[Air-L] "Definitive" citation for the concept of digital trace data?

[Glassman, Michael]

This idea comes from the beginnings of the Internet.  The germs of it can be found in Vannevar Bush's 1945 article "As we may think" in the Atlantic.  It was concretized by Nelson in 1974 (probably earlier) in his conception of hypertext in his book Dream Machines (although he's not talking about the Internet, but Berners-Lee did apply this idea to the Internet per se).  It seems to me we have been playing off of these ideas in one way or another ever since.

Michael


-----Original Message-----
From: Air-L [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Kevin G Crowston
Sent: Monday, October 05, 2015 11:17 AM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: [Air-L] "Definitive" citation for the concept of digital trace data?

An argument for studies of online behaviour is that the systems collect records of what people do and that such digital trace data provide a rich source of evidence for all kinds of studies. I’m trying to trace back that idea but it seems so taken for granted that there’s often not a citation. So I wondered what people consider the definitive citation for that idea, and for the term "trace data” in this context more specifically. 

For example, there’s a 2008 handbook article:

Welser, H. T., Smith, M., Fisher, D., and Gleave, E. 2008. "Distilling Digital Traces: Computational Social Science Approaches to Studying the Internet," in The Sage Handbook of Online Research Methods, N. Fielding, R.M. Lee and G. Blank (eds.). London, England: SAGE Publications, Ltd, pp. 116–141.

But I suspect there are even earlier sources.

Kevin Crowston | Distinguished Professor of Information Science | School of Information Studies

Syracuse University
348 Hinds Hall
Syracuse, New York 13244
t (315) 443.1676 f 315.443.5806 e crowston at syr.edu  

crowston.syr.edu


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