Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 259.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
[1] From: Sheldon Richmond <srichmon@officecommunity.com> (13)
Subject: philosophy web site
[2] From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni- (24)
dortmund.de>
Subject: About SCNewsline newsletter
[3] From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni- (36)
dortmund.de>
Subject: [Invitation]Artificial Intelligence in Education
Listserv
[4] From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni- (144)
dortmund.de>
Subject: [Coverage]The Association of Internet Researchers'
inaugural conference sounds interesting & important
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 09:16:28 +0100
From: Sheldon Richmond <srichmon@officecommunity.com>
Subject: philosophy web site
I wish to improve a philosophy web site, in development, meant to
facilitate philosophy discussion in a general audience regardless of
academic background.
I request criticism as well as suggestions for must have philosophy
links or other links.
Please respond to me at:
askthephilosof@yahoo.com
or reply to this address if simpler.
The url for the philosophy web site is:
http://askthephilosopher.cjb.net
-------------------------------------------------
Created by Zkey.com - http://www.zkey.com
Awarded PCMagazine's Editors' Choice
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 09:17:26 +0100
From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
Subject: About SCNewsline newsletter
dear humanist members and researchers,
Hello --I would like to tell you the details of an important
"SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING NEWSLINE" --is the fortnightly electronic
newsletter of scientific computing, brought to you by the publishers
of Scientific Computing World. Written for scientists who rely on
computers, SCNewsline provides the latest research, technology and
business news, alongside announcements of key hardware and software
products.
To SUBSCRIBE to SCNewsline, go to
(http://www.scientific-computing.com/cgi-bin/register_frameset.cgi)
and fill in the simple form.
Visit the Scientific Computing Website at
<http://www.scientific-computing.com> for information and links to
upcoming conferences and exhibitions worldwide.
To See:
If you qualify for a FREE SUBSCRIPTION to Scientific Computing World?
Fill out our online form, and if you qualify we'll send you the next
year's issues for no charge. Click through to
<http://www.scientific-computing.com/cgi-bin/register_frameset.cgi>
to view the registration form.
For more details --please contact the Editor of "SCNewsline newsletter",
Dr. Tom Wilkie, at (tom@campublishers.com)
Thank you..and enjoy the research and technology news!
Sincerely yours
Arun Tripathi
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 09:18:18 +0100
From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
Subject: [Invitation]Artificial Intelligence in Education Listserv
Greetings researchers,
The list owner of: "Artificial Intelligence in Education" has invited you
to join their mailing list at ListBot. To subscribe, write to
(ared-subscribe@listbot.com) *** After subcription to the lists, please
send all your postings to the address at <ared@listbot.com>
The list owner has included the following welcome message:
===========================================================
This is a welcome message..from Arun Tripathi, List owner of
this lists..He is inviting all of you to join the ARED lists. The ARED is
an abbreviation of ARtificial intElligence in eDucation. The purpose of
the ARED Lists is to discuss the aspects and the use of artificial
intelligence techniques in the field of learning, technology and education
to help schools, the teachers to enhance learning.
"As the field of artificial intelligence matures, our ability to
constructs intelligent artifacts increases, as does the need for
implemented systems to experimentally validate AI research in education
and learning."
HI--
I would like to invite all of you to indulge some kind of useful
conversations regarding the below segments.
Intelligent Tutoring Systems combine Artificial Intelligence(AI)
techniques and computer-based tutoring systems. In today's state of the
art ITSs (Bos & Plassche, 1994: Corbet & Anderson, 1992), information
about a particular student, namely student models, already plays a
significant role in the systems's understanding of a particular student's
progress and problems.
How ITSs are going to effect the student's progress and his problems?
The list is also open for useful and intelligent discussions
related to the field of Instructional Technology.
Your list owner Arun Tripathi is always open for other criteria regarding
this lists.
Visit this list's home page at: http://ared.listbot.com
Thanking you,
Kind Regards
Arun Tripathi
PS: For any kind of problems, please mail me at
<tripathi@amadeus.statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 09:19:21 +0100
From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
Subject: [Coverage]The Association of Internet Researchers'
inaugural conference sounds interesting & important
dear scholars, researchers, & thinkers,
[Hi, I thought --this might interest you --recently at the AOIR
conference --the Association of Internet Researchers discussed "Online
Research Ethics Lacking" --any meaningful guidelines for online research
is missing. Most AOIR researchers looked differently at Internet --for
details see On the Net --at Association of Internet
Researcher site <http://aoir.org> Thank you.-Arun]
=======================================================================
Researchers Looking at Internet
ET September 17, 2000
By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) - As the Internet rapidly promotes new communities and
new ways to communicate, researchers still are trying to catch up and
figure out its costs and benefits.
The Association of Internet Researchers' inaugural conference ended
Sunday with more questions than answers about the Net's impact on social
interactions and relationships.
Does the Internet foster greater face-to-face contact offline, or does it
tend to make people more reclusive? Are face-to-face interactions even the
ideal means of contact for everyone, including the shy teen-ager who
thrives online?
"We know very little," said Manuel Castells, sociology professor at
University of California-Berkeley.
"We are transforming our world at the fullest speed - blindly," he
said. "It could create a backlash from many people saying that for them,
the Internet is worsening their lives."
