Archive | January, 2008

Is the Web 2.0 price worth paying?

28 Jan

How is the concept of Web 2.0 relevant to online information services? How can a quality controlled service like Intute cope with the wild, wild web that everything 2.0 presents? And what can be learnt from subject communities about engaging with users, that can ensure information services are available and used where people actually want them?

These are some of the issues considered in a recent article – Is the Web 2.0 price worth paying? Learning from economics – which is available as a PDF download.

It was written for ALISS Quarterly, the journal of the Association of Librarians and Information Professionals in the Social Sciences.

The article refers to a presentation by Dr. Martin Poulter of the Economics Network on Technologies for Resource Sharing in Academic Support, which is available on SlideShare.

Intute: Social Sciences features more resources on the issue of Web 2.0 in academia.

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Google Scholar not scholarly enough?

23 Jan

Data from 2007 looking at various Google services, reveals that usage of Google Scholar declined by nearly a third last year. Those who have followed Google Scholar closely, are not overly surprised, saying that there has not been enough development of the service.

Librarians and Information Professionals have consistently taken Google Scholar to task for not revealing the sources they use, questioned the citation data it produces and asked for enhanced search options. But at the same time they have taken on board the reality that it will be used by students and therefore sought to guide them to get the most out of it.

Perhaps “Googleisation” has not gone far enough. Many databases and other search tools provided by universities, still need tutorials and guides to help users get through their complex interfaces. One of the key lessons from Google Scholar may well be that users want easy-to-use services and that they do not find the process of finding / locating information as interesting as we do.

One of the other issues that something like Google Scholar raises, is how to retrieve search results at the item level and the upcoming Intute Repository Search will be a step in that direction for us. Subject communities have produced such services themselves, for example, RePec features 75% of the world’s top 1000 economists and provides access to hundreds of thousands of articles via the EconPapers service.

And how will Scholar sit in the Google family of products when their Palimpsest project comes to fruition and will they join up their work on open data and academic publications? Without significant further development it is hard to view Google Scholar as anything other than a missed opportunity.

Explore some of the debate around Google Scholar via these del.icio.us links.

World Economic Forum 2008

23 Jan

Amidst the economic turmoil on the markets and talk of global recession – leaders from all walks of life will be gathering in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum 2008 annual meeting.

The theme this year is The Power of Collaborative Innovation and they have attempted to harness the Internet, social networking sites and web 2.0 technologies to enhance the debate.

The Davos Conversation website brings together content from a range of sites, including discussion from the blogosphere via Technorati, photos from Flickr and even coverage of the conference from within Second Life.

The World Economic Forum have been collaborating with YouTube to gather video comments from around the globe to put to contributors to the various themed sessions in Davos, in the form of The Davos Question.

… and you can also follow the sessions via the World Economic Forum YouTube channel or see the latest reports from the BBC News World Economic Forum 2008 blog.

Intute: Social Sciences features more resources on the World Economic Forum.

Running for President is a serious business

17 Jan

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has tried to inject a little humour into the campaign by pretending to be an air stewardess – but it appears that the role of American satirists such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in the campaign, has not been diminished by the current writers strike in Hollywood.

New research from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press looks at how the Internet is shaping the US Presidential election so far. Online video and social networking sites are increasingly important, especially among younger voters, often at the expense of traditional media:

Compared with the 2000 campaign, far fewer Americans now say they regularly learn about the campaign from local TV news (down eight points), nightly network news (down 13 points) and daily newspapers (down nine points).

But the online sources that are popular are pretty mainstream, with only The Drudge Report being cited as an alternative source for campaign information. A reference Hillary Clinton will not enjoy, as it is 10 years ago today that Drudge broke the story of the Monica Lewinsky scandal on his website.

Those who said that they get at least some political information from late night talk shows or comedy programmes, didn’t feel as though they were missing out due to the shows not being on during the writers strike.

Academics have studied the rise of political humour and satire, as exemplified by Stewart and Colbert, producing papers such as:

Intute: Social Sciences features more resources on the 2008 US elections – just scroll past the Editor’s Choice selections to see the latest additions.

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News from the Economics Network

15 Jan

Economics Network logoThe Economics Network is the Higher Education Academy subject centre for economics and they support university teachers of economics in the UK.

The latest additions to their website include:

To get further updates from the Economics Network, you can always sign up for their JISCmail list

Intute: Social Sciences features more resources on the topic of Economics.

New Economics of Education section

14 Jan

Allocating school places, the value of a degree and school league tables, are some of the issues Economists are looking at in Education. The Economics of Education is a new subject section that forms part of the Intute: Economics gateway.

