1,721,034 research outputs found
Cooperation and Community on the Internet:Past Issues and Present Perspectives for Theoretical-Empirical Internet Research
No full textThis paper first summarizes two central debates in the field of social scientific Internet research, namely the debate about the so-called 'social impact of Internet use' and the debate about the existence of community on the Internet. Early research discussed whether building up a community on the Internet was possible and what the effects of the use of the Internet were for its user. Recent research on the social consequences of Internet use suggests that 'the' Internet should no longer be regarded as a constant that has uniform effects for its users. Rather, the consequences of its use depend on a number of contextual conditions. The paper presents some theories that explain which conditions and features of online groups facilitate the finding of solutions to bilateral or group-level problems of cooperation.</p
Social networks and cooperation in electronic communities : a theoretical-empirical analysis of academic communication and Internet discussion groups
Full text linkThe study examines the use of academic e-mailing lists and newsgroups on the Internet by university researchers in the Netherlands and England. Their use is related to three clusters of problems that are analyzed.
Firstly, while there are considerable time costs for using Internet Discussion Groups, their potential benefits for the individual researcher and their impact on the informal academic communication structure are unknown. Are they information tools or social tools for enlarging the social networks of researchers? Do those researchers who have less contacts profit more from the opportunities to get in contact with other researchers such that existing inequalities between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' are reduced?
Secondly, there are large disciplinary differences in the prevalence of the use of Internet tools. For knowing more about the preconditions for the successful introduction of a new Information & Communication Technology, it is useful to gain two insights. Which aspects of the communication system of a discipline inhibit or stimulate the use of an Internet tool and by which mechanisms do they so?
Thirdly, it is unclear why some Internet Discussion Groups are more successful in reaching a satisfying academic discussion than others. How can an electronic group make sure that its members contribute to the discussion, provide help to others, and participate in the production of a collective good for the whole group? Which impact do offline social networks have on the online communication and how do institutional factors, such as a high degree of social embeddedness of an Internet Discussion Group into a 'real-life' academic community, influence the attainment of a satisfying discussion?
Trust and Community on the Internet:Opportunities and Restrictions for Online Cooperation
No full textTrust and Community on the Internet:Opportunities and Restrictions for Online Cooperation
No full textReputation and Internet Auctions:eBay and Beyond
No full textEach day, a countless number of items is sold through online auction sites such as eBay and Ricardo. Though abuse is being reported more and more, transactions seem to be relatively hassle free. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that the sites' reputation mechanisms prevent opportunistic behavior. To analyze this issue, we first summarize and extend the mechanisms that affect the probability of sale of an item and its price. We then try to replicate the results as found in four recent papers on online auctions. Our analyses reveal that (1) it makes sense to differentiate between 'power sellers' and the less regular users, (2) there are variables that have an effect on sales that are often not controlled for, (3) one should carefully consider how reputation is operationalized, (4) neglecting heteroscedasticity in the data can have serious consequences, and (5) there is some support indicating that effects differ across auction sites.</p
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
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
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