[Air-l] AoIR communal data-database
Nancy Baym
nbaym at ku.edu
Sat Nov 17 15:22:26 PST 2001
>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.
My assumption was that people would prefer to limit the access to
their data, otherwise it would fall under that first category of data
already available on the web. Personally, if I were going to make
data I'd collected available, I'd like to know that there was a
limited set of people who would have access to that, and that I could
get that list on the member website. However, the level of access is
certainly open for discussion and I'd be inclined to defer to the
will of the people who were willing to share their data through a
resource like this. If they want it available to all, then that's
fine.
The issue of how much of what aoir does under its auspices should be
available to all and how much should be available only to members is
a tricky one and there are arguments on both sides. It's a matter of
ongoing discussion with every idea we come up with. Speaking only for
myself, my train of logic goes like this --> do we distinguish
between members and nonmembers? if we don't what does membership
mean? if membership doesn't mean anything then why join? if no one
joins there's no budget, eventually no conferences, eventually no
association. While I believe that aoir should not be an exclusive
little clique, I do think it's important to provide benefits for
members that are better than the benefits of not being a member. It's
not like membership is hard to come by.
Regarding metadata, I concur with Jeremy. If we're talking about data
that are incomprehensible without being in on the research program or
that needs a lot of sophisticated metastuff that's more than a
codebook and explanation could provide, then it's probably not
appropriate for this. On the other hand, there is a lot of data
available already on the web that's being used just like this (e.g.
Pew's data).
Regarding whether this is too big to be sustained by volunteers,
maybe a volunteer effort can't sustain this. If this is not something
people would find adequately valuable to participate in, then it
won't work. On the other hand, all of AoIR thus far would seem to be
a lot more than a volunteer effort could sustain, and it seems to be
working pretty well because people have cared enough to volunteer
their energies.
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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