It has initially been populated with items that were already part of Intute: Social Sciences but new items will be added to it over time and feel free to suggest a site for inclusion by our editors.

Try EconPapers for a range of working papers on various education topics examined by economists, while New Economics Papers are emerging all the time in this area, for those wanting to see the latest research.

For more on the economics of education try the Centre for the Economics of Education at the LSE or the Centre for Market and Public Organisation at the University of Bristol.

Intute: Social Sciences features more resources on the Economics of Education.

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Tears and Voting in New Hampshire

10 Jan

The first of a what may well be a number of late nights has seen a stunning come from behind victory for Hillary Clinton and a slightly larger than expected victory for John McCain in the New Hampshire primary.

Was this the moment that turned around the Hillary Clinton campaign for the White House?

While some have suggested that it showed a human side to Hillary that may have engaged voters, the BBC reports some analysis of a CNN exit poll that suggests that the Clinton comeback was due to getting out the core Democratic vote.

Comparisons have been drawn with the ‘Muskie Moment’ in the New Hampshire primary during the 1972 campaign, when Senator Ed Muskie, the Man from Maine who was the ‘inevitable’ Democratic nominee cried / was photographed with melting snow on his face – following media attacks on his wife.

For an alternative account of that 1972 campaign, why not try Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 by the late Hunter S. Thompson – a collection of his articles from Rolling Stone that followed the battle for the Democratic nomination and the Presidential election between Richard Nixon and George McGovern.

Thompson also covered the Clinton campaign some 20 years later, in what may be the purest example of political Gonzo journalism – which places the writer at the heart of the story in a stream of consciousness style – Better than Sex includes faxes, scribblings, letters, buttons and everything else Thompson used to cover the race.

For now, there is a brief lull before the Michigan primary and then it’s on to Nevada and South Carolina – I get the feeling that this ride has only just started …

Intute: Social Sciences features more resources on the 2008 US elections – just scroll past the Editor’s Choice selections to see the latest additions.

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America’s first primary – New Hampshire votes

8 Jan

The state of New Hampshire is voting today to select delegates to nominate a Presidential candidate.

In fact the first votes have been cast and counted already, as towns with a population of less than 100 are allowed to vote from midnight onwards. Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location have backed the New Hampshire frontrunners for the two main parties Barack Obama and John McCain.

Over 40% of voters are registered as independents in New Hampshire, meaning that when they get to their polling station, they choose whether to vote in the Democratic or Republican primary.

The Votemaster at Electoral-Vote.com does not think that this will affect who will win the respective primaries, but it may alter the margin of victory. The latest Gallup Poll has tracked the effect of the recent Iowa caucus.

As for New Hampshire …

  • Follow the results as they come in via the CNN Election Center – polls close at 1 AM UK time
  • Get a local perspective via the Union Leader, based in Manchester, New Hampshire
  • See voter videos and local TV news reports from the WMUR 9 TV channel which is working with YouTube
  • Harvard’s Institute of Politics has a student project devoted to New Hampshire in their Campus Voices project

If you would like to read around the subject while you wait for the results to come in, then why not try:

Intute: Social Sciences features more resources on the 2008 US elections – just scroll past the Editor’s Choice selections to see the latest additions.

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US Elections on Intute: Social Sciences

7 Jan

Welcome to our coverage of the US Presidential Election here at Intute: Social Sciences. We have a dedicated section looking at US Elections, as well as a related area that examines the ultimate goal of the various candidates, Presidential Government itself.

It will be interesting to see the role that the Internet plays during the course of the campaign and if you are in any doubt as to whether online video will impact on the campaign, CitizenTube has produced a round-up of some of the key video moments from the pre-campaign campaign!

For following the twists and turns of the campaign you also may want to sample the Hotline TV YouTube channel, where Amy Walter and John Mercurio provide daily updates.

Elsewhere you can sample a UK perspective from the BBC News US Elections page,  which includes a poll tracker related to key events and a roadmap of the various primaries on the road to Super Tuesday.

All of the mainstream US news sources have dedicated sites, but the CNN site puts  the recent Iowa Caucus in some sort of perspective, showing that only a tiny proportion of the delegates for the nominating conventions have been selected.

But if you would like an individual perspective on the polling numbers, then we can recommend Electoral-Vote.Com, which provides a wealth of data, maps and thoughtful analysis.

We will be producing weekly round-ups looking at key events – for example the New Hampshire primary tomorrow – but keep an eye on the New resources for Politics page for the latest additions to our catalogue.

Intute: Social Sciences features more resources on the 2008 US Presidential elections.

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