[Air-L] CALL FOR PARTICIPATION BY DC-AREA FEDERAL AGENCY PERSONNEL, ACADEMICS AND ADVOCACY ORGANIZATION STAFF - The Bureau of Labor Statistics - Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory - Washington, DC

[Stuart Shulman]

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION BY DC-AREA FEDERAL AGENCY PERSONNEL, ACADEMICS AND
ADVOCACY ORGANIZATION STAFF

TEST NEW TOOLS FOR SORTING FEDERAL DOCKET MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (FDMS) PUBLIC
COMMENTS, BLOG COMMENTS AND OTHER FORMS OF ELECTRONIC PUBLIC DIALOG

http://www.umass.edu/qdap/cfp-bls.pdf

What: Public Comment Analysis Toolkit Training & Usability Workshops

When: Friday January 22, 2010 - Please pick one of two sessions: a) 9:00 am
or b) 11:00 am

Where: The Bureau of Labor Statistics - Human-Computer Interaction
Laboratory - Washington, DC (Next to Union Station)

Sponsors: The National Science Foundation and the University of
Massachusetts Amherst

Host: Dr. Stuart Shulman, Director of the Qualitative Data Analysis Program
at UMass Amherst

Program: Each 105 minute computer lab-based session will consist of three
parts. During the first part, Dr. Shulman will introduce the Public Comment
Analysis Toolkit and lead the group through a series of steps to establish
accounts on the Web-based Public Comment Analysis Toolkit (PCAT). After a
brief orientation to the features in the system, all participants will be
asked to perform a series of tasks to familiarize themselves with the scope
and nature of the PCAT software. Once the testing is complete, a brief,
anonymous and confidential usability survey will be available online.

Why: Proliferating digitized text collections present multifaceted problems
for individuals, groups, corporations, universities, and governments at
every level. As the volume of intermixed germane and non-germane information
grows (with the latter often growing much more rapidly), the need for more
streamlined work flows and assistance from automated tools also grows. On
the individual level, the pain is concrete in the form of repetitive mouse
click-induced cases of the computer-related carpel tunnel injury.

Existing document management platforms compel users to work through lengthy
lists, sub-parts or pages of lists, and finally the individual items within
those lists with a click-by-click set of repetitive motions on the computer
mouse. Getting manually to the next document or document sub-part, isolating
the relevant text, and recording the correct classification and associated
annotations currently requires too many painful clicks and drags on the
mouse even when the number of documents is relatively small. These new tools
and technologies are based upon well-researched principles of automated text
clustering, work flow efficiency design, analytic efficacy, internal and
external validity checks, inter-coder reliability tools, and human-computer
interface usability. User feedback at these sessions will shape the future
direction of these tools as well as their overall usability.

Who Currently Uses PCAT? Among the first 250 PCAT BETA TESTERS are a wide
variety of academics as well as personnel from the US Environmental
Protection Agency, the US General Services Administration, the US Fish &
Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the
US Department of Transportation, the US Forest Service, the US Secret
Service, the US Department of Agriculture, the Federal Communication
Commission, and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For More Information: Please visit http://pcat.qdap.net or write to Dr.
Shulman for more information (stu at polsci.umass.edu) or call him at
413-545-5375. Directions to the lab are online at:
http://www.umass.edu/qdap/BLS-lab-directions.pdf.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure: Dr. Shulman is the inventor of the Public
Comment Analysis Toolkit and therefore has a direct financial interest in
any future commercialization opportunities. He is the manager of an
independent software venture (Texifter, LLC) and has a financial interest in
any technology transfers based on this research.

To Register for 9:00 am January 22:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dDRUbU4tQVhLX1VMVXRFaFRkeXBFaEE6MA

or try http://tiny.cc/u1y4T

To Register for 11:00 am January 22:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEZDd0JUNDMtcnpBcjdOT1R3a2NGYlE6MA

or try http://tiny.cc/hCROd

---

This research project was initiated during the fall 1999 semester was made
possible with the following grants from the National Science Foundation:
III-0705566 "Collaborative Research III-COR: From a Pile of Documents to a
Collection of Information: A Framework for Multi-Dimensional Text Analysis,"
IIS-0429293 "Collaborative Research: Language Processing Technology for
Electronic Rulemaking,"  EIA-00328914 "SGER COLLABORATIVE: A Testbed for
eRulemaking Data," SES-0322662 "Democracy and E-Rulemaking: Comparing
Traditional vs. Electronic Comment from a Discursive Democratic Framework,"
and EIA-0089892 "SGER: Citizen Agenda-Setting in the Regulatory Process:
Electronic Collection and Synthesis of Public Commentary." We are also
grateful for past financial support from the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.  Any opinions, findings and
conclusions or recommendations expressed in these workshops are those of the
researchers and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science
Foundation or any federal agency.

-- 
Dr. Stuart W. Shulman
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Massachusetts Amherst
200 Hicks Way
Amherst, MA 01003

http://people.umass.edu/stu/
stu at polsci.umass.edu
413-545-5375

Editor, Journal of Information Technology and Politics
http://www.jitp.net

Director, QDAP-UMass
http://www.umass.edu/qdap/

Associate Director, National Center for Digital Government
http://www.umass.edu/digitalcenter/