EdBenoit.com | Professional website for Ed Benoit

Launching of the Virtual Footlocker Project

15/12/16 at 12.28am / by eabenoit / 0 Comment

I am excited to officially announce the launching of my new research project, the Virtual Footlocker Project. In its entirety, the project focuses on the development of an open-source, cross-system platform system for capturing and preserving the personal communication and documentary record of the modern soldier.

Please review the full project description (and watch the promotional video) on the project page. For this first phase of the project, we are conducting an online survey of active duty and veteran military members from the past decade. Participants will complete a online survey, and can be entered to win 1 of 20 $50 payments upon completion. Please forward this information to anyone you may know.

This phase of the project is funded by a generous grant from LSU’s College of Human Sciences & Education Peabody Society Dean’s Circle. More information about the funded Dean’s Circle Projects can be found at http://www.lsu.edu/chse/alumni/deans-circle-projects.php.

I would also like to thank two of my MLIS students, Kelly Grant and Chris LeBlanc, for their continued work on the project.

You can follow the project’s progress at the following websites & social media accounts:

Project Page: http://www.edbenoit.com/virtualfootlocker

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/virtualfootlocker

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/vrt_footlocker

AMIA 2015

15/11/22 at 6.37pm / by eabenoit / 0 Comment

This year I attended my first AMIA conference after a SLIS alumna, Casey E. Davis, sent a CFP for a curated stream on access, outreach, and use of moving image archives. This stream fit perfectly into a new moving image social tagging study I conducted over the past few months. I was also invited to present preliminary findings of a job posting analysis I’ve been conducting as part of a competency-based framework for audiovisual archiving education working group.

Both presentations were well received, and initiated excellent discussion about the future directions of the moving image archiving field. The curated stream introduced some interesting concepts, in particular Casey E. Davis and Sadie Roosa’s use of the phrase, “minimum viable cataloging” in questioning how much metadata is really needed to post something online. I think this phrase will soon enter my own writing and discussions. Additionally, the curated stream crowdsourced its own notes…such a great idea for conference. You can view the final crowdsourced project (including a link to the stream’s Storify) at tinyurl.com/amia15.

I also experienced what it feels like to be heavily tweeted while presenting during my job posting analysis presentation. Below are my PowerPoint files for both presentations.

AMIA Presentation Files

2016 iConference

15/11/17 at 6.27pm / by eabenoit / 0 Comment

While I will not be attending in person (since I will be at the University of Alabama on my SEC Travel Program), the iConference accepted our poster submission. The poster is based on the collaborative Twitter project with Jenny Stevenson. I look forward to continuing this line of research in the near future.

@Archivist_Community: UCINET Social Network Analysis and Archivists on Twitter

Edward Benoit III¹, Jennifer Ann Stevenson²

¹Louisiana State University

²University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee

Abstract

This study measures the effects of Twitter usage among archivists in order to begin to identify and evaluate social media for future use for the archive community.  The study analyzes the statistics to provide quantitative evidence of what is going on “behind the scenes,” and the correlation to the content of the tweets and the number of responses.

Using social network analysis (SNA), a database was constructed to build the social network, nodes, ties, identify the relationships, create the measurements for the various weights connecting a number of different ties.  UCINET software was used to conduct the social network analysis. The consideration of various weights and connections to a number of ties provides an insight into how the archival community uses Twitter.

Louisiana Archives and Manuscript Association

15/11/06 at 6.32pm / by eabenoit / 0 Comment

The annual LAMA meeting just wrapped up in Baton Rouge. This year both SSA and SLIS generously sponsored the conference, and it was well attended. It is always nice to see local and regional meetings like this succeed. As part of the meeting, I was re-elected for a two year position on the Board of Directors. I look forward to the future directions of this organization and collaborating with many of its members.

2016 MAC in Milwaukee

15/10/15 at 6.22pm / by eabenoit / 0 Comment

I’ll be returning home to Milwaukee in April (2016) to present some new moving image tagging research at the Midwest Archives Conference.

