scholarly journals REQUIREMENTS AND DESIDERATA FOR THE SCHOLARY USE OF WEB ARCHIVES

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eveline Maria Florentina Vlassenroot ◽  
Sally Chambers ◽  
Friedel Geeraert ◽  
Peter Mechant
Keyword(s):  
Online Information ◽  
Web Content ◽  
Online Data ◽  
Internet Archive ◽  
Data Resource ◽  
Subject Knowledge ◽  
Digital Heritage ◽  
Research Material ◽  
Web Archives ◽  
New Research

The web and online information has become of utmost importance. However, the short lifespan of online data (with 40% of content being removed after 1 year) poses serious challenges for preserving and safeguarding digital heritage and information. Hence, web or media historians, sociologists or digital scholars must learn to "dig" in online sources such as the Internet Archive or national web archives in order to find relevant research material. In this paper, we explore the requirements of researchers working with web archives and outline how they perceive the limitations and possibilities of using the archived web as a data resource, using survey data (n=154). We asked researchers with and without experience in working with web archives for, amongst others, the search functionalities and selection and access criteria they require. Given that archived web content is relatively new research material, new skills need to be acquired to work with this content which is not something evident or something every researcher is willing to do. Yakel & Thores (2003) point to three distinct forms of knowledge required to work effectively with these sources: (i) domain (subject) knowledge, (ii) artifactual literacy, and their own concept of (iii) archival intelligence. In addition to arriving at significant findings that demonstrate the relationship between researcher’s domain (subject) knowledge, archival intelligence and use frequency of web archives, this study discusses the limitations of using the archived web as a data resource and concludes with actions to overcome these hurdles and fulfill the desiderata of scholars.

Climate change and web archives: an Ibero-American study based on the Portuguese and Brazilian contexts

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Moisés Rockembach ◽  
Anabela Serrano
Keyword(s):  
Climate Changes ◽  
Digital Preservation ◽  
Web Content ◽  
Web Archiving ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Internet Archive ◽  
Digital Heritage ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Web Archive ◽  
The Web

Purpose The purpose of this investigation is to analyze information on the web and its preservation as a digital heritage, having as object of study information about events related to climate changes and the environment in Portugal and Brazil, thus contributing to an applied case of preservation of web in the Ibero-American context. Design/methodology/approach It is a theoretical and applied investigation and the methodology uses mixed methods, collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data, from three data sources: the Internet Archive and public collections of Archive-it, the Portuguese web archive and a complementation from collections formed by the research group on web archiving and digital preservation in Brazil. Findings The web archiving initiatives started in 1996, however, over the years, the collections have been specializing, from nationally relevant themes, to thematic niches. The theme “climate changes” has had an impact on scientific and mainstream discussions in the 2000s, and in the years 2010 the theme becomes the focus of digital preservation of web content, as demonstrated in this study. To not preserve data can lead to a rapid loss of this information owing to the ephemerality of the web. Originality/value The originality of this paper is to show the relevance of preserving web content on climate changes, to demonstrate information on climate changes on the web that is currently preserved and what information would need to be preserved.

Web Scraping for Hospitality Research: Overview, Opportunities, and Implications

2020 ◽  
pp. 193896552097358
Author(s):  
Saram Han ◽  
Christopher K. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Data Sources ◽  
Analytical Models ◽  
Online Data ◽  
Travel Agents ◽  
Web Scraping ◽  
Travel Services ◽  
New Research ◽  
Online Travel ◽  
Online Travel Agents ◽  
Tools And Methods

As consumers increasingly research and purchase hospitality and travel services online, new research opportunities have become available to hospitality academics. There is a growing interest in understanding the online travel marketplace among hospitality researchers. Although many researchers have attempted to better understand the online travel market through the use of analytical models, experiments, or survey collection, these studies often fail to capture the full complexity of the market. Academics often rely upon survey data or experiments owing to their ease of collection or potentially to the difficulty in assembling online data. In this study, we hope to equip hospitality researchers with the tools and methods to augment their traditional data sources with the readily available data that consumers use to make their travel choices. In this article, we provide a guideline (and Python code) for how to best collect/scrape publicly available online hotel data. We focus on the collection of online data across numerous platforms, including online travel agents, review sites, and hotel brand sites. We outline some exciting possibilities regarding how these data sources might be utilized, as well as discuss some of the caveats that have to be considered when analyzing online data.

scholarly journals Promoting Water Efficiency and Hydrocitizenship in Young People’s Learning about Drought Risk in a Temperate Maritime Country

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 2599
Author(s):  
Verity Jones ◽  
Sarah Whitehouse ◽  
Lindsey McEwen ◽  
Sara Williams ◽  
Luci Gorell Gorell Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Picture Book ◽  
Demand Management ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Drought Risk ◽  
Domestic Water ◽  
Subject Knowledge ◽  
Effective Learning ◽  
New Research ◽  
Prior Experiences ◽  
Climate Crisis

Engaging young citizens with drought risk and positive water behaviours is essential in domestic water demand management within the wider climate crisis. This paper evaluates a new research-informed, picture book—‘DRY: The Diary of a Water Superhero’—that explores UK drought. The book’s development was underpinned by research within the Drought Risk and You (DRY) project. The book’s concept and storyline were co-produced by an interdisciplinary team, including a creative practitioner. This focused on key themes: drought definitions and types; drought myths; adaptation and young people’s (YP) agency. Characters and storyline were co-created to promote YP’s autonomy as change agents, and to encourage intergenerational and community learning. This paper evaluates the book from three perspectives: of YP, trainee teachers (TT) and teachers. Emergent themes are triangulated: drought as a sensitive issue, subject knowledge and changes in behaviour, and YP’s misconceptions about drought and place. TT also contemplated their improved subject knowledge and barriers to engaging with positive water behaviours. Teachers reflected on classroom use of the book, prior experiences about teaching drought, curriculum context and st/age of YP engaged. This paper reflects on how these insights feed into school practice and water industry outreach, in developing effective learning resources that promote a valuing of water, behaviour change and wider hydrocitizenship among YP and their communities.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Journalism, Media and Religion: How News Media Ascribe Meanings to the Terms “Sacred”, “Secular” and “Authority”

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-268
Author(s):  
Xenia Zeiler ◽  
Kerstin Radde-Antweiler
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
News Media ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Internet News ◽  
Research Material ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
New Research

Religious topics are increasingly addressed in journalism worldwide, including newspapers, television, radio and Internet news. The high visibility of religion in society and, inseparably connected to this, the increasing reappearance of religious themes in news media have come to the attention of recent academic research as well.This special issue offers new research material on the topic but also a new design and system of organizing the field. The novel approach of this special issue is threefold: (1) it focuses specifically and only on journalistic media; (2) it discusses a variety of religious and geographical contexts through case studies; and (3) it introduces a new structure of discussing journalism and religion by analyzing the three key concepts “sacred”, “secular” and “authority” through the lens of Laclau’s (1996, pp. 36) approach to terms as empty signifiers. The articles analyze how news media ascribe meanings to these terms.

Growing old on Newgrounds: The hopes and quandaries of Flash game preservation

First Monday ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail Fiadotau
Keyword(s):  
Digital Games ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Web Content ◽  
Term Survival ◽  
Relative Lack ◽  
Adobe Flash ◽  
Digital Heritage ◽  
Copyright Laws ◽  
The Web

After December 2020, Adobe Flash, a technology that was once the standard for rich and interactive Web content, will no longer be supported in browsers. This means users will not be able to access the thousands of diverse creations powered by Flash, from animations to digital games. This is particularly problematic for games, which cannot be easily converted into a more modern format. The threat of losing the legacy of Flash has provoked both reflection and action by online communities dedicated to animation and browser-based games, none more so than Newgrounds, the Web portal credited with popularizing Flash games at the turn of the century. As a result, groups of enthusiasts have been able to make significant progress in preserving Flash games. Still, they continue to face numerous challenges, from rigid copyright laws to a relative lack of recognition of the importance of preserving Flash games as such. Consolidating their efforts by joining forces with other like-minded groups may be the key not only to saving digital heritage created with Flash, but also to the longer-term survival of these creator communities themselves.

