My shortest post

I'm wrapping up...

I have enjoyed this unit. It's been an interesting and inspiring journey where I've been shown the path of self-directed study. I found an amusing semblance of order to my way of thinking when I noticed that a concept exists for nearly everything we do on the Internet. I'm not being a fanatic acting like the netiquette police because there is a concept to back me up now! Look out family and friends!

 

But seriously, I am surprised at what I've written (regardless of its quality and substance) I'm just in awe of the whole experience of blogging and learning at the same time. I had no reservations about blogging as it seemed a sensible way to manage the inputs from many students and it was equally useful for me as a student to complete a big project in one place. My only regret has been my lack of time management and preparedness for unforseen events. There was a great deal of support from our tutors thanks Peter and Cynthia and also from fellow students who I never had time to get to know and help out. I am certainly preparing for the next study period with my eyes wide open and a little notch of experience in my belt. I doubt that what I have learned these past 3 months will date. Beyond the technologies and tools we studied, I know the Concepts we learned represent the constant and consistent nature of our everyday life using the Internet and 'being on the web'.

*sighs*

CJH

Are we in a Digital Ecosystem?

A new perspective of the Internet - Information Ecology!

The 'information ecology' can be compared to the natural environment in that a relationship with mutual benefit exists between technology and the user, much like a symbiotic process. I must admit to liking the description 'information ecology' in terms of the Internet and the Web. It does not support technology or social determinism but instead requires acceptance of both as being necessary and equally important - one cannot 'be' without the other. This is an exciting business model for any online venture. If I understand it correctly.

 

Communication within the 'information ecology' represents the bridge or connection between technology and users. Information is knowledge and it is a resource therefore information has significant value. But I wouldn't confuse information as a technology, that is to say it is not just a set of tools in the context of this ecology. Information is knowledge in the form of data that is shared and dispersed by the technology. Switching from my often used notion about using technology when sending an email, to the idea of sharing information when sending an email, is an example of what I think 'information ecology' can support. Hopefully I am not way off the mark with my thinking here...

 

Communication ecology tells me that the focus is on the technical aspects of a particular environment. The word communication is often associated with technologies and the word communications (plural) sits with terms such as information technology.  Although nowadays, if I heard "Im in communications" my first question is "communications in what?". So even though the literal meaning of communication can be taken as it is within a particular environment or 'ecology' I suspect we don't use the term 'communication ecology' too much because it leads to misinterpretation. It's hard to change widely held and accepted ideas of what 'communication ecology' means.

Evaluating Web Sources

• http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/index.html
  Article index page "The Psychology of Cyberspace"
  Various articles by John Suder (various dates), Rider University, NJ.

The articles listed are all written by John Suler, Ph.D. although he does advise other authors may be included and identified. Suler's pages are situated on the Rider University, NJ domain. Suler is a Clinical Psychologist active in the field among his patients, peers and students. This site links to his other websites and affiliations which offer more investigation and research on many Internet related activities centred around human psychology. I get the impression he is writing to inform and it is fair to say that Suler's entire network of sites is a personal academic diary of his continued interest in "The Psychology of Cyberspace". The articles contain appropriate academic references and they are set out using subheadings for quick scanning of content, such as the article shown below:

• Which is better, an annotation with or without a screenshot?

A picture says a thousand words but a screenshot cannot. An annotation is more informative and answers key questions I would ask about the source, relevance and reliability of the subject. Snapshots of a site do provide a good visual cue of what the page should/might look like but it shows very little detail. A bigger screenshot doesn't really help as I'd rather just click and go to the page to read more that way. But, if the site had a diagram or flowchart, a screenshot would be helpful I think. Apart from that though I would stick with plain text anno's and a hyperlink.

For anyone else who might come across my 'site information preview', I'd like to use both methods: picture and text. The annotation is the best way for users to read about a site, providing it is an informative and helpful precis of course! Then I think a screenshot might also be useful, to make it easier for readers to visit the site if they did find the annotation interesting. The screenshot could be a clickable visual cue.

Web Search

• Search for something...
  

I decided to start off with a broad keyword phrase to see what would come up before using filtering parameters. My words were internet communication theory 2009.

My intention was to find academic papers on internet communication theory written in 2009 so I used Google.com as I didn't need to find localised (google.com.au) results at all.

Total search results were 2,800,000 and the first hit was Cambridge University Press:http://www.cambridge.org/uk/browse/browse_all.asp?subjectid=1083836
Because I used Google, there were 3 Google Scholar links above the normal search results. The results in Scholar were quite relevant.

• Try using Copernic...

I used internet communication theory 2009, again without any filtering i.e. not using "exact phrase". With the Copernic Basic version I was prevented from searching Newsgroups but I kept the default 14 engines enabled for this search task just to see what would happen.

Total search results in Copernic were 36. Although this is a ridiculously low number in comparison to Google results, I would rarely click through to page 2 in Google anyway so I wasn't concerned about the number of results in Copernic. In fact, Copernic brought up some relevant results to compare with Google.

• Google or Copernic?

Between the two search engines I am torn. I've been using Google for ages and feel confident that I can find what I need but the paid version of Copernic looks more feature-rich and powerful. The first hit in Google's results came in 3rd down the list in Copernic suggesting the quality is there in both. But it's easier for me to scan through Google results with the typical Google-white space whereas in Copernic I had several boxes and highlighted words in different colours all over my screen. Copernic results were great and it generated results quickly but I need time to get used to its 'look' on screen. The promising results I've had so far make me want to use both!

• Adjusting my search strategy...

As I had already found the biggest number of hits for my search terms in Google, I decided to change my words to get even better, more relevant results from both search methods. I used "internet communication" abstract - replacing theory with abstract to narrow my target to academic papers and removing the need for a specific date. I also used the double quotes to ensure the words internet communication were found together. Hmm no real improvement on my search results there.

Although I should be looking for information coming from University sources, I wanted to see the kinds of sites that would come up without using a filter search for .edu sites. Best scenario: I might land a quick reference from a database such as elsevier.com/ScienceDirect that I can access in full via Curtin Library. As it turned out, the first 5 results in Google and Copernic gave me academic links but the content was useless for my needs. The use of the word 'theory' didn't always give good results and although using 'abstract' gave me a lot of good papers, there was no topic focus. Several minutes later I finished flipping words and came up with the results I wanted.

• Organising my Search Information

In order to find the best three sources out of my last searches I was forced to look further down in the results. Nope. My choice of words were not giving me good results. The point of this exercise I think is to quickly find relevant content on the Web and then record my top findings for later use in research. 

I ran this search in Google:intitle:internet impact community identity site:.edu  (15,200 results) and this in Copernic: internet impact community identity *.edu (23 results). I saved the Info below in EverNote under the relevant study unit.

http://www.jomc.unc.edu/images/ante/internet.pdf

"Internet use and Community ties" Bare et al (2008).

School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina, NC.

PDF includes separate input from all authors exploring communities that are not geography based. Good for ideas, prompting, another perspective.

http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/index.html

Article index page "The Psychology of Cyberspace"

Various articles by John Suler Ph.D (various dates), Rider University, NJ.

HTML full articles about online community, identity and features of cyberspace with ref to psychology. Understand peoples motivations, the why, qualities inherent in communities and online relationships.

 

http://sociology.morrisville.edu/infospace/identity.html

"Identity and the Internet: A symbolic interactionist perspective on computer-mediated social networks"

Article by Kurt Reymers (March, 2002), Morrisville State College, NY.

HTML full article, hyperlinks to Symbolic, Identity and Social Networks. Makes a connection between the 3 concepts.