Category: Social Media

‘Big data’ from online market interactions offer a rich opportunity to study human nature and economic behaviour.

Data on the interactions between individuals on the Internet are often viewed as a potential threat to privacy or freedom of expression. As Wojtek Przepiorka writes, however, the ‘big data’ produced by online transactions and feedback processes on websites such as eBay can also be an invaluable resource for academics and policy-makers. He argues that subjecting this data to formal study has […]

Impact Round-Up 29th March: Citation types, commercialised knowledge, and boundary workers.

Managing Editor Sierra Williams presents a round-up of popular stories from around the web on higher education, academic impact, and trends in scholarly communication. We need different types of citation: Replicates, Falsifies, DependsOn, Acknowledges … by Mike Taylor at SV-POW argues for further metadata on citation type to be pulled in, which would add a richer and more useful layer to citation metrics. Over […]

Social media is a ticking time bomb for universities with an outdated web presence.

There are pressing questions academic institutions will need to address over the next couple of years regarding their expanding participation in social media streams. Andy Tattersall argues that with such blurred boundaries of ownership, access and support, what is needed is wide-scale demystification to help academics dovetail a few choice tools to bring how they work into a modern setting. Social Media, […]

6 Emerging Initiatives for Digital Collections

I was asked to present a talk today for an internal group at the Library of Congress based on my recent experiences participating in the Top Tech Trends panel at the 2014 American Library Association Midwinter meeting.  It was suggested that I present a “Leslie-fied” version of the always-inspiring landscape talks that my colleague Cliff […]

The death of the theorist and the emergence of data and algorithms in digital social research.

Computer software and data-processing algorithms are becoming an everyday part of Higher Education. How might this be affecting research in the social sciences and the formation of the professional identities of academics? Ben Williamson argues that these are important challenges … Continue reading

Saving Digital Mementos from Virtual Worlds

My two young teenage daughters spend hours playing Minecraft, building elaborate virtual landscapes and structures. They are far from alone; the game has millions of fans around the world. Teachers are seizing on Minecraft’s popularity with kids as a tool to teach both abstract and concrete subjects. What’s unique about this situation is not so much […]

Impact Round-Up 18th January: #altmetrics mania, adjunct invisibility, and quantitative sociology at Facebook.

Managing Editor Sierra Williams presents a round-up of popular stories from around the web on higher education, academic impact, and trends in scholarly communication. A sociologist working at facebook by Michael Corey at OrgTheory. Facebookers are heavily involved with academic pursuits…My own team (Growth … Continue reading

The evolution of social networking sites: the rise of content-centric platforms which favour the perpetual present.

Socio-technical trends and their underlying theoretical perspectives shed light on likely developments in store for mediated communication. Vyacheslav Polonski finds that in the coming years, new design norms will overhaul current metaphors, marking a shift from profile-centric to content-centric interactions. In the … Continue reading