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EDITOR'S SUMMARY
Zombies have been sweeping across all types of media for many years, and their popularity continues to rise with TV shows like The Walking Dead and movies like Warm Bodies. The popularity of entertainment about the undead presents an interesting opportunity to draw parallels between the fiction of zombies and the reality of human politics, societies and issues. In an effort to connect this discourse with born-digital publishing, [ZOMBIES REIMAGINED] was created. The effort behind [ZOMBIES REIMAGINED] was undertaken by faculty, students and librarians at Swarthmore College, and it was launched in May 2016 as a public website with individual exhibits in the form of web pages. The web pages were authored by students in the author's seminar and turned into an online experience with the help of Swarthmore librarians. Due to the success of the project, a large update to the site was launched in May 2017 with all new student authors and topics discussed.
EDITOR'S SUMMARY
ASIS&T president Lynn Silipigni Connaway announced the new executive director of ASIS&T, Lydia Middleton. Lydia joined ASIS&T ready to lead after Dick Hill's 27 years of service as executive director. Also announced are the keynote speakers for the 2017 Annual Meeting: Richard Marks, head of PlayStation Magic Lab at Sony Interactive Entertainment, and William Powers, best-selling author and research scientist at MIT Media Lab. The Annual Meeting will also have an 80th Anniversary Welcome Reception and panel session, and work is underway for an interactive history exhibit at the meeting, coordinated by Kathryn La Barre. Lynn Silipigni Connaway was invited to spend April 26 through May 7 in Hong Kong as a visiting professor working with the master of library and information management program at the University of Hong Kong. Connaway and past president Nadia Caidi also attended the Council for Scientific Society Presidents in Washington, D.C., May 2017, and ASIS&T partnered with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Earth Day Network for the March for Science.
EDITOR'S SUMMARY
The voice of the performing arts is an important – though seldom heard – disciplinary component of information science research. The Open Symphony, a collaboration between a performing musician and computer science students, allowed for creative audience interaction with live music performances. But such interdisciplinary collaboration is difficult and needs to be put within the larger context of questions surrounding value, individual contribution in artistic expression and ownership in the performing arts. Indeed, tensions around the economics of art and commercial versus academic value may hinder collaborations between artists and academia, but with the right framework and definitions of value these efforts could lead to additional forms of cross-disciplinary exploration.
EDITOR'S SUMMARY
ASIS&T has continuously worked to enhance diversity and inclusion over its long history, including the formation of the Special Interest Group/International Information Issues and the name change from the American Society for Information Science and Technology to the Association for Information Science and Technology. During the 2016 ASIS&T Annual Meeting (AM), a Diversity and Inclusion Luncheon was held to promote discussion and ideas of new ways for ASIS&T to promote diversity. Attendees of the luncheon were asked to share positive personal experiences with diversity, as well as share ideas for how to bolster diversity and inclusion in future AMs and for ASIS&T as an organization. Suggestions include the meeting being held outside of North America more frequently, inclusion of mentor programs for papers and new attendees of AMs, removing North American-centric language from communications and more ASIS&T board members from other continents. The suggestions were recommended to the ASIS&T Board for further discussion.
EDITOR'S SUMMARY
Open access (OA) has been shaping and benefitting the scientific community for years now, but this new wave of disseminating research freely has not quite taken hold in the field of humanities. Though humanities publishers could also benefit from an OA model, many have been resistant, citing possible issues with plagiarism or appropriation of an author's work for less than ideal uses. There are also challenges with the cost of publishing OA content, which for humanities could be much higher than in the scientific community due to the length of works produced. Some institutions have taken to charging authors to publish their content in an OA model, while others have opted for a membership structure or joining a consortium of other institutions, such as Knowledge Unlatched or the Open Library of Humanities. While many great strides have been taken to bring OA to humanities, there is still work to do to make the study of humanity accessible to all.
