[Air-l] Call for papers - quantitative studies of the web for JASIST.

[Thelwall, Mike (Dr)]

                        CALL FOR PAPERS

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               JASIST Special Issue on Webometrics
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                Submission deadline June 30, 2003

The next Special Topics Issue of Journal of the American Society for
Information Science and Technology (JASIST) is scheduled to come out in
late 2004 on the topic of webometrics. The guest editors for this special
issue will be Mike Thelwall of The University of Wolverhampton, UK, and
Liwen Vaughan of The University of Western Ontario, Canada.

Webometrics, the quantitative study of web phenomena, encompasses a
variety of types of research, some of which date back to the early years
of the Web although the widespread adoption of the term itself is
relatively new. The dynamic, diversified and far-reaching nature of the
Web provides a fertile ground for knowledge discovery. Frequencies and
patterns of word and phrase usage on web pages can provide valuable
information for search algorithms. The selective coverage of web sites
by search engines reflects favour toward certain communities and bias
against others. Use of query terms reflects issues of interest and
concern to people. The size and structure of web sites around the world
can provide extensive social, cultural, economic and political
information. Web links, although individually less reliable sources of
information than bibliographic citations, may reveal significant trends
when aggregated over large areas of the Web. 

This issue will provide a forum for a broad spectrum of scholars to
compile a body of research that begins to cement these emerging areas
into a coherent field. It will also serve as a tribute to Tomas Almind
who originated the term webometrics with Peter Ingwersen and who died
in an accident before he could see the influence of his ideas. It is
envisaged that future progress of webometrics will prove the Web to be
one of the most valuable mainstream data sources for information science.

Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the
following:

* Structures, patterns and topologies of hyperlinks on the Web
* Methodological issues pertaining to the use of search engines,
  crawlers, and other online tools for data collection
* Motives for the creation of hyperlinks
* Categorization of web page types and content. 
* Social, cultural, and linguistic factors in Web use
* Frequency distributions of web query terms
* The application of webometrics to information retrieval research
* Web impact measurements
* Mapping web communities and relationships
* Applying and extending bibliometric and scientometric techniques onto
  the study of the Web

The guest editors seek papers that address these and related topics. The
quantitative orientation of Webometrics does not preclude the use of
qualitative methods when appropriate. Inquires can be made to Mike Thelwall
(m.thelwall at wlv.ac.uk) or Liwen Vaughan (lvaughan at uwo.ca). Manuscripts can
be submitted in electronic form (Word or PDF) to either guest editor or in
print form (four copies of full articles) to:

Dr. Liwen Vaughan
Faculty of Information and Media Studies
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, N6A 5B7
Canada
Phone: (519) 661-2111 ext. 88499
Fax: (519) 661-3506
E-mail: lvaughan at uwo.ca

The deadline for accepting manuscripts for consideration for publication in
this special issue is June 30, 2003. Authors are requested to notify the
guest
editors of their intent to submit prior to submitting a paper. The guest
editors will be happy to provide advice on the suitability of topics if
needed.

All manuscripts will be reviewed by a select panel of referees, and those
accepted will be published in a special issue of JASIST. Original artwork
and
a signed copy of the copyright release form will be required for all
accepted
papers. A copy of the call for papers will be available on the World Wide
Web as
is further information about JASIST, at http://www.asis.org/.