Using blogs for research - a discussion in Pittsburgh

On Monday, I had the opportunity to facilitate a discussion at the University of Pittsburgh iSchool about using blogs for research. This is a topic I have spoken about before at one of our monthly informal researcher discussion sessions in Sheffield and I hope this is a subject we can return to in another meeting later this year. In Pittsburgh, I began the session with a brief presentation, highlighting two UK reports which I think are relevant to this topic: Research Information Network (2011) Social Media: A Guide for Researchers and JISC (2012) Researchers of Tomorrow: The Research Behaviour of Generation Y Doctoral Students. I followed this by discussing three blogs created and maintained by members of the University of Sheffield iSchool:

• This blog - Sheffield iSchool researchers - which I think is a good example of a group blog, providing an opportunity for a number of people to author posts relating to their research or about methodological issues. I also think this is a good example of how a virtual community, based around the blog, can grow and reinforce a real world community, based around the monthly informal researchers' discussion sessions.
• Sheila Webber's Information Literacy Weblog - a really good example of an expert blog, which is a very valuable current awareness source for both academics and practitioners working in the information literacy field. Relatively short posts and lots of photos make the blog very accessible, whilst the integration of other social media tools, such as a Twitter feed and a Flickr stream, potentially broadens the blog's audience.
• My research blog, which gives a personal perspective on my experiences as a PhD student and my research activities - especially about the events I've attended.

I summarised some of my own reflections about the benefits, limitations and challenges of blogging and we then moved into a really interesting and lively group discussion about blogging for research. Now I'd like to ask you a few questions, as a reader of this blog, whether you're in Sheffield, Pittsburgh or anywhere else - perhaps we can continue the discussion here:

• If you're a new visitor to this blog, what do you think about it?
• If you've been viewing or contributing this blog for a while, what has kept you coming back?
• Have you ever referred anyone to posts on this blog? If so, which ones?
• What could we do to improve our blog?
• What are your views about blogging about research in general? Have you used a blog, or would you like to share a good example of a blog which has been useful for your research?

Finally, I'd like to offer a very warm thank you to everyone at the University of Pittsburgh iSchool who made me feel so welcome earlier this week and to everyone who took part in our discussion.

What would Goffman think about furries? Persona adoption and identity masking in blogs and Second Life (by Liam Bullingham)

I presented my 2010 MA in Librarianship dissertation to the group recently.

Concerning online identity, this research investigated persona adoption in blogs and Second Life (SL), aiming to discover how, why, and to what extent this occurs. The theories of early scholars Erving Goffman and Marcel Mauss were considered and applied to interaction in these emerging online environments.

The research sample included four bloggers, four SL users and two users of both media, and participants were interviewed using a semi-structured format. Data was then analysed and categorised using grounded theory.  The literature review yielded some fascinating examples of persona adoption and masking identity, such as Baker's 'blended identity' and Nakamura's 'identity tourism'; and it considered what online identity means within the wider concept of 'the self'. Goffman's claim that we wear a number of different masks in public was applied to SL & blogging, and users were seen to employ anonymity or psudonymity in order minimise the impressions they inadvertently 'give off', in Goffmanian terms. The practice of 'gender swapping' in online interaction and the concept of the avatar were also explored.

Interview data was discussed and categorised as follows:

·         Expressions given,

·         'Fitting in' - a key motivation for persona adoption,

·         Recreating the offline self online,

·         Dividing the self,

·         Anonymity,

·         Minor persona adoption through embellishment,

·         Information evaluation techniques are not always needed.

Following this, data was interwoven with scholarly research to test research findings. 'Recreating the offline self online', whereby participants were keen to re-create

their offline self online was an additional finding, in that it was not informed by the literature.

In comparing blogging and SL, it was found that there is significantly more pressure to conform in SL, meaning more persona adoption occurs through the use of the avatar. Persona adoption in blogging however, occurs in different ways, and perhaps

because there is less social pressure, there is also less persona adoption.

When concluding, I noted that the major limitation of the research was the small research sample, as identifying participants was difficult. However, research questions were well informed in that participants exhibited behaviours such as anonymity or 'embellishing the self' and explained their reasons for doing this.

Libraries and Information Society (LIS) Research Group meeting

The LIS Research Group had a meeting yesterday, with research students and staff in attendance. Elizabeth Chapman, Halima Egberongbe, Joseph Essel, Stephen Pinfield, Angharad Roberts, Barbara Sen, Kondwani Wella and I each talked briefly about the aims and methods of our current research. Some interesting questions arose e.g. to do with sample selection and the meaning of "pragmatic" in a research context. The next meeting of staff and students on November 14 will also focus on exchange of information on current research, and the following one, on 12 December takes as its theme "How do you select a theoretical framework and research approach?"

Designing an e-procurement decision support system (by Mohamed Adil)

My proposed research focuses on the design of decision support systems (DSS) using Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA).  The study uses published mathematical models to study and design a suitable model for a public sector e-procurement DSS. The research will also develop a prototype, thereby providing a new tool for practitioners and researchers in the area of MCDA.

The research focuses on the public sector in the Maldives: in particular, the education sector.