EDITOR'S SUMMARY
The third annual Virtual Symposium on Information & Technology in the Arts & Humanities, held on April 18 and 19, 2017, centered on a theme of open science in the humanities. Presentations at the Symposium have included topics such as data visualization, historical images, interactive exhibits and linked data. The 2017 theme of open humanities was a starting point for the speakers to consider how open science has and can impact the world of humanities in various ways. Speakers at the symposium discussed analyzing writing practices on the internet using web scrapers, data management in the humanities, visual literacy skills of graduate and undergraduate students and the challenge researchers face in trying to keep up with publications in their field.
EDITOR'S SUMMARY
Bibliometric evaluation for research in the field of sciences can be a good way to assess the quality and factual basis of claims and can lead to more funding for authors and for research work. However, due to the more diverse fields covered, this type of evaluation is less effective in the world of humanities. Many professionals and researchers in humanities fields believe that bibliometric evaluation is meant only for STEM research and can't properly assess any findings made in humanities. Four common claims made about bibliometrics in humanities are that bibliometrics do not adequately cover the non-uniform nature of humanities; greater bibliometric coverage will not solve all the research problems in humanities subjects; metrics use already has an impact on humanities research practices and finally; other evaluation methods, like altmetrics, are conventional.
Editor's Summary
As demands for knowledge management have broadened the use of taxonomies, taxonomists are finding more applications for their work and seeking ways to ensure the products are implemented well for added value. This special section provides a brief guide to building taxonomies for standardized use by multiple work groups. A case study in taxonomy maintenance traces the process of updating and expanding a vocabulary to serve the burgeoning world of science. One article addresses practical methods for evaluating taxonomy schemes and the decision making involved in applying terms to classify content. Another explores taxonomies as navigational tools and as the basis for automatic classification and ways those specialized uses influence taxonomy design. The importance of integrating and coordinating taxonomy construction in the developmental phase of website architecture is explained as being key to maximizing the taxonomy's value and contribution to user experience. The application of taxonomies and automated indexing in the health domain is presented, discussing their innovative implementation for coding electronic medical records.
Editor's Summary
Organizations using controlled vocabularies are highly diverse, but they all rely on using a terminology list that is internally standardized, commonly understood and widely applied for metatagging. The basic steps for creating a controlled vocabulary, taxonomy or thesaurus are the same for each case, starting with determining the scope to be covered and identifying representative content sources. This step is followed by gathering and organizing terms, enhancing them with synonyms and relationships and often by subject-matter-expert review. Using a dedicated taxonomy management tool is recommended to facilitate management, visualization and export in machine-readable format such as OWL or SKOS. Posting the controlled vocabulary to a registry or data warehouse enables sharing and may stimulate broad acceptance. The MITRE Corporation has followed this process in developing taxonomies consistent with the Department of Defense's Net-Centric Data Strategy, which bases shared understanding within and among DoD programs on the use of controlled vocabularies and crosswalking equivalent data elements.
Editor's Summary
With the move toward patient electronic medical records (EMRs), accessing information for insurance coding and research depends on standardized taxonomies to organize and index the content. Controlled vocabularies are necessary to interpret content consistently. Established quasi-taxonomies provide codes for medical conditions and treatments, but applying these codes as metadata to index the records is laborious, requiring translation from natural language in the EMR to a code's verbal equivalent to the code. Indexing systems can streamline the categorization process for greater efficiency and accuracy by using Bayesian engines or a rule-based approach. Analyzing discrepancies between human indexing and the software system results shows where editorial intervention is needed for continual improvement, with a goal of 85% or higher accuracy. Using a categorization system with a hierarchical taxonomy enables deep, precise indexing or quick, automatic filtering to more general concepts. The accuracy of medical indexing systems varies widely, based on the degree of automation and capacity for semantic analysis.
Editor's Summary
Closing her year as ASIS&T president, Diane Sonnenwald looks back with thanks to the many who volunteered time and effort as committee and task force chairs and members. Their accomplishments span promoting the discipline and advocating for information professionals, reaching beyond national boundaries through social media and meetings, and establishing an investment program to enhance finances. Committees also managed the awards process, expanded continuing education offerings and coordinated with ISO and NISO on standards. A name change will be voted on by the membership to recognize the association's international scope. Membership categories are under review, and organizational collaborations and conference partnerships are being examined, all to promote the discipline and the association.
Editor's Summary
Data with high potential information value must be carefully selected, appraised, organized, stored and disseminated. Recognizing this critical management need, the Council on Library and Information Resources' Digital Library Federation (CLIR/DLF), the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and six universities have partnered to sponsor the Data Curation Fellowship Program. This two-year postdoctoral fellowship brings together information professionals interested in acquiring the diverse skills needed to become a professional data curator, serving as researcher, librarian, technology adopter and policy maker. Acknowledging differences in their own views and experiences, early fellows recognized the need to promote a culture of data sharing to connect stakeholders across technology, disciplinary and institutional boundaries and to develop an infrastructure to support data curation. It is hoped that serious work in data curation will lead to professional recognition of the specialty.
Editor's Summary
For best results in website architecture and operation, the process of user experience design and taxonomy and metadata development should be synchronized, not developed in isolation. Bringing the two work streams together enables full consideration of how users, represented as personas, would interact with the site, pursuing likely needs and preferences. The persona review informs the technical infrastructure and functionality as well as the terminology and content types. Analysis of the site design and comparison with similar sites can lead to better appreciation of the user experience and expanded vocabulary links to improve access to content. The Key Paths methodology used by the design firm Factor captures likely user journeys to define design elements, allowing for multiple routes to appropriate content. Metadata must be available to support design, and functional design and content tagging must take advantage of metadata. The dynamic interaction and mutual support of the site's content team and design team are keys to an effective product.
Editor's Summary
Taking on the reins as ASIS&T president for 2013, the author sets his sights on fulfilling and expanding upon previous presidents' initiatives. This year's efforts will focus on building strength through a more international membership, energizing student chapters to stimulate early professional involvement, broadening engagement in ASIS&T events from Annual Meetings to webinars and providing the most relevant and content-rich material. The role of the organization, its service to members and the sense of identity and community it engenders deserve examination. ASIS&T must reach out to other groups in the information sector but strive to realize its claim as the preeminent information society. Aligning with the growing iSchool movement may well be a step in that direction.
Editor's Summary
Taxonomies have expanded from browsing aids to the foundation for automatic classification. Early auto-classification methods grouped documents having similar collections of words, but current software can provide far greater accuracy. Text-mining tools can spot recognizable entities as potential taxonomy terms or top-level categories. Developing a taxonomy further to coordinate with auto-classification software requires appreciation of how the software works, whether it uses an approach based on lexical analysis, rules for word co-occurrence or machine learning with predictive analysis. The taxonomy model is typically hierarchical with term specificity dictated by the end user's need for detail. Synonyms and variants are redirected to the term for classification. The classification tool must be configured to be consistent with the typical document format and style of the collection. Testing the classification scheme, critical to reveal inaccuracies and omissions, is an iterative process expanding from a stable test set to validation on a large corpus before final implementation.
Editor's Summary
A thesaurus should quietly streamline website operations behind the scenes but can become an obstacle if it is inadequate or falls out of date, the situation the Public Library of Science (PLOS) realized in 2011. The organization sought help from Access Innovations, Inc., to bring its thesaurus up to speed, comply with the Z39.19 standard and ensure support of machine categorization of content. An analysis revealed over- and under-used terms and provided recommendations and specific guidance. With this knowledge and various use cases, PLOS determined a new customized thesaurus was needed. Access Innovations expanded and organized the original PLOS vocabulary of 3,132 terms to produce a thesaurus of more than 10,000 terms covering 10 science topics in seven levels. PLOS monitored weekly progress, and subject matter experts reviewed the draft for terminology and organization. Thesaurus terms will be applied to content as subject metadata using Data Harmony's MAIstro, a rule-based categorization system permitting editorial oversight and incremental improvements. After testing and tuning rules for accuracy, the system will be used to automatically index all PLOS content.
Editor's Summary
Direction on the construction and application of classification schemes such as taxonomies is readily available, but relatively little has been offered on evaluating the schemes themselves and their use to categorize content. A classification scheme can be judged for how well it meets its purpose and complies with standards, and a strong evaluative framework is reflected in S.R. Ranganathan's principles of classification. The degree of certainty of classification decisions depends on objective understanding of the object to be classified, the scope and details of the class and the coverage and organization of the overall classification scheme. The more complete the information about each class, the more reliable the goodness- of-fit for an object to a class is likely to be, whether chosen by human or machine classifiers. This information comes through definitions, examples, prior use and semantic relationships. The risk of misclassification can be reduced by analyzing the goodness-of-fit of objects to classes and the patterns of missed or erroneous selections.
Editor's Summary
The author's experience over years shows how the transience of shifting contexts and the desire to rush into new information structures can easily lead to failure. In one instance, midlevel managers understood the value and possibilities of structuring information to serve end users, but they were overridden by executives who insisted on developing a portal, the current trend, at the expense of a public facing website. Strategic decisions made without full understanding of the problem are doomed. Information architects must take an active role helping clients navigate the structure of information. They must communicate the importance of asking strategic questions to understand the audience, purpose and context of a website under development and then clarify the priorities and necessary actions to achieve the goal.
Editor's Summary
For best results in website architecture and operation, the process of user experience design and taxonomy and metadata development should be synchronized, not developed in isolation. Bringing the two work streams together enables full consideration of how users, represented as personas, would interact with the site, pursuing likely needs and preferences. The persona review informs the technical infrastructure and functionality as well as the terminology and content types. Analysis of the site design and comparison with similar sites can lead to better appreciation of the user experience and expanded vocabulary links to improve access to content. The Key Paths methodology used by the design firm Factor captures likely user journeys to define design elements, allowing for multiple routes to appropriate content. Metadata must be available to support design, and functional design and content tagging must take advantage of metadata. The dynamic interaction and mutual support of the site's content team and design team are keys to an effective product.
Editor's Summary
Data with high potential information value must be carefully selected, appraised, organized, stored and disseminated. Recognizing this critical management need, the Council on Library and Information Resources' Digital Library Federation (CLIR/DLF), the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and six universities have partnered to sponsor the Data Curation Fellowship Program. This two‐year postdoctoral fellowship brings together information professionals interested in acquiring the diverse skills needed to become a professional data curator, serving as researcher, librarian, technology adopter and policy maker. Acknowledging differences in their own views and experiences, early fellows recognized the need to promote a culture of data sharing to connect stakeholders across technology, disciplinary and institutional boundaries and to develop an infrastructure to support data curation. It is hoped that serious work in data curation will lead to professional recognition of the specialty.
Editor's Summary
A thesaurus should quietly streamline website operations behind the scenes but can become an obstacle if it is inadequate or falls out of date, the situation the Public Library of Science (PLOS) realized in 2011. The organization sought help from Access Innovations, Inc., to bring its thesaurus up to speed, comply with the Z39.19 standard and ensure support of machine categorization of content. An analysis revealed over‐ and under‐used terms and provided recommendations and specific guidance. With this knowledge and various use cases, PLOS determined a new customized thesaurus was needed. Access Innovations expanded and organized the original PLOS vocabulary of 3,132 terms to produce a thesaurus of more than 10,000 terms covering 10 science topics in seven levels. PLOS monitored weekly progress, and subject matter experts reviewed the draft for terminology and organization. Thesaurus terms will be applied to content as subject metadata using Data Harmony's MAIstro, a rule‐based categorization system permitting editorial oversight and incremental improvements. After testing and tuning rules for accuracy, the system will be used to automatically index all PLOS content.
Noticias em eLiteracias 