MISTICA: INFO: Forum sobre Evaluacion y Impacto del Internet

From: Michel Menou ([email protected])
Date: Sat Aug 07 1999 - 06:30:54 AST


- Nota de la moderacion: informe en ingles sobre un forum tratando
de la evaluacion y del impacto del Internet, con los datos de la
publicacion del forum y la lista de las varias contribuciones -

Mistic@s,

Envio un comunicado sobre un evento, e futura publicacion, que tal vez
interesara.

Cordial Saludo

Michel

=======================================================

EVALUATION AND IMPACT OF THE INTERNET: A FORUM

The Internet Research Studies Group from City University hosted a forum on
the Internet over the weekend 16-18 July. Impact and evaluation of the
Internet brought together speakers from both the US and the UK in the
relaxed environment of Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park. The event
intended to give key thinkers the time, space and creative environment to
enable participants to engage in thinking and discussion worthy of the
topic. The forum explored issues at the highest level: questioning the
quality of the data and looking behind the data for the new ideas,
principles and intellectual challenges.

The purpose of the forum was to present an inter-disciplinary approach to
studying the Internet, clawing through the hype and hot air normally
associated with Internet conferences. The Internet is not just a major
force of change; it is also a Trojan horse. Through it, it is possible to
examine areas of communication and information seeking behaviour that have
never before been put under the microscope. Indeed the Internet provides a
vehicle with which to explore virtually every aspect of human behaviour.
The research opportunities are enormous and the Forum has an important role
to play in ensuring that Europe, with the aid of the US, contributes to the
research effort. Specifically the Forum was organised with the following
objectives:

1. To present and explore methods for evaluating the Internet's many
features and functions.
2. To assess the impact of the Internet in strategic areas of human
endeavour, so providing us with an understanding of the way that the
Internet is fashioning the world we live in.
3. To identify the key information and communication principles, ideas and
concepts that are emerging as a result of the spread and development of the
Internet - and establish whether we are witnessing the emergence of
something genuinely revolutionary.
4. To put down an agenda for future Internet research and collaboration.
Research in the field is scattered, insufficiently interdisciplinary,
lacking a focal point and cumulation.
5. Above all to establish and promote lines of innovative and creative
thinking in keeping with potentially awesome phenomena that is the Internet.

Given the "all singing and dancing" nature of the Internet, the composition
of the Forum was inevitably interdisciplinary albeit strongly rooted in the
Information and Media domains - the very territory of City University's
Internet Studies Research Group, whose thinking had informed the scope and
structure of the conference.

Speakers gave lively presentations on a wide range of Internet issues
including Web metrics, the global diffusion of the Internet, tracking and
evaluating the global information consumer, evaluating the net as a "local"
information resource, newspapers and the net, conceptual and methodological
issues, the impact of the Internet on the ownership of information, the
relevance of information retrieval. The proceedings reflect the interactive
nature of the event with in-put from rapporteurs and an editorial
reflecting the many issues discussed over the weekend.
 
The proceedings will be published by Aslib in due course under the
title: The Internet: its impact and evaluation. Proceedings of an
international forum held at Cumberland Lodge, Windsor Park,16-18 July
1999, edited by David Nicholas and Ian Rowlands, Aslib, 1999. (Price
32 pounds to corporate members, 40 pounds for non-members).

The forum was sponsored by the British Library and Information
Commission, Aslib and News International.

[Summary by Alison Scammel, Aslib]

Papers:
§ Joining learning, information and the net. John Akeroyd (LITC, UK).
§ Evaluating the Net as a 'local' information resource. Peter Chapman
(Newsquest Ltd.)
§ Newspapers and the Net - peaceful coexistence or fight to the death.
Peter Cole (University of Central Lancashire).
§ Studying the Impacts of the Internet without Assuming Technological
Determinism. John Daly (Consultant, USA).
§ The relevance of IR research for the evaluation of WWW searches.
David Ellis (University of Sheffield).
§ The challenge: unstable knowledge in unstable times. Robin Hunt
(Arehaus, UK).
§ Impact of the Internet : some conceptual and methodological issues,
or how to hit a moving target behind the smoke screen. Michel J. Menou
(City University).
§ Web metrics. Eric Meyer (University of Illinois).
§ Electronic government. Nick Moore (City University).
§ Tracking and evaluating the global information consumer: case study
newspapers. David Nicholas and Paul Huntington (City University).
§ Surveying the Global Diffusion of the Internet. Larry Press
(California State University).
§ The impact of the Internet on the ownership of information. Jonathan
Raper (City University).
§ Cybermetrics: towards a science of document production and use on
the Internet. Ian Rowlands (City University)

-------------------------------------------------
Michel Menou
<[email protected]>



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