Category: Social Media

"Crowding the Library: How and Why Libraries Are Using Crowdsourcing to Engage the Public"

Sarah Severson and Jean-Sébastien Sauve have published "Crowding the Library: How and Why Libraries Are Using Crowdsourcing to Engage the Public" in Partnership.

Here's an excerpt:

This article is written from a Canadian University library perspective with the goal to help the reader engage with the current crowdsourcing landscape. This article’s contribution includes a literature review and a survey of popular projects and platforms; followed by a case study of a crowdsourcing pilot completed at the McGill Library. The article pulls these two threads of theory and practice together—with a discussion of some of the best practices learned through the literature and real-life experience, giving the reader practical tools to help a library evaluate if crowdsourcing is right for them, and how to get a desired project off the ground.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Towards Open Annotation: Examples and Experiments"

Lindsey Seatter has published "Towards Open Annotation: Examples and Experiments" in KULA: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies.

Here's an excerpt:

This article interrogates how digital text annotation tools and projects facilitate online engagement and virtual communities of practice. With the rise of the Web 2.0 movement and the proliferation of digital resources, annotation has evolved from an isolated practice to a collaborative one. This article unpacks the impact of this shift by providing an in-depth discussion of five web-based tools and two social reading projects. This article examines issues of design, usability, and applicability to pedagogical intervention as well as underscores how productive group dynamics can be fostered through digital, social annotation.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Changing Styles of Informal Academic Communication in the Age of the Web: Orthodox, Moderate and Heterodox Responses"

David Ellis et al. have self-archived "Changing Styles of Informal Academic Communication in the Age of the Web: Orthodox, Moderate and Heterodox Responses."

Here's an excerpt:

Purpose—The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study to investigate changes in scholarly communication practices among a group of scholars in the UK and build upon the results that were published in a previous paper. Design/methodology/approach—The study deployed a naturalistic inquiry approach using semi-structured interviews as a qualitative research tool. A sample of 40 participants from four UK universities were interviewed to explore the changes in informal scholarly communication behaviour. Findings—The analysis of the interviews revealed that there are three ideal types of behaviour: the 'Orthodox' uses formal and traditional scholarly communication approaches; the 'Moderate' prioritises formal communication approaches, but at the same time is trying to get benefits from informal channels; and, the 'Heterodox' uses all channels available in scholarly communication.

Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

License Change at Major Social Media Site for Photographers: "500px Nukes 1M+ Creative Commons Photos"

Michael Zhang has published "500px Nukes 1M+ Creative Commons Photos" in PetaPixel.

Here's an excerpt:

But overnight, all of the CC photos that have been uploaded since 2012 have been nuked from 500px. Users can no longer choose a CC license during uploading, search for CC photos, or download them.

Jason Scott reports on Twitter that the photos have been archived in the Internet Archives' Wayback Machine:

3 terabytes of Creative Commons photos going into the Wayback machine thanks to the efforts of dozens of volunteers slamming from NO warning and going for 48 hours straight. Amazing work, everyone. It's going to take a while to understand exactly what we got.

Note that the Wayback Machine is only searchable by site URL.

The Creative Commons photos have not been deleted; however, the Creative Commons license has been. Consequently, the user has no way to know about the existing Creative Commons licensing terms. On logon today, 500px gives the user the option of opting out of commercial distribution by Getty Images.

See also: "500px Photo Site Abandons Freely Shareable Images with Commercialization Push."

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"ScholarlyHub: A Progress Report at Six Months"

Guy Geltner and John Willinsky have self-archived "ScholarlyHub: A Progress Report at Six Months."

Here's an excerpt:

ScholarlyHub (SH) was launched in November 2017 as a portal to fund and create a social network for scholarship-using individuals and communities that is supported and directed from the bottom up and not beholden to venture capitalists on the one hand and governments on the other. As an inclusive, member-run portal, it hopes to connect rather than replace numerous non-profit and open-source OA initiatives, which tend to lack a visible and attractive front end, and which may not currently be interoperable. If its goals can be realized, SH may offer one solution to the full workflow platforms that for-profit conglomerates are on the cusp of achieving. This practitioner’s paper presents the key characteristics of SH and offers an early progress report.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

Social Media Use Continues to Rise in Developing Countries but Plateaus Across Developed Ones

The Pew Research Center has released Social Media Use Continues to Rise in Developing Countries but Plateaus Across Developed Ones.

Here's an excerpt:

Across the 39 countries, a median of 75% say they either use the internet occasionally or own a smartphone, our definition of internet use. In many advanced economies, nine-in-ten or more use the internet, led by South Korea (96%). . . .

Across 39 countries, a median of 53% say they use online social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. However, that figure conceals large differences around the world, and the relationship between social media use and national wealth is not as strong as it is for overall internet use and smartphone ownership.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Academic Information on Twitter: A User Survey"

Ehsan Mohammadi et al. have published "Academic Information on Twitter: A User Survey" in PLOS ONE.

Here's an excerpt:

Although counts of tweets citing academic papers are used as an informal indicator of interest, little is known about who tweets academic papers and who uses Twitter to find scholarly information. Without knowing this, it is difficult to draw useful conclusions from a publication being frequently tweeted. This study surveyed 1,912 users that have tweeted journal articles to ask about their scholarly-related Twitter uses. Almost half of the respondents (45%) did not work in academia, despite the sample probably being biased towards academics. Twitter was used most by people with a social science or humanities background. People tend to leverage social ties on Twitter to find information rather than searching for relevant tweets. Twitter is used in academia to acquire and share real-time information and to develop connections with others. Motivations for using Twitter vary by discipline, occupation, and employment sector, but not much by gender. These factors also influence the sharing of different types of academic information. This study provides evidence that Twitter plays a significant role in the discovery of scholarly information and cross-disciplinary knowledge spreading. Most importantly, the large numbers of non-academic users support the claims of those using tweet counts as evidence for the non-academic impacts of scholarly research.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Sharing Selves: Developing an Ethical Framework for Curating Social Media Data"

Sara Mannheimer and Elizabeth A. Hull have published "Sharing Selves: Developing an Ethical Framework for Curating Social Media Data" in the International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

Open sharing of social media data raises new ethical questions that researchers, repositories and data curators must confront, with little existing guidance available. In this paper, the authors draw upon their experiences in their multiple roles as data curators, academic librarians, and researchers to propose the STEP framework for curating and sharing social media data. The framework is intended to be used by data curators facilitating open publication of social media data. Two case studies from the Dryad Digital Repository serve to demonstrate implementation of the STEP framework. The STEP framework can serve as one important 'step' along the path to achieving safe, ethical, and reproducible social media research practice.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

Bots in the Twittersphere

The Pew Research Center has released Bots in the Twittersphere.

Here's an excerpt:

Among the key findings of this research:

  • Of all tweeted links2, 3 to popular websites, 66% are shared by accounts with characteristics common among automated "bots," rather than human users.
  • Among popular news and current event websites, 66% of tweeted links are made by suspected bots—identical to the overall average. The share of bot-created tweeted links is even higher among certain kinds of news sites. For example, an estimated 89% of tweeted links to popular aggregation sites that compile stories from around the web are posted by bots.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 8 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap