Archive for the ‘Wales Wide Web’ Category

Trust and Recommender Systems

April 25th, 2018 by Graham Attwell

One of my favourite social network applications (if it can be called that) is Paper.li. Paper.li is not really a social network but an aggregater,  running across your twitter contacts and serving up a daily newspaper type summary. How the algorithm works is not transparent. But given I have no time to read every Tweet I receive it fulfils a purpose – at least for me.

Two stories in my feed –  rather feebly entitled the Graham Attwell Daily – struck my attention today. One is a link to a longish report by the Pew Internet Center on ‘The Fate of Online Trust in the Next Decade‘. I am saving that one to read and comment on tomorrow.

The second was a link to an article on Search Engine Land about a report yesterday in The Washington Post that “found that the buying of fake reviews by merchants hoping to boost sales of their products is a widespread problem on Amazon. According to the report:

[F]or some popular product categories, such as Bluetooth headphones and speakers, the vast majority of reviews appear to violate Amazon’s prohibition on paid reviews . . .

Many of these fraudulent reviews originate on Facebook, where sellers seek shoppers on dozens of networks, including Amazon Review Club and Amazon Reviewers Group, to give glowing feedback in exchange for money or other compensation. The practice artificially inflates the ranking of thousands of products, experts say, misleading consumers.

The Post says “many of these fraudulent reviews originate on Facebook.” Accordingly, fake review solicitation becomes another variation on the “fake news” problem for the company.”

I use reviews a lot for booking hotels and finding restaurants. And I find my trust in these reviews is sinking fast. I am not sure how much it is due to people deliberately gaming the system. I think a lot of it may be due to the very different desires and perceptions of people when they go out for a meal. Different people look fro different things from a meal out, like different food and different environments. My very unscientific research shows quite pronounced differences in restaurant reviews on Trip  Adviser between people from different countries, and from tourists and local residents. I have resorted to the old way of finding somewhere to eat – to walk around, to look in the window and look in the window. And I am much more likely to trust recommendations from friends than from Trip Adviser, Yelp, Google or teh like.

I am  not sure what if any implications for the Fate of Online Trust in the next decade. But it probably means something.

Posted in social media, Social networking, Social Software, socialmedia, Wales Wide Web | Comments Off on Trust and Recommender Systems

Peer production and open peer review

April 13th, 2018 by Graham Attwell

I get a lot of notifications about various journal publications. Most are not particularly interesting and in reality, are what might be called academic spam. But I was interested recently to get an email telling me of the publication of a a new edition of the Journal of Peer Production. The Journal says their focus is on

peer production as a mode of commons-based and oriented production in which participation is voluntary and predicated on the self-selection of tasks. Notable examples are the collaborative development of Free Software projects and of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia.

Through the analysis of the forms, operations, and contradictions of peer producing communities in contemporary capitalist society, the journal aims to open up new perspectives on the implications of peer production for social change.

The latest addition of the journal showcases a wide variety of case studies in cities from different geographies of the Global North and Global South namely Barcelona, Berlin, Brisbane, Brussels, Ciudad Juárez, Dhaka, Genoa, London, Melbourne, Milan, New York, Paris, Rosario.

But what particularly interested me was the jounal’s review procedure:

There are eight case study research papers which have been peer-reviewed and revised through the particularly transparent review process of JoPP (i.e. for each of the peer-reviewed papers the originally submitted version, the reviews and the final feedback of reviewers on the revised version are made public) and four experimental contributions that have been reviewed by the special issue editors. The experimental pieces follow a less rigorous and more playful format, an interview with commentary, a dialogue, a call for participation, and an open-ended online article. They all invite us, the readers, to follow up their stories in dedicated online venues, or even in face-to-face meetings, and participate in the form of peer production that they advocate for.

I am not sure about the “less rigorous and more playful” format (and am not sure that this is a necessary trade off). But for some time now, I have been arguing in favour of a more open (and transparent) review procedure. Personally, I would welcome the opportunity for more dialogue around reviews I have written. I think this could be implemented without abandoning the process of blind reviews. And making reviews open would also provide valuable learning materials for reviewers. Sometimes I really doubt my own judgement when undertaking reviews. Just seeing the reviews in the Journal of Peer Production have made me more confident about the quality of feedback I provide for authors.

Posted in Digital Literacy, education 2.0, Knowledge development, Wales Wide Web | Comments Off on Peer production and open peer review

Crossing Boundaries

April 5th, 2018 by Graham Attwell

I think I have written several times before about the problems with conferences. Too many boring sessions with short presentations featuring long lists of bullet points in PowerPoint. At best time for a couple of questions before the next speaker. Inadequate review processes as all conferences want to get as many delegates as they can. Too expensive, thus excluding emerging researchers, but still with enough funding for gala dinners for those senior enough to get a travel grant.

And of course, we all say how the informal discussion outside the conference room is the best part but we never think about why that might be.

But things are slowly changing. Just as smaller, better organised niche music festivals have slowly emerged alongside the mega events, so too are new conferences being established which try at least to promote discourse and to break the traditional mould.

One of the best I have attended recently is the Crossing Boundaries conferences – held three years ago in Bremen in Germany and last year in Rostock.

The “Crossing Boundaries in Vocational Education and Training” Conference, the organisers say is guided by the following ten principles:

  • being active: all participants are presenters, therefore you cannot participate without presenting
  • interdisciplinarity: all contributions around work and learning are welcome
  • keynote speakers: each day will be opened with at least one keynote
  • open: no conference fee
  • selection: you submit to the conference organizer a short research paper (500-1000 words) which will undergo a review process
  • familarity: one evening is reserved to catch up with old friends and meet new ones in a relaxed atmosphere
  • small size: the conference is limited to 80 participants
  • time: the presentation time is 20 minutes (maximum) with additional 10 minutes time for discussion (minimum); sessions are chaired
  • proceedings: after acceptance all participants contribute with their research paper (up to 2000 words) to the conference proceedings which will be available on the first day of the conference in printed version and later in digital (with download option e.g. on ResearchGate)
  • special edition: some participants will be invited to contribute with an extended research paper (up to 5000 words) to a special edition which will be published in IJRVET International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training

The 2019 Conference is being held in Valencia, Spain. Abstracts are due in by 31 May this year. See you there?

Posted in open education, Pedagogy, teaching and learning, Wales Wide Web | Comments Off on Crossing Boundaries

The Green Slime Neoliberal Lens

April 2nd, 2018 by Graham Attwell

Like many of us I guess, I am disillusioned that the rich promise of social networks for informal learning and the sharing of knowledge has been overwhelmed by endless drive for monetization. Even such basic features as privacy and data security seem to be determined more by how to make money than by any ethical concerns.

I long ago lost faith in Facebook. However, I still have a soft spot for Twitter. Even though curating follower lists takes some time, it is amply paid back by the links to so many things – reports, papers, blogs etc.I would never have stumbled on before.

All this is a rather lengthy prelude to two slides I found last week. Sadly I have lost who was the creator (anyone care to claim them?). But these are great slides.

Image from Tweetbot

 

Image from Tweetbot 1

 

 

 

Posted in Pedagogy, politics, social media, Social networking, Wales Wide Web | Comments Off on The Green Slime Neoliberal Lens

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