problem’: experiences, challenges, and concerns of Irish academia during the pandemicThis article, drawing on data from an international survey – distributed in the summer of 2020 – explores the experiences and concerns of academic staff (n = 167) working in universities in Ireland and their perceptions of their institutions’ early response to the pandemic. Concerns related to transitioning to remote online working, impact on research productivity and culture, and work intensification, as intersected by enhanced managerialism, are ubiquitous to their accounts. As some respondents wrote of potential positive changes, particularly in the delivery of teaching, we conclude by suggesting potential avenues for building on successes in coping with the pandemic with some recommendations for mitigating some of the harms.
62Scopus© Citations 9 - PublicationCreating an Evidence-Based Digital Curation Curriculum for Ireland: Case Study at University College DublinDigital curation is an ongoing set of processes for selecting, preserving, archiving describing, and sharing born-digital and digitised resources, such as documents, data, photos, sound, and film. The importance of digital curation for identifying and preserving digital materials for the future is of increasing importance to cultural and commercial institutions. Although digital curation as a profession is still in its infancy, library and information professionals are increasingly tasked with meeting these demands. In this article, the authors briefly outline digital curation as a practice, discuss digital curation in the Irish context, and describe how University College Dublin's School of Information and Communication Studies new educational initiatives in digital curation are addressing these challenges.
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