scholarly journals Meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies in Alzheimer’s disease highlights novel differentially methylated loci across cortex

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca G. Smith ◽  
Ehsan Pishva ◽  
Gemma Shireby ◽  
Adam R. Smith ◽  
Janou A.Y. Roubroeks ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Braak Stage ◽  
Combine Data ◽  
Online Data ◽  
Data Resource ◽  
Significance Threshold

ABSTRACTEpigenome-wide association studies of Alzheimer’s disease have highlighted neuropathology-associated DNA methylation differences, although existing studies have been limited in sample size and utilized different brain regions. Here, we combine data from six DNA methylomic studies of Alzheimer’s disease (N=1,453 unique individuals) to identify differential methylation associated with Braak stage in different brain regions and across cortex. We identified 236 CpGs in the prefrontal cortex, 95 CpGs in the temporal gyrus and ten CpGs in the entorhinal cortex at Bonferroni significance, with none in the cerebellum. Our cross-cortex meta-analysis (N=1,408 donors) identified 220 CpGs associated with neuropathology, annotated to 121 genes, of which 84 genes had not been previously reported at this significance threshold. We have replicated our findings using two further DNA methylomic datasets consisting of a > 600 further unique donors. The meta-analysis summary statistics are available in our online data resource (www.epigenomicslab.com/ad-meta-analysis/).

scholarly journals Approaches to 'place': A study exploring how New Zealand's digital collections conceptualise our social understanding of space

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Flora Feltham
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Descriptive Statistics ◽  
Mixed Methods Study ◽  
Web Content ◽  
Digital Collections ◽  
Geospatial Technology ◽  
Digital Heritage ◽  
Heritage Collections

<p>Research problem: The concept of ‘place’ has a clear presence in New Zealand’s digital heritage collections. However, some theorists suggest there is gap between place as a concept relevant to cultural heritage concerns and place as represented by digital technology. This research explores how geospatial and digital technology deployed in New Zealand’s digital collections engage with and conceptualise qualities usually associated with place: social bonds, emotional attachment and subjectivity.  Methodology: This two-stage, mixed-methods study has a qualitative weighting. Web Content analysis (WebCA) gathered data from digital collections that demonstrate place inclusive features. An anonymous survey gathered opinions from practitioners who create place-inclusive digital collections. Descriptive statistics developed during quantitative analysis triangulated findings developed during thematic qualitative analysis.  Results: New Zealand’s digital collections generate a sense-of-place using strategies that mimic subjective and experience-based understanding of the world. Some collections also engage with place in its ‘common-sense wrapper’ by using the deploying the place in a metadata context or as an overarching thematic structure. New Zealand’s cultural heritage practitioners are very practice-oriented in their consideration of place, and place-inclusive collections are most often impacted by resourcing issues.  Implications: This project contributes to the growing ‘body of sustained critical thinking’ focusing on the implications of digital technology for cultural heritage concerns. It suggests place has considerable value and multiple functions within digital heritage collections. When conducting projects using geospatial technology, heritage practitioners can consider supplementing geospatial technology with user-contribution features, content variety, and an emphasis on storytelling to effectively reflect the subjective components of place.</p>

scholarly journals Approaches to 'place': A study exploring how New Zealand's digital collections conceptualise our social understanding of space

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Flora Feltham
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Descriptive Statistics ◽  
Mixed Methods Study ◽  
Web Content ◽  
Digital Collections ◽  
Geospatial Technology ◽  
Digital Heritage ◽  
Heritage Collections

