Archive for the ‘Research’ Category
Next Generation Web Searches
"In less than a decade, Internet search engines have completely changed how people gather information. No longer must we run to a library to look up something; rather we can pull up relevant documents with just a few clicks on a keyboard. Now that ‘Googling’ has become synonymous with doing research, online search engines are poised for a series of upgrades that promise to further enhance how we find what we need.
"New search engines are improving the quality of results by delving deeper into the storehouse of materials available online, by sorting and presenting those results better, and by tracking your long-term interests so that they can refine their handling of new information requests.
"In the future, search engines will broaden content horizons as well, doing more than simply processing keyword queries typed into a text box. They will be able to automatically take into account your location–letting your wireless PDA, for instance, pinpoint the nearest restaurant when you are traveling. New systems will also find just the right picture faster by matching your sketches to similar shapes. They will even be able to name that half-remembered tune if you hum a few bars."
Javed Mostafa. Seeking Better Web Searches. ScientificAmerican.com. Feb. 2005.
SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology. A Seso Group™ Venture.
World’s Largest Free Full-Text Science Archives
"While government agencies, academics, and publishers debate over whether or not publicly funded research results should be freely available, Stanford University’s HighWire Press has been doing its part in taking responsibility for the Open Archive.
"Participating HighWire-hosted publishers have been steadily growing the world’s largest collection of open access, high-impact scholarly research online.
"Today, more than 780,000 free peer-reviewed, full-text articles are available at www.highwire.org. This open archive covers a wide range of not-for-profit titles. Over 90% of the articles in the government repository are already available for free in their complete context (the entire online journal, not just individual articles), with advanced full-text searching and toll-free reference linking, through HighWire."
No author. Free eJournal Archive Passes 3/4 Million Mark. Managing Information. Dec. 1, 2004.
SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology. A Seso Group™ Venture.
Open Access vs Tradional Publishers
"The benefits to scientists of open access scientific publishing provided by the internet are too significant to be ignored, says Matthew Cockerill.
"The progress of science is ultimately defined by peer-reviewed journal articles: they record the results of research and act as a foundation for all future research.
"In the UK alone, billions of pounds of tax-payers’ money are spent annually on research, so the government might be expected to take a prudent interest in how the resulting journal articles are published, archived and made accessible. Surprisingly, though, copyright to publicly funded research articles is routinely signed over to publishers, who then sell limited, subscription-based access back to the scientific community.
"The cost of publishing a scientific research article is a tiny fraction of what it costs to do the research in the first place; yet publishers end up controlling access to the findings."
Matthew Cockerill and John Enderby. Internet Upstarts v Traditional Publishers. FT.com. Nov. 25, 2004.
SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.
Political Mudslinging Hits Wikipedia
"It’s a rocky road from news to history. If you don’t think so, just take a look at the entry for George W. Bush on Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia founded in 2001 by Larry Sanger, a philosophy lecturer at Ohio State University, and Jimmy Wales, an Internet entrepreneur.
"Wikipedia, maintained by users all over the world who write and edit the entries pretty much as they wish, is visited by hundreds of thousands of people daily and has an estimated 400,000 entries. There are no user fees and no advertising: the site is supported by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, based in Florida, which maintains and develops free resources, including a dictionary and a collection of quotations.
"To keep it all under control, contributors to the Wikipedia are instructed to adopt a neutral point of view. Not everyone obeys, though. So certain trusted, regular contributors and editors become administrators who oversee what is going on. But each one has a different view of that job. And that is where the fun begins."
Sarah Boxer. Mudslinging Weasels Into Online History. The New York Times. Nov. 10, 2004.
(Editor�s Note: The Times allows free access to their stories on the Web for seven days before sending the stories to the paper�s fee-based Archive.)
SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.
Balance Between Copy Protection and Technical Innovation
"A computer scientist at Princeton University, Edward Felten, took part in a contest sponsored by the Recording Industry Association of America to test technology for guarding music against piracy. He and his students quickly found flaws in the new antipiracy software and prepared to publish their results.
"But when the RIAA learned of the plan, it threatened to sue under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Congress passed it back in 1998 to block hackers from breaking copy protection. And they wisely included a provision designed to let researchers such as Felten carry out their important work. Still, the RIAA deemed Felten’s line of study too sensitive.
"The lesson many scientists drew was that copyright protection takes priority over research."
Heather Green. Commentary: Are The Copyright Wars Chilling Innovation?. BusinessWeekOnline. Oct. 11, 2004.
10 Major Trends Emerging in the Internet’s First Decade of Public Use
"Ten Years, Ten Trends’ Highlight the Major Findings in Year Four of the Digital Future Project’s Study of the Impact of the Internet on Americans.
"Ten years after electronic portals to the Worldwide Web were first opened to millions of computer users, ten significant trends have emerged that vividly illustrate how the Internet affects America, according to findings from the comprehensive year-to-year study of the impact of online technology by the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future.
"Year Four of the Digital Future Project (formerly the UCLA Internet Report) provides a broad year-to-year exploration of the influence of the Internet on Americans. The project examines the behavior and views of a national sample of 2,000 Internet users and non-users, as well as comparisons between new users (less than one year of experience) and very experienced users (in Year Four, seven or more years of experience)."
USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future. Center for the Digital Future Identifies the 10 Major Trends Emerging in the Internet’s First Decade of Public Use. Sept. 23, 2004.
USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future. Digital Center’s Internet Report 2004. (.pdf). Sept. 23, 2004.
Copyright Issues in Digital Media
"The Congressional Budget Office released a new study on digital copyright issues, outlining economic problems that Congress should keep in mind as it grapples with making new laws.
"While stopping short of specific legislative recommendations, the paper offers a set of principles for lawmakers that’s largely focused on avoiding being tied too closely to past practices or to the interests of powerful companies or consumer groups.
"The paper could provide a strong working text for legislators, as they face growing calls from both copyright holders and consumer groups to reshape laws that have been severely tested by the growth of the Net and digital copying technologies."
John Borland. Congressional Economists Tackle Copyright Issues. News.com. Aug. 10, 2004.
COPYCENSE 