Information and Library Science

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Algorithmic accountability and digital justice: A critical assessment of technical and sociotechnical approaches.
(Proceedings of the 82nd Annual Conference of the American Society of Information Science and Technology, 2019-10) Rosenbaum, H.; Fichman, P.
The concept of digital justice is intended to open up discourse about strategies for bringing relief to those who believe they have been discriminated against or harmed by algorithmic decision making. Digital justice has depended on algorithmic accountability, a means by which entities can be held accountable for the consequences of algorithmic decision making. This paper critically examines the concept of algorithmic accountability to assess its utility as a ground for digital justice and argues that it is fraught with difficulties. After discussing digital justice and algorithmic discrimination, algorithmic accountability is decomposed into two types, technical and sociotechnical. These approaches are critically assessed and a cautionary note is struck about the difficulty of enacting algorithmic accountability. If this argument is persuasive, it implies that the concept of digital justice also has difficulties. The paper concludes with suggestions for moving forward that do not use either version of algorithmic accountability.
Analysis of Computer-Mediated Communication: Using Formal Concept Analysis as a Visualizing Methodology
(Baywood Publishing Company, 2002) Hara, Noriko
Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) is used in different contexts such as business, non-profit organizations, and education and uses different tools such as computer conferencing, e-mail, and groupware. However, it is apparent that the field of CMC lacks established methodologies to analyze the phenomena. This article introduces the use of Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) as a methodology to visualize the data in CMC. FCA is based on a mathematical lattice theory and offers visual maps (graphs) with conceptual hierarchies. Combined with content analysis, FCA is proposed to be a potential method for the analysis of CMC. In this study, three categories (social, cognitive, and metacognitive) from Henri's (1992) model for CMC content analysis were applied to FCA after a previous study used a content-analysis method based on Henri's model to convert the data from a computer conference. The purpose of this article is to provide an example of the application of FCA to CMC and to argue for its potential use for analyzing on-line discourse. Although this article specifically addresses issues related to analyzing data in CMC for education, the methodology is applicable to the analysis of CMC for different purposes.
Analysis of Roles in Engaging Contentious Online Discussions in Science
(Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, 2017) Hara, Noriko; Sanfilippo, Madelyn Rose
The prevalence of sites in which users can contribute content increases ordinary citizens’ participation in emerging forms of knowledge sharing. This paper investigates the practices associated with the roles of participants who actively contribute to the co-production of knowledge in three online communities and how these roles differ in controversial and non-controversial threads. The Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine was selected as a contentious scientific topic because of persistent belief about an alleged link between the vaccine and autism. Contributions to three online communities that engage mothers with young children were analyzed to identify participant roles. No consistent roles were evident in non-controversial threads, but the role of mediator consistently appeared in controversial threads in all three communities. This study helps to articulate the roles played in online communities that engage in knowledge collaboration. The variety of roles in online communities has implications for both the study for practice and the design of information technologies.
Anonymity, geolocation, and territorial community norms and composition impact on online trolling
(International Journal of Communication, 2019) Fichman, P.; Peters, E.
There is little research into online trolling on platforms with anonymity and geolocation features. On platforms such as Jodel, Whisper, and Yik Yak, anonymity may trigger online trolling and deviant behaviors, but geolocation features may hinder these behaviors through the imposition of territorial community norms and composition. Our study aims to address this gap through content analysis of 3,697 unique posts on Yik Yak, an anonymous geolocal platform that ceased to exist in 2017. Based on code cooccurrence, we found that trolling posts frequently include community-harming behaviors, such as insults, snark, and the use of vulgar language, and are more likely than other posts to include memes and vulgar language. We also found that territorial community events mediated the extent of community-building and community-harming behaviors, which increased or decreased on the platform according to changes in community composition context. Thus, we conclude that sociotechnical features of the platform in dynamic contexts affected online trolling behaviors by enabling and constraining manifestations of community-harming and community-building behaviors.
Answer reliability on Q&A sites
(Proceedings of The Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, 2010-08) Shachaf, P.
Similar to other Web 2.0 platforms, user-created content on question answering (Q&A) sites raises concerns about information quality. However, it is possible that some of these sites provide accurate information while others do not. This paper evaluates and compares answer reliability on four Q&A sites. Content analysis of 1,522 transactions from Yahoo! Answers, Wiki Answers, Askville, and the Wikipedia Reference Desk, reveals significant differences in answer quality among these sites. The most popular Q&A site (that attracts the largest numbers of users, questions, and answers) provides the least accurate, complete, and verifiable information.
