[Air-l] Technical competence

[Paula]

Anyone who's ever read any FLOSS documentation will appreciate that
physicists are not necessarily the most fluent analysists or writers if
the topic is user experience ;-)

Paula

Cox wrote:

>The need for knowing about computer technologies in communications research
>is becoming greater than the rudiments of web composition and traffic
>analysis. Already, artificial intelligence is being applied to content
>analysis, as in the case of a number of papers published on the Enron email
>corpus. The skill sets involved fall outside those typically found among
>communications researchers. A principle researcher in one of these Enron
>studies is Andrew McCallum at UMass, who is a physicist iirc. Another
>physicist, Andrew Smith, is responsible for the Leximancer tool mentioned
>earlier by Thomas Koenig. Less abstract tools like structural equation
>modeling are common now, and require competence in computer technologies
>beyond SPSS. 
>
>Whether these technologies should be incorporated in curricula is maybe not
>the right question, as they are not the types of skills one gets in a course
>or two. Perhaps the field should recruit from among information science and
>computer science undergrads who come equipped with the skills already. 
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: air-l-aoir.org-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
>[mailto:air-l-aoir.org-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Elizabeth Van
>Couvering
>Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 4:40 AM
>To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
>Subject: Re: [Air-l] Technical competence
>
>But let's consider the recent issue of archiving websites -- clearly  
>we need some kind of technical competence for that.  Ditto link  
>analysis.  Ditto for reading others' papers and understanding whether  
>they've used a correct or appropriate methodology.  For example, in  
>understanding the so-called popularity of a website people should  
>know to differentiate between 'hits' and 'pages' and 'visitors' and  
>should be able to figure out whether robots have been excluded - to  
>take a random example that demands a bit of specialised knowledge.  
>Shouldn't this be the kind of thing we are considering for our students?
>
>Elizabeth
>
>On 6 Jun 2005, at 22:34, Paula wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Yes, I'd agree with this - it can be useful to understand something of
>>how any particular technical medium is productive in online social
>>formations, but find it far more useful to approach social software
>>primarily from the point of view of the user. The users will always
>>manage to exceed the developers' constructs anyway.
>>
>>Conversely, I find it really interesting how social softwares
>>materialise the culture of their developers whilst users will often  
>>try
>>to use it according to the needs of a completely different culture.
>>
>>Paula
>>
>>Ledbetter, Andrew Michael wrote:
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Long-time reader, first-time poster. :-)
>>>
>>>I agree, interesting question, and an important question. I think  
>>>the (a) particular research question and (b) population under  
>>>study significantly influence the level of technical competence a  
>>>researcher would need. And we must not forget that the vast  
>>>majority of web users, e-mail users, online gamers, etc. do not  
>>>know much at all about UNIX, perl, Java, or probably even basic  
>>>ideas about how the TCP/IP protocol operates. Given this, might  
>>>there be occasions where lacking in-depth computer science  
>>>knowledge might actually help a researcher approaching the  
>>>Internet from a social science perspective, since they may be able  
>>>to more easily view the technology through the users' eyes rather  
>>>than the developers' eyes?
>>>
>>>In my own research, I find that my computer science background  
>>>helps me understand the contours of how the nature of a technology  
>>>encourages and discourages certain forms of social interaction...  
>>>but I find that my social science background helps me far more in  
>>>understanding how human beings appropriate the technology in their  
>>>social interaction.
>>>
>>>Andrew
>>>-------------
>>>Andrew M. Ledbetter
>>>Ph.D. student, University of Kansas
>>>Department of Communication Studies
>>>aledbett at ku.edu
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>>>---
>>>
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>>>
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>>
>
>Elizabeth Van Couvering
>PhD Student
>Department of Media & Communications
>London School of Economics and Political Science
>http://personal.lse.ac.uk/vancouve/
>e.j.van-couvering at lse.ac.uk
>
>
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>