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Posts Tagged ‘notes’

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ASIS&T 2009: David W. McDonald

In My Work on November 19, 2009 at 11:48 am

The second speaker at the SIG USE Symposium was Dr. David W. McDonald (note to self: read some of his papers), who comes from a background in HCI. His presentation, entitled “Issue of Scale: Mass Participation Computing”, gave us a glimpse of some of the cool projects that he worked on. He was a very lively speaker with a sense of humour. I was inspired by the ways in which live projects were implemented in existing “systems” (both online and offline) in order to gage participant’s reaction and feedback, and the fact that he is on faculty at Washington’s iSchool. His appointment reflects the truly interdisciplinary nature of what iSchools should be today.

He presents his projects in terms the theme of his talk, which is, how scale is transforming the paradigm of computing. What should be observed, studied and scrutinized in networks that represent an entire society? What types of questions are legitimate in such inquiries? How should the question be stated? And how should the results be evaluated and interpreted? We don’t know, but they sure make interesting inquiries and social experiments, as can be seen below. Click here for a brief summary of the 4 projects.

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ASIS&T 2009: Diane Sonnenwald

In My Work on November 16, 2009 at 12:49 pm

This post was originally titled “ASIS&T 2009: Day 1″, but I think I just crashed that saturday night, after a full day at the symposium, and the rest of my time in Vancouver was a blur of trying to attend a few interesting sessions, take some time out to see the city and visit a local friend, and wake up every morning to enjoy the relaxing breakfast at the O’Canada House B&B. However, the next time I visit, I think I might try out the Listel Hotel, who decorates their rooms in collaboration with the anthropology department at UBC.

One of the things that I was really looking forward to at the conference, was meeting some of the big names in information science, albeit from afar. Instead of boring you with a play by play, I’m going to give you instead what I have come away from the conference with, in terms of further understanding and appreciation. The next few posts are the highlights of the individuals I met, beginning with Sonnenwald, who was a marvelous speaker. Also, now I can put a face to her articles when I come across them!

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October: Progress Update

In Reflections on October 1, 2009 at 12:18 pm

I am actually writing this a few days in advance of October, as another visit from family is keeping me quite busy. I didn’t realize how much of my ‘leisure’ time is devoted to my various pursuit until I feel a sense of panic setting in that I haven’t quite done all my readings, or made any progress in editing papers and grant proposals for review submissions. However, I think that my time management is really paying off, as I am really panicking about not being ahead, not actually being behind. Note to readers: this is the down side of using stress as a motivator; it’s really hard to turn off, especially when you don’t need it.

This month, the focus is on applying to the SSHRC Master’s Grant, developing a research design for my ethnographic project in Prof. Hartel’s class, editing a paper for review at the Journal of Community Informatics, and getting my feet wet as a research team member in my first consultant gig as an “information professional”. My reading course for next semester with Prof. Mai has been approved as well, but I’ve got plenty on my plate already. That’s the nutshell version, here’s the expansive version.

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