1,720,970 research outputs found
The ageing internet: digital choice and exclusion among the elderly
Full text linkWe are all familiar with the headlines proclaiming the rise of the ‘silver surfer’; or now even the ‘silver tweeter’. Alongside this, services are increasingly disseminating information that is accessed purely online. So, what about the digitally-disenfranchised who, for whatever reason, do not want to or are simply not able to use or access the internet? In this next article, Ellen J Helsper explores the profile of these groups and examines what service providers and commissioners should bear in mind
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Book review: the handbook of food research, edited by Anne Murcott, Warren Belasco, Peter Jackson
No full textThe last twenty years have seen a burgeoning of social scientific and historical research on food. The field has drawn in experts to investigate topics such as the way globalisation affects the food supply; what cookery books can (and cannot) tell us; changing understandings of famine; the social meanings of meals – and many more. Now sufficiently extensive to require a critical overview, this is the first handbook of specially commissioned essays to provide a tour d’horizon of this broad range of topics and disciplines. Reviewed by Ellen J. Helsper
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
New forms of digital inequality: Disparities in offline benefits from internet use
No full textThere may be many disagreements amongst UK politicians in the run up to the election but the one thing that they do agree upon is the importance of making sure the UK becomes a digitally savvy nation. It is worrying in this context that the most recent report from the “From Digital Skills to Tangible Outcomes” project shows that many people struggle to translate their internet use into tangible offline benefits.
A tangible benefit might be finding a (better) job, increased knowledge or education, higher quality relationships and interactions, membership of groups or organisations, or improved personal well-being. As the chart above shows, undertaking an activity in the digital space does not automatically lead to achieving an outcome different from the outcome achieved when undertaking it offline. Depending on the outcome under investigation, around 50 to 75% of the respondents indicated that they did not achieve an outcome that they could not have achieved offline. It seems like getting the benefits of Internet use is easier for economic and individual outcomes than for cultural and social outcomes.
These findings suggest real problems for existing policies and interventions aiming to tackle digital inclusion. Existing evaluations tend to measure success in improvement of digital skills or, in more sophisticated designs, different ways of engaging with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Underlying these measurements is the assumption that they are good indicators of someone actually achieving a related tangible and satisfying outcome in his or her everyday life.
That these indicators are unsatisfactory is demonstrated by our research findings, showing that use of the internet does not directly translate into tangible outcomes. For example, the pilot survey conducted in the Netherlands and the UK shows that doing online job searches has often been used as an indicator of employment benefits of digital inclusion, but this project shows that 54% indicated that they could have probably found the job they got through their online search offline as well, and while 52% indicated that the internet had influenced how they worked, 29% did not think it had influenced their job in a positive way. In the interviews conducted this was clear when one respondent explained this as follows: “So it has influenced my job completely, but it’s not to improve my job. If anything, it’s made me and a lot of other people a bit lazier at work (…) It has influenced how I do my job, but it’s made me worse”.
The report showed that there are social inequalities in the achievement of and satisfaction with the tangible outcomes from internet use. This complicates the work of those who design digital inclusion interventions using measures such as access, skills and engagement with ICTs as indicators, since these do not necessarily lead to tangible offline benefits especially for the more disadvantaged in society.
Upon closer examination there might also be positive news, as the report argues that to translate engagement with an online activity into a tangible outcome, having digital skills is essential, and this is an area where interventions can have an impact. Differences in digital skills between different socio-economic and socio-cultural groups lead to lower levels of achievement of and satisfaction with outcomes when people engage with an activity online
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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