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Site Visit and Quarterly Reports send comments or questions to: l-neuma1@uiuc.edu |
User EvaluationSocial Science Research- Social Science TeamQuarterly Report (work from May through July, 1996) Major Activities During the past quarter, the Social Science Team has continued with its efforts to instrument the testbed, study potential and actual users, and develop instruments and analysis techniques to be used in later studies of work and information practices in the evolving digital order, as well as of the nature and extent of testbed use. We have also spent a significant amount of time analyzing the growing body of literature that informs our work, preparing publications based on our work, and leading and participating in activities aimed at nurturing the emerging community of researchers engaged in social science research related to digital libraries, both within and beyond the six DLI projects. Our specific activities are summarized below: Data Collection and Analysis Activities Laura Neumann studied work practices of a group of physicists by interviewing them about their work and observing them as they worked. She wrapped up this study by taking photos of their work area and doing a final interview with one of the most closely observed physicists. Neumann has also produced a draft report on this study. Robert Sandusky worked closely with the Testbed Team to develop, test, and put the user registration and client instrumentation systems into production. This involved articulating all data to be collected and developing the mechanisms needed to collect, store, and analyze the data. Emily Ignacio prepared a plan for the analysis of the user registration data and worked on testing the plan with pretest data from users. Robert Sandusky, Emily Ignacio, and Ann Bishop produced the specifications for instrumenting the Testbed to include "Good/Bad" buttons for recording user comments about specific session activities in transaction logs of their sessions. Laura Neumann explored qualitative research programs to be used in managing and analyzing data gathered from interviews and observations as well as from "open answer" spaces in the user registration form for the testbed. Emily Ignacio attended a seminar on survey design (6 classes, from July 8 to July 24) so that she could gain additional knowledge and skills to be applied to the conduct of DLI user surveys in 1996/97. Emily Ignacio prepared a draft survey instrument related to gathering additional data on the information seeking and use activities of scientists and engineers, including their use of digital resources. She also reviewed literature relevant to planning for the analysis of the resulting survey data, as well as other study results. Disseminating the Results of DL Research Laura Neumann and Leigh Star revised drafts of their paper "Making Infrastructure: The Dream of a Common Language." One of these was accepted at PDC 96 (participatory design conference). Laura Neumann built a new web forum for discussion for community of social scientists of all kinds working on digital library projects of all sorts. This forum was strongly called for by attendees at the project-wide DLI meeting in May. The forum includes the opportunity to gather "team pages" from different social science groups as well as spaces to discuss relevant topics such as methods (http://anshar.grainger.uiuc.edu/dlisoc/SocSci_page.html). Ann Bishop and Leigh Star wrote a chapter on "Social Informatics of DL Infrastructure and Use," for which other team members performed bibliographic research. Robert Sandusky wrote a paper on "Network Management as Cooperative Work, which has been submitted for presentation at an international conference. Emily Ignacio wrote a paper with Frances Jacobson on information seeking and evaluation in DLs used in educational settings that will appear in a prominent journal in library and information science. Fostering Development of Social Science Research on DLs Ann Bishop, Emily Ignacio, and Leigh Star worked on planning and organizing activities related to the GSLIS and NSF sponsored Allerton Institute on "Libraries, People, and Change: A Research Forum," which will be held at the University of Illinois on October 27-29, 1996. Leigh Star and Robert Sandusky also began working on the Allerton sessions they will lead. Ann Bishop led the team in organizing and conducting a range of activities related to user needs and evaluation for the project- wide DLI meeting in May 1996. These included a pre-conference gathering, a plenary session, a working group session, and a demo session. Publications Bishop, Ann Peterson & Star, Susan Leigh. 1996, in press. "Social Informatics for Digital Library Infrastructure and Use." In: Martha Williams, ed. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, vol. 30. Jacobson, Frances and Ignacio, Emily. In press. Teaching Reflection: Information Seeking and Evaluation in a Digital Library Environment. To appear in: Library Trends. Presentations Bishop, Ann. "User Needs and Evaluation", Digital Library Initiatives All-Project Semi-Annual Meeting, May 16, Ann Arbor, MI Professional Activities Leigh Star continued service on NSF Ethics and Values in Science Panel. Consulted for white paper to NSF, "Machinery for Predictability of Complex Systems," September, 1996; co-organizer, with Rob Kling, of Social and Organizational Section, NSF Workshop on Human Centered Computing and Intelligent Systems (February, 1997). Grants/ Awards Star, S. L. co-PI, Advanced Information Technologies Group, UIUC, ROffice and Desktop Classification,S $10,500, June 1996- May 1997. |