<p>Research problem: The concept of ‘place’ has a clear presence in New Zealand’s digital heritage collections. However, some theorists suggest there is gap between place as a concept relevant to cultural heritage concerns and place as represented by digital technology. This research explores how geospatial and digital technology deployed in New Zealand’s digital collections engage with and conceptualise qualities usually associated with place: social bonds, emotional attachment and subjectivity.  Methodology: This two-stage, mixed-methods study has a qualitative weighting. Web Content analysis (WebCA) gathered data from digital collections that demonstrate place inclusive features. An anonymous survey gathered opinions from practitioners who create place-inclusive digital collections. Descriptive statistics developed during quantitative analysis triangulated findings developed during thematic qualitative analysis.  Results: New Zealand’s digital collections generate a sense-of-place using strategies that mimic subjective and experience-based understanding of the world. Some collections also engage with place in its ‘common-sense wrapper’ by using the deploying the place in a metadata context or as an overarching thematic structure. New Zealand’s cultural heritage practitioners are very practice-oriented in their consideration of place, and place-inclusive collections are most often impacted by resourcing issues.  Implications: This project contributes to the growing ‘body of sustained critical thinking’ focusing on the implications of digital technology for cultural heritage concerns. It suggests place has considerable value and multiple functions within digital heritage collections. When conducting projects using geospatial technology, heritage practitioners can consider supplementing geospatial technology with user-contribution features, content variety, and an emphasis on storytelling to effectively reflect the subjective components of place.</p>

scholarly journals Digital format of social work research: reflections of practical experience

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (3 (132)) ◽  
pp. 89-97
Author(s):  
Olena Karagodina ◽  
Sergii Dvoriak ◽  
Tetyana Semigina
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Online Data ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Social Work Research ◽  
Quantitative And Qualitative Research ◽  
Digital Format ◽  
Academic Publications ◽  
New Research

The paper reviews the development of new research methods in the context of digitalisation of many spheres of life, which has accelerated especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper reveals the possibilities and limitations of using digital technologies to collect information in social work research. The study employed the methods of systematic analysis of data from academic publications and reflection of the authors’ own experience of collecting information using online technologies within research projects focused on the development of various socio-psychological services. The main groups of online methods and means of data collection implemented in quantitative and qualitative research are described. The advantages of online data collection are highlighted, including its use under conditions of limited movement, greater coverage of respondents and territories, relative economy, greater ability to control the flow of surveys, data entries and storage. A number of problems and challenges of using new methods have been identified, in particular, the complexity of sampling; lack of research resources in the case of collecting information about people who do not have a proper access to modern means of communication or skills to use them, etc. Mandatory procedures for such research, due to ethical requirements (guaranteeing anonymity and confidentiality, obtaining informed consent to participate in the study) are outlined. Some examples of problem-solving within the surveys of the women infected with HIV and the projects aimed at assisting the persons taking drugs by means of injecting are provided. The immediate prospects for the development of this topic are defined as the encouragement of Internet users to participate in research on social work, the development of communication skills between researchers and participants in online research alongside facilitation of virtual discussions during online focus groups.

Web Content Filtering

2006 ◽  
pp. 112-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Bertino ◽  
Elena Ferrari ◽  
Andrea Perego
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Web Content ◽  
Content Filtering ◽  
Web Technologies ◽  
Harmful Content ◽  
Conceptual Hierarchies

The need to filter online information in order to protect users from possible harmful content can be considered as one of the most compelling social issues derived from the transformation of the Web into a public information space. Despite that Web rating and filtering systems have been developed and made publicly available quite early, no effective approach has been established so far, due to the inadequacy of the proposed solutions. Web filtering is then a challenging research area, needing the definition and enforcement of new strategies, considering both the current limitations and the future developments of Web technologies—in particular, the upcoming Semantic Web. In this chapter, we provide an overview of how Web filtering issues have been addressed by the available systems, bringing in relief both their advantages and shortcomings, and outlining future trends. As an example of how a more accurate and flexible filtering can be enforced, we devote the second part of this chapter to describing a multi-strategy approach, of which the main characteristics are the integration of both list- and metadata-based techniques and the adoption of sophisticated metadata schemes (e.g., conceptual hierarchies and ontologies) for describing both users’ characteristics and Web pages content.

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