“Crowdsourcing Beyond Transcription”

Many crowdsourcing initiatives over the past several years have demonstrated the benefit of using crowdsourcing as a tool to increase access to digitized archival materials. However, crowdsourcing can be more than a method of recruiting the public to transcribe digitized collections. This session will focus on wider applications for crowdsourcing, such as focusing crowdsourcing initiatives on different content types – including audiovisual and born-digital – and towards specific audiences, such as scholars or undergraduate students. Panelists representing a variety of institutions will describe their experiences with crowdsourcing, focusing on its applications as a tool for not only acquiring crowd-based knowledge, but also engaging users and promoting services. This pecha kucha-style session will leave ample time to “crowdsource” audience questions and perspectives on the subject. If your institution already has a crowdsourcing initiative in place or you are just starting to explore crowdsourcing as an option, you’ll come away from this session with new ideas and methods for crowdsourcing, in addition to strategies for successful crowdsourcing projects.

SEC Faculty Travel Program

15/09/12 at 5.51pm / by eabenoit / 0 Comment

I received word the SEC Faculty Travel Program funded my proposal as one of ten awardees from LSU (out of a record twenty applications). The SEC Faculty Travel Program aims, “to enhance collaboration that stimulates scholarly initiatives between universities, this program offers faculty members from each SEC university the opportunity to travel to other SEC universities to exchange ideas, develop grant proposals, and conduct research.

I will be traveling to the University of Alabama School of Library and Information Studies in late March. During my visit, I will present a guest lecture on my current and past research; finish collaborating on a journal article with Robert Riter; and engage in a discussion of institutional collaboration and grant development.

Dean’s Circle Funding

15/06/15 at 5.39pm / by eabenoit / 0 Comment

I am please to announce LSU’s College of Human Sciences & Education Peabody Society Dean’s Circle agreed to fund the first phase of my Virtual Footlocker Project. More information about the funded Dean’s Circle Projects can be found at http://www.lsu.edu/chse/alumni/deans-circle-projects.php.

Below is an executive summary of project’s first phase:

For generations, soldiers documented their wartime experiences in personal diaries, photographs, and correspondence with loved ones. Often veterans kept these treasured personal collections long after their service, and handed them down to family members. Eventually, these personal military service records humanized the sacrifice of war through historians use as primary sources. With the digital revolution, the 21^st century soldier no longer poses the same tangible personal archives creating a critical gap in the record. In its entirety, the Virtual Footlocker Project focuses on the development of an open-source, cross-system platform system for capturing and preserving the personal communication and documentary record of the modern soldier.

The first phase of this project will explore the personal archiving and record-keeping habits of the modern solider through addressing the following research questions: What types of communication and documentary methods are modern soldiers using? What, if any, methods are modern soldiers using to preserve their service-time archives and records and to what degree?

A survey of both open- and close-ended questions will be developed in consultation with a CHSE undergraduate veteran, reservist, or National Guard member and distributed to active duty, reservists, and veterans for a minimum total of 1,000 responses with 200 participants for each of the five service branches (split equally between officers and enlisted). Each participant may participate in drawing for one of 20 $50 Amazon.com gift cards (with 2 awarded per sub-group). The close-ended questions will be analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics; and the open-ended questions will be analyzed with open-coding. The results will be submitted for presentation at national conference, and submitted as at least two journal articles. A graduate student in SLIS will assist during the data analysis and the creation of the conference presentations and journal articles.

Journal of Documentation Article Published

14/07/24 at 7.25pm / by eabenoit / 0 Comment

Search result list evaluation versus document evaluation: similarities and differences