Applying weighted PageRank to author citation networks
(Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2011-02) Ding, Ying
This paper aims to identify whether different weighted PageRank algorithms can be applied to author citation networks to measure the popularity and prestige of a scholar from a citation perspective. Information Retrieval (IR) was selected as a test field and data from 1956-2008 were collected from Web of Science (WOS). Weighted PageRank with citation and publication as weighted vectors were calculated on author citation networks. The results indicate that both popularity rank and prestige rank were highly correlated with the weighted PageRank. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted to detect relationships among these different measures. For capturing prize winners within the IR field, prestige rank outperformed all the other measures.
Approaches to Understanding and Measuring Interdisciplinary Scientific Research (IDR): A Review of the Literature
(Elsevier, 2011-01) Wagner, Caroline S.; Roessner, J. David; Bobb, Kamau; Klein, Julie Thompson; Boyack, Kevin W.; Keyton, Joann; Rafols, Ismael; Börner, Katy
Interdisciplinary scientific research (IDR) challenges the study of science from a number of fronts, including one of creating output science and engineering (S&E) indicators. This literature review began with a narrow focus on quantitative measures of the output of IDR, but expanded the scope as it became clear that differing definitions, assessment tools, evaluation processes, and measures all shed light on aspects of IDR. Key among the broader aspects are (a) characterizing the concept of knowledge integration, and (b) recognizing that it can occur within a single mind or as the result of team dynamics. Output measures alone cannot adequately capture this process. Among the quantitative measures considered, bibliometrics (co-authorships, collaborations, references, citations and co-citations) are the most developed, but leave considerable gaps in understanding. Emerging measures in diversity, entropy, and network dynamics are promising, but require sophisticated interpretations and thus would not serve well as S&E indicators. Combinations of quantitative and qualitative assessments coming from evaluation studies appear to reveal S&E processes but carry burdens of expense, intrusion, and lack of reproducibility. This review is a first step toward providing a more holistic view of measuring IDR; several avenues for future research highlight the need for metrics to reflect the actual practice of IDR.
Are virtual reference services color blind?
(Elsevier, 2006) Shachaf, Pnina; Horowitz, Sarah
This study reports an experiment that examines whether librarians provide equitable virtual reference services to diverse user groups. The relative absence of social cues in the virtual environment may mean greater equality of services though at the same time greater inequalities may arise as librarians can become less self-aware online. Findings indicate that the quality of service librarians provide to African Americans and Arabs is lower than the quality of service they provide to Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, and Jewish students. This study adds to the knowledge of subjective bias in the virtual environment by specifying those that are discriminated against online, identifying the kinds of discriminatory actions of virtual reference librarians, and identifying the type of queries that more frequently result in unbiased service.
Banking (on) different forms of symbolic capital.
(John Wiley and Sons, 2002) Cronin, Blaise; Shaw, Debora
The accrual of symbolic capital is an important aspect of academic life. Successful capital formation is commonly signified by the trappings of scholarly distinction or acknowledged status as a public intellectual. We consider and compare three potential indices of symbolic capital: citation counts, web hits, and media mentions. Our findings, which are domain-specific, suggest that public intellectuals are notable by their absence within the information studies community.
Behavioural complexity theory of media selection: A proposed theory for global virtual teams
(Sage Publications, 2007-02) Shachaf, Pnina; Hara, Noriko
This study proposes a behavioural complexity theory for media selection in global virtual teams. This theory captures multiple contingencies into one holistic approach to media selection. Unlike existing linear and mechanistic theories of media selection, this heuristic theory moves away from the universal models that were previously proposed. The behavioural complexity theory assumes ambiguity and complexity of the media selection process in a nonlinear, organic, and holistic way. Behavioural complexity theory of media selection emphasizes the role of media repertoire, the ability of individuals to differentiate situations according to multiple contingencies, and their flexibility to effectively use multiple media in any particular situation. This theory is examined in a context of exploratory case study of global virtual teams’ media selection in one of the leading fortune 500 corporations.
Bibliographic and Web citations: What is the difference?
