[Air-l] Virtual IR 6.0

[Steve Jones]

We have made arrangements for several internet-based tools to be used  
during the upcoming conference in Chicago, for both participants who  
will be at the conference as well as for those of you unable to be  
here. All should be up and running by Thursday, Oct. 6, and some, like  
the wiki, are already available.

1. Tag This Conference! aoir and aoir6

You're it. We need your help to make it easy for all of us to find the  
websites, pictures & blog entries related to the conference. Just use  
the tags aoir and aoir6 in del.icio.us, Flickr or with Technorati, then  
check out http://www.technorati.com/tag/aoir or aoir6 for the combined  
results.

What is tagging? It's a way to give online content a little extra  
context by adding keywords called tags. Usually people tag their own  
collections of bookmarks or photographs so that they can find them  
later, but they can also be used to help other people find online  
content. When we agree to use the same tag it's easy for everyone to  
find things.

What are del.icio.us, Flickr and Technorati? Del.icio.us is a social  
bookmarks manager where users save their links. Anything with a URL can  
be bookmarked in del.icio.us and described by tags and extended notes.  
Flickr is a popular photo sharing site that uses tags. Technorati is a  
blog indexing site and it collects the tags that bloggers use to  
describe their posts. It also displays information from del.icio.us and  
Flickr in its results.

Don't want to sign up for these services? No signing up required! Visit  
http://emt.url123.com/aoir6 for details.

2. The Backchannel

Don't wait until the question and answer session to discuss an  
interesting presentation with your colleagues. Share ideas and comment  
on papers as they're delivered via Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Each of  
the AoIR conference rooms has a corresponding chat room for backchannel  
discussion. Connection details and recommended chat clients will be  
posted in each room.

Increasingly popular at technology conferences and in college  
classrooms, backchannel discussions allow for quick fact checking and  
can create a greater sense of community amongst both audience members  
and presenters.

More details about the server and channels will be made available soon.
 
3. The Conference wiki

A wiki is available for each conference session (organized by session,  
http://wiki.aoir.org/index.php?title=Internet_Research_6.0, as well as  
by meeting room,  
http://wiki.aoir.org/index.php?title=Internet_Research_6.0: 
_Theme_Pages). Whether you are a presenter, conference participants,  
AoIR member or air-l subscriber, share your thoughts about each session  
here.

4. Internet Survey

How familiar are you with some of the trendiest Internet developments  
(such as wikis and blogs)? Would you like to compare your media  
consumption with that of your parents (and/or children)? Please take 10  
minutes of your time to complete a “Generations Survey”. When you  
finish the questionnaire, you will see a snapshot of the general  
results. The resulting data will be available to the conference  
attendees, AoIR members and subscribers to the AoIR e-mail list  
(air-l). All respondents will be anonymous.

Link:

http://generations-survey.notlong.com        

These efforts to use the internet to enhance conference participation  
are part of a project organized by graduate students at the University  
of Illinois at Chicago. Data from them will be made anonymous and  
analyzed for coursework. Thanks particularly to David Elfving and  
Ericka Menchen Trevino for their work on the technology for it.