Public sector procurement has a rigid structure enforced by law and regulations. The features and characteristics of public sector procurement are based on major public sector principles such as non-discrimination, equality, transparency and proportionality. This results in an organised step-by-step procedure for public sector procurement. However, this research focuses only on decisions that are based on the performances of the suppliers against a preset list of criteria.  These criteria allow public sector institutions to state differentiated priorities when they announce for bids or tenders. This situation creates a context in which MCDA techniques can be applied to the evaluation. 

There are multiple MCDA methods. However, the applicability of these methods to the problem context is not known due to the multiple constrains and expectations of the public sector. This research will study the applicability of a set of published MCDA methods to the problem context. The MCDA methods used in this research involve linear weighting methods, single synthesising criterion (or utility theory), outranking methods, fuzzy methods and mixed methods.

The process steps of the methodology involve an awareness of the problem at first, followed by suggestion and development of an artefact, and finally evaluation and conclusion of it.  The methodology used here follows a set of specific guidelines provided by information systems (IS) research scholars for such IS research projects.

To support the process steps of the research project, a literature review was done, field research was carried out, and some selected documented data on procurement evaluations were collected. For the field research, focus groups were conducted to enhance awareness of the problem, to help to make more specific suggestions, and to support the development of the artefact.

The literature review of literature concerning MCDA models literature helped made it possible to compare the public sector requirements and constraints against the characteristics of MCDA methods. This approach helped filtering and suggesting alternative methods to that might be appliedy.

The collected data sets are to be used to apply the artefact to evaluations, The results of this exercise are to be statistically and mathematically evaluated in order to determine the usefulness of the artefact.

Evaluation (again) - some thoughts around school exams as indicators of success

Following our last researchers' discussion, the pub conversation again turned to evaluation.  We talked about the problems caused by applying simple measures to public bodies, and I rashly suggested a solution - that  a second simple measure should be introduced, that is 'orthogonal' to the first.

For the purposes of analysis, I had recently been revisiting an interview with a school teacher.  She (like many of my interviewees) was reflecting sadly on the extent to which educational values are skewed by the need to "teach to the exam". In other words, students are taught to anticipate exam questions and to frame their efforts with a view to producing a high scoring answer.  Any school activity not related to exams is marginalized.

Other examples of evaluation-induced skewing were discussed (including the forthcoming Research Excellence Framework) and there was some head-shaking about the damage such an exercise will do to Higher Education.

The problem is common where simple measures are applied to complex systems.  Simple measures are often simply met; and if meeting the measure is all that counts then other important criteria get neglected.  I heard a macabre example of such skewness recently (27 August) on BBC Radio 4.   Amanda Vickery, in a programme about sailors,  interviewed  Dr David Turner of Swansea University about disability in the British navy in the 18th Century. He observed that, back then, there were concerns "...that surgeons might be a little too willing to amputate limbs in cases where this wasn't altogether necessary. There are some complaints that naval and military surgeons cut off limbs because they are paid by the number of limbs that they amputated..." (12min 15sec).

Orthogonality
Any second measure should be as different as possible from the first, but should be given equal importance.  In the case of schools for example, exam success is an obvious criterion for assessment; but a second criterion could be based on the response of school leavers to a survey designed to assess the school's success in promoting involvement and inclusion.  The survey could include statements such as the following:

• If my school held a reunion next year, I would want to come back for it. 
• My school allowed me to take part in at least one sport that I enjoyed.
• If something bad happened to me, there were people I could talk to at school.
• My teachers were interested in what I had to say.
• While I was at school, I took part in performances (eg, concerts or plays).
• I never felt threatened by the behaviour of other students.

[1=Strongly agree / 6=Strongly disagree].

School funding and reputation are currently strongly linked to exam performance.  If they were as strongly linked to positive responses to statements such as those above, decisions about a school's priorities would be based on a far more nuanced view of success.

Turning research into practice

This month's discussion (09 August 2012) was led by Dr Hideo Joho of Tsukuba University in Japan.  He described Information Science as a discipline with a hole in the middle.  On one side of the hole are computer scientists studying the impacts and applications of the latest developments in information retrieval (IR).  On the other side are social scientists looking at the behaviour of people seeking and using information.  Hideo explained that he felt close to the hole (on the IR side), but that he often had difficulties interpreting research from the other side in ways that would help him to apply it to IR.  What, he wondered, could (and should) be done to help bridge the hole.

Discussion touched on the relative merits of research intended to test hypotheses and research intended to explore situations and phenomena.  Hideo wondered whether the 'explorers' could be encouraged to include suggestions that would be designed to help to frame hypotheses.

Wikipedians in residence

Whenever academics gather to talk about the issue of trust and online evaluation, discussion seems to shift to Wikipedia.  I was surprised to learn that increasingly, illustrious bodies such as the British Museum and the British Library are appointing Wikipedians in residence.  The British Museum adopted the practice after realizing that the Wikipedia article on the Rosetta Stone attracted five times as many visitors in one month than the official site (Hitchcock, 2011).  Such a policy is presumably a pragmatic response to concerns over the reliability of Wikipedia.

Hitchcock, G. (2011).  British Museum makes theWikipedia connection.  The Guardian, 8 August 2011.