(John Wiley and Sons, 2003) Shaw, Debora; Vaughan, Lewin
Web citations have been proposed as comparable to, even replacements for, bibliographic citations, notably in assessing the academic impact of work in promotion and tenure decisions. We compared bibliographic and Web citations to articles in 46 journals in library and information science. For most journals (57%), Web citations correlated significantly with both bibliographic citations listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index and the ISI‘s Journal Impact Factor. Many of the Web citations represented intellectual impact, coming from other papers posted on the Web (30%) or from class readings lists (12%). Web citation counts were typically higher than bibliographic citation counts for the same article. Journals with more Web citations tended to have Web sites that provided tables of contents on the Web, while less cited journals did not have such publicity. The number of Web citations to journal articles increased from 1992 to 1997.
Bridging the Trust Gap: Integrating Models of Behavior and Perception
(New Security Paradigms Workshop, 2015) Hill, Raquel; Donaldson, Devan Ray
In this paper, we propose a process-oriented trust framework that integrates an integrity-based trust model with the requirements and perceptions of those who manage and administer computing infrastructure. This integration enables a feedback loop between the system administrator and established models of trust that have been proposed to harden and secure systems. The proposed study will engage administrators in the design and use of mechanisms for establishing and evaluating the trust of cyberinfrastructure. The proposed study addresses a gap in current security research, which often views users as managers of a single computer, and not as an administrator of large computing environments. This work seeks to capture system administrators’ perceptions of security and trust and incorporate real-world practices into the design of mechanisms for securing systems.
Calling on a Million Minds for Community Annotation in WikiProteins
(BioMed Central, 2008) Mons, Barend; Ashburner, Michael; Chichester, Christine; van Mulligen, Erik; Weeber, Marc; den Dunnen, Johan; van Ommen, Gert-Jan; Musen, Mark; Cockerill, Matthew; Hermjakob, Henning; Mons, Albert; Packer, Abel; Pacheco, Roberto; Lewis, Suzanna; Berkeley, Alfred; Melton, William; Barris, Nickolas; Wales, Jimmy; Meijssen, Gerard; Moeller, Erik; Roes, Peter J; Borner, Katy; Bairoch, Amos
WikiProteins enables community annotation in a Wiki-based system. Extracts of major data sources have been fused into an editable environment that links out to the original sources. Data from community edits create automatic copies of the original data. Semantic technology captures concepts co-occurring in one sentence and thus potential factual statements. In addition, indirect associations between concepts have been calculated. We call on a 'million minds' to annotate a 'million concepts' and to collect facts from the literature with the reward of collaborative knowledge discovery. The system is available for beta testing at http://www.wikiprofessional.org.
Can Web Citations Be a Measure of Impact? An Investigation of Journals in the Life Sciences
(Information Today, Inc., for the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2004-11) Vaughan, Liwen; Shaw, Debora
We examine traditional and Web citations to journal articles in biology and genetics. There is significant correlation between citations in these two formats. Journals with higher numbers of Web citations tend to have more citations indicating intellectual impact (citations from papers or class readings, in contrast to citations from bibliographic services or the author’s or journal’s home page). Web citations show a broader geographic coverage and capture a greater number and variety of uses of journal articles.
A Case Study of Students' Frustrations with a Web-Based Distance Education
(University of Illinois at Chicago Library, 1999) Hara, Noriko; Kling, Rob
Many advocates of computer-mediated distance education emphasize its positive aspects and understate the kind of work that it requires for students and faculty. This article presents a qualitative case study of a Web-based distance education course at a major U.S. university. The case data reveal a taboo topic: students' persistent frustrations in Web-based distance education. First, this paper will analyze why these negative phenomena are not found in the literature. Second, this article will discuss whether students' frustrations inhibit their educational opportunities. In this study, students' frustrations were found in three interrelated sources: lack of prompt feedback, ambiguous instructions on the Web, and technical problems. It is concluded that these frustrations inhibited educational opportunities. This case study illustrates some student perspectives and calls attention to some fundamental issues that could make distance education a more satisfying learning experience.
A cast of thousands: Co-authorship and sub-authorship collaboration in the twentieth century as manifested in the scholarly journal literature of psychology and philosophy.