While Internet studies are only beginning, time is running out
because technology changes rapidly, warned Stephen Jones, president of the
association.
The researchers' group, with more than 400 members, was formed to
bring together sociologists, educators, technologists and other
specialists who study the Internet.
Despite their efforts, many expressed frustration about how little is known.
"There's a lot of rhetoric and a fair amount of pseudo research,"
said Gary Burnett, a professor of information studies at Florida State
University. "If we don't take measures to understand the subtleties
of the world we live in, there's the possibility for significant
negative consequences."
Studies at Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon University have
suggested that the Internet promotes reclusion or depression.
But other studies, including those presented at the conference, found
that Internet users communicate more often - online and offline - than
people who are unconnected.
Many researchers agreed that the Internet does foster communities
around shared interests. Cancer survivors, gun owners and fans of
television shows can all meet online even if they are hundreds of miles
apart.
"It's changing the mode through which communities emerge," said
Andrew Wood, a professor in communications studies at San Jose State
University in California. "It's hard to say whether that's good or bad,
but it's certainly going to be different."
Burnett identified one potential downside of virtual communities:
Internet users may develop a large-scale view incompatible with the small,
rural settings they live in.
Dave Jacobson, an anthropologist at Brandeis University in Waltham,
Mass., found no evidence that people relate to one another any differently
on the Net. But then again, he said, individuals can enter or leave a
virtual community more easily than they can move from a town they dislike.
And some researchers emphasized the difficulties of blaming or
crediting the Internet for societal changes. After all, said University of
Toronto sociologist Barry Wellman, neighborhood-based communities began
declining long ago.
"Many of the things we ascribe to computerization had been happening
before," Wellman said.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) -- Don't get too comfortable with your online
support group. A researcher may be lurking, recording your
outpourings in the name of science.
In fact, a researcher posing as a member of the support group may be
posting comments simply to observe the reaction from participants.
As more researchers turn to the Internet for behavioral studies,
there is growing concern about the potential harm to online users
unaware that they have become research subjects when they discuss
diseases, marital problems and sexual identity crises.
Online research ethics -- specifically, the lack of any meaningful
guidelines -- was one of the chief topics of discussion this week at
the inaugural meeting of the Association of Internet Researchers.
``We're waiting for a major lawsuit,'' said Sarina Chen, professor of
communications at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.
``Many people consider downloading data from the Internet `content
analysis.' That's very naive.''
She ought to know: She said she almost lost her job when participants
in a support group for eating disorders complained to her superiors
about the tone of some postings that one of her students had made as
part of a class assignment.
Failing to get consent before monitoring Internet chat rooms and
other discussion forums amounts to an invasion of privacy and can
make participants more guarded in their dealings with one another,
Chen said.
In more extreme cases, other researchers warned, a posting inserted
by a researcher can shift the nature of discussion and prompt
participants to take action they otherwise would not.
Barbara Lackritz, a leukemia survivor from St. Louis who runs more
than two dozen cancer support groups, said researchers have been
dropping in with increased frequency.
``It's very frustrating,'' she said in a telephone interview. ``We
have all kinds of researchers, from kids who are in high school to
master's degree candidates who want to do a thesis.''
Researchers who want to monitor her discussion groups often get
permission first from group moderators, she said. But too often, she
said, researchers don't ask, and ``think we're a slab of people
waiting to do research for them.''
She said one support-group participant who hadn't told his friends,
family and neighbors about his cancer started getting phone calls all
of a sudden from people saying, ``I'm sorry.'' He then learned that a
researcher had posted his full name and diagnosis on a Web site.
Now that participant uses a pseudonym.
``He was furious,'' Lackritz said. ``In the long run, it hurt him
financially and in his relationships with family.''
Federal law and university review boards generally prohibit
experiments on humans without consent, though some observations in
public settings are acceptable.
But where do you draw the line between public and private on the
Internet? Many discussion groups are open to the public, but
participants generally assume that fellow members join because they
have similar interests or concerns.
That makes such forums less like a public square and more like
someone's living room, said Amy Bruckman, a professor of computing at
Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
Other researchers, however, believe they can monitor those
discussions as long as they do not identify subjects in research
papers.
``It's more important how data is analyzed and disseminated than how
it is gathered,'' said Joseph Walther, professor of communications,
psychology and information technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute in Troy, N.Y.
Storm King, a Springfield, Mass., psychologist and spokesman for the
International Society for Mental Health Online, said seeking consent
can actually cause participants to clam up, making observations of
natural settings more difficult.
The Association of Internet Researchers will probably decide Sunday
to form a task force to draft guidelines by next year's meeting, said
Stephen Jones, the group's president.
David Snowball, professor of speech communication at Augustana
College in Rock Island, Ill., said he was surprised when students
proposed to eavesdrop on a support group and create fake traumas for
the group to consider.
He was even more surprised when he learned the students got the idea
from other faculty members, who believed the practice was OK because
participants would probably never know.
``The online world is still new and opens up all sorts of ways of
doing research,'' said Charles Ess, a professor in cultural studies
at Drury University in Springfield, Mo. ``It's much easier to lurk in
a chat room undetected than it is to stand in a room and take notes.''
On the Net: http://aoir.org
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