[Air-l] AoIR communal data-database

[Charlie Hendricksen]

Friends,

    In point 4 of Nancy's proposal for a data repository there is this
statement: "Our intention is that access to such private resources
contributed by aoir members 
would be limited to aoir members."  I see no reasonable justification
for restricting access and would not participate in the venture if
such restrictions are adopted.

    The question of metadata raises a difficult barrier to building
the proposed repository.  Data is pretty much useless without
metadata.  The amount of work required to obtain useful metadata is
likely to exceed what a volunteer effort can support. 

Nancy Baym wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I am developing an 'available research data' section of the member
> website. The basic goals of this are to provide members with easy
> access to existing data sources that they can incorporate into their
> own analyses, to provide members with easy access to tools that will
> help them conduct research, and to foster collaborative analyses by
> providing a mechanism for people with shared interests to network
> around specific materials. I need your help to identify and generate
> resources to include, and welcome any help in building or maintaining
> this communal resource. I envision the following sorts of materials
> [these will be either links or, with permission, archived copies on
> aoir's server]:
> 
> (1) data sets that are already available online (e.g. HomeNet data,
> Pew Internet data...). If you have any suggestions of such data sets
> that we should include, please email me a brief description and a url
> for the materials.
> 
> (2) data collecting tools that are available online such as the
> recently mentioned NetMiner. If you know of any such tools for
> analysing the internet, please email me a brief description and a url.
> 
> (3) online archives such as webarchive.org, and the recent election
> and 9-11 archives built by aoir members. If you know of good
> archives, email me the urls and a blurb.
> 
> (4) data sets contributed by our members either because you are done
> with them and want to share, or because you are looking for
> collaborators to help you analyze the materials (it seems a
> characteristic of a lot of net research that we end up with a lot
> more data than we can analyze). If you might be interested in sharing
> your data, please email me a description of what you have (don't send
> me data sets yet, I'm not that far along). Depending on how free you
> want your materials to be, you could choose between giving aoir a
> copy of the data to archive (with info about it) or you could give us
> a description of the data, the sort of work you're looking for others
> to do with it, and contact information for those who want to follow
> up with you (i.e. you hang on to the data files). Our intention is
> that access to such private resources contributed by aoir members
> would be limited to aoir members.
> 
> (5) what would be useful to include that I am leaving out?
> 
> If you have any other suggestions regarding the shape of this venture
> or the specifics of what it will include or how it will be done,
> please email them to me or, better yet, raise them for discussion on
> air-l. This is in planning stages, and is open to good ideas about
> how to make it better. This will only be worthwhile if it's something
> we use, and we'll only use it if it's got things worth using there,
> so please let me know what you're aware of or what you would be
> willing to contribute. There will be plenty of work to go around in
> building and maintaining this resource, so I welcome anyone's
> participation.
> 
> Thank you in advance for your input,
> 
> Nancy
> 
> _________________________________________________________
> Nancy Baym
> nbaym at ku.edu
> http://www.ku.edu/home/nbaym
> Communication Studies, University of Kansas
> 102 Bailey, 1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
> VP, Association of Internet Researchers: http://aoir.org
> 
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-- 
            Charlie Hendricksen   veritas at u.washington.edu

            "Information technology structures human relationships."
                            "Models relate concepts."