(John Wiley and Sons, 2003) Cronin, Blaise; Shaw, Debora; La Barre, Kathryn
We chronicle the use of acknowledgements in twentieth century scholarship by analyzing and classifying more than 4,500 specimens covering a 100-year period. Our results show that the intensity of acknowledgment varies by discipline, reflecting differences in prevailing socio-cognitive structures and work practices. We demonstrate that the acknowledgment has gradually established itself as a constitutive element of academic writing, one that provides a revealing insight into the nature and extent of sub-authorship collaboration. Complementary data on rates of co-authorship are also presented to highlight the growing importance of collaboration and the increasing division of labor in contemporary research and scholarship.
Chem2Bio2RDF: a semantic framework for linking and data mining chemogenomic and systems chemical biology data
(BMC Bioinformatics, 2010-05-17) Ding, Ying; Wild, David J; Zhu, Qian; Wang, Huijun; Jiao, Dazhi; Dong, Xiao; Chen, Bin
Background: Recently there has been an explosion of new data sources about genes, proteins, genetic variations, chemical compounds, diseases and drugs. Integration of these data sources and the identification of patterns that go across them is of critical interest. Initiatives such as Bio2RDF and LODD have tackled the problem of linking biological data and drug data respectively using RDF. Thus far, the inclusion of chemogenomic and systems chemical biology information that crosses the domains of chemistry and biology has been very limited. Results: We have created a single repository called Chem2Bio2RDF by aggregating data from multiple chemogenomics repositories that is cross-linked into Bio2RDF and LODD. We have also created a linked-path generation tool to facilitate SPARQL query generation, and have created extended SPARQL functions to address specific chemical/biological search needs. We demonstrate the utility of Chem2Bio2RDF in investigating polypharmacology, identification of potential multiple pathway inhibitors, and the association of pathways with adverse drug reactions. Conclusions: We have created a new semantic systems chemical biology resource, and have demonstrated its potential usefulness in specific examples of polypharmacology, multiple pathway inhibition and adverse drug reaction - pathway mapping. We have also demonstrated the usefulness of extending SPARQL with cheminformatics and bioinformatics functionality.
Chinese collective trolling
(Proceedings of the 81st Annual Conference of the American Society of Information Science and Technology, 2018-11) Sun, H.; Fichman, P.
The vast majority of research on online trolling focused on Western cultures. Given the role context plays in shaping online interactions, it is important to take into account its socio‐cultural context and investigate the role of national culture, by conducting research into trolling in Eastern cultures. In this paper, we attempt to begin addressing this gap by focusing on Chinese collective trolling, looking at Sina Weibo's PG One case. Specifically, we aim to identify who are the major players, what are the metaphors they use, and what are the major trolling tactics employed in Chinese collective trolling event. Using a mixed‐method approach, we analyzed 2,004 posts and 9,967 comments on Sina Weibo's PG One case, of which 480 were sampled for thematic content analysis. Major contributions of this study include an account of collective trolling in Chinese cultural context that is characterized by role switching between trolls, bystanders, and victims during the various stages of the event. We conclude with suggestion for future research directions.
Citation Autobiography: An Investigation of ISI Database Coverage in Determining Author Citedness
(Association of College & Research Libraries, 2004-03) Nisonger, Thomas E.
This article presents a case study investigating the coverage complete- ness of the Institute for Scientific Information’s citation data for specific authors, based on analysis of this author’s lifetime citation record, which was compiled through the ISI database, searching the literature for nearly fifteen years, and through various Web search engines. It was found that (with self-citations disregarded) the ISI captured 28.8 percent of the total citations, 42.2 percent of print citations, 20.3 percent of citations from outside the United States, and 2.3 percent of non-English citations. The definition and classification of Web citations are discussed. It is suggested that librarians and faculty should not rely solely on ISI author citation counts, especially when demonstration of international impact is important.
Clustering More than Two Million Biomedical Publications: Comparing the Accuracies of Nine Text-Based Similarity Approaches
(Public Library of Science, 2011) Boyack, Kevin W.; Newman, David; Duhon, Russell J.; Klavans, Richard; Patek, Michael; Biberstine, Joseph R.; Schijvenaars, Bob; Skupin, André; Ma, Nianli; Börner, Katy
We investigate the accuracy of different similarity approaches for clustering over two million biomedical documents. Clustering large sets of text documents is important for a variety of information needs and applications such as collection management and navigation, summary and analysis. The few comparisons of clustering results from different similarity approaches have focused on small literature sets and have given conflicting results. Our study was designed to seek a robust answer to the question of which similarity approach would generate the most coherent clusters of a biomedical literature set of over two million documents.

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