Document Information:
Title:	Search result list evaluation versus document evaluation: similarities and differences
Author(s):	Iris Xie, (School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA), Edward Benoit III, (School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA)
Citation:	Iris Xie, Edward Benoit III, (2013) “Search result list evaluation versus document evaluation: similarities and differences”, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 69 Iss: 1, pp.49 – 80
Keywords:	Comparison, Document evaluation, Evaluation activities, Evaluation criteria, Evaluation elements, Evaluation time, Information retrieval, Relevance criteria, Search result list evaluation, Searching
Article type:	Research paper
DOI:	10.1108/00220411311295324 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Acknowledgements:	The authors thank the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for its Research Growth Initiative program for generously funding the project, and Tim Blomquist and Marilyn Antkowiak for their assistance on data collection and Huan Zhang for her assistance on data analysis. The authors would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
Abstract:	Purpose – The purpose of this study is to compare the evaluation of search result lists and documents, in particular evaluation criteria, elements, association between criteria and elements, pre/post and evaluation activities, and the time spent on evaluation. Design/methodology/approach – The study analyzed the data collected from 31 general users through prequestionnaires, think aloud protocols and logs, and post questionnaires. Types of evaluation criteria, elements, associations between criteria and elements, evaluation activities and their associated pre/post activities, and time were analyzed based on open coding. Findings – The study identifies the similarities and differences of list and document evaluation by analyzing 21 evaluation criteria applied, 13 evaluation elements examined, pre/post and evaluation activities performed and time spent. In addition, the authors also explored the time spent in evaluating lists and documents for different types of tasks. Research limitations/implications – This study helps researchers understand the nature of list and document evaluation. Additionally, this study connects elements that participants examined to criteria they applied, and further reveals problems associated with the lack of integration between list and document evaluation. The findings of this study suggest more elements, especially at list level, be available to support users applying their evaluation criteria. Integration of list and document evaluation and integration of pre, evaluation and post evaluation activities for the interface design is the absolute solution for effective evaluation. Originality/value – This study fills a gap in current research in relation to the comparison of list and document evaluation.

Social Studies of Information

14/07/24 at 7.24pm / by eabenoit / 0 Comment

SocialStudiesOf.Info was set up in 2012 as a complement to the newly established Social Studies of Information Research Group in SOIS, the iSchool at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee. When setting up our research group we were looking around for a broad but coherent identity that could bring together faculty with a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and interests committed to an interdisciplinary dialogue and whose research was grounded in the methods of the humanities and social sciences.

While we individually participate in a number of related communities none of the existing labels seemed to quite fit for the group as a whole. Social Informatics is perhaps the closest, but was intended to legitimate social issues as an area of study of equal importance to other varieties of “informatics” and computer science. It therefore puts human relationships with technology, rather than with information itself, at the center of analysis. This did not encompass many topics within areas such as information history or archival studies. Science and Technology Studies inspired us with its vibrancy and inclusion of diverse disciplinary approaches, but it seemed to us more appropriate to identify information rather than science and technology as the shared object that held us together. Internet Studies and the Association of Internet Researchers are of great interest to several of our members, but clearly limit the scope of research to a specific technology.

Our informal sense of Social Studies of Information is essentially as Science and Technology Studies for researchers in the iSchool and communication school worlds. A growing number of faculty with doctoral training in science and technology studies or the history of science and technology have been hired in these schools, and many more have been heavily influenced by these approaches. A growing number of scholars with a background in communications, legal studies, or media studies are also finding common interests with Science and Technology Studies.

More formally, we realized that our interests could be described as involving the historical, social, and cultural dimensions of information, including its institutions, practices, industries, technologies, disciplines, users, policies and ethics. We believe that by framing studies broadly, for example in terms of practices and institutions, and by being tolerant of different disciplinary approaches we can engage scholars in more productive discussion. In contrast the traditional functionalist separation of scholars within the library and information science field into areas such as information seeking, information behavior, information retrieval, archives, public libraries, and so on tends to isolate scholars within very narrow fields of interest.

As our new research group began to publicize its postdoctoral position and set up our speaker series we realized that there was no efficient way to reach this community because its members were spread over so many different associations and email lists. SocialStudiesOf.Info and its associated email list is intended to act as a hub through which these scholars can interact and share resources. Our initial goals are modest but attainable. The email list will allow for discussion, announcements and questions to be shared within the community. Our syllabus repository allows participants to learn from each other and is increasingly important now that most syllabi are hidden inside course management systems. The member directory holds a short profile created by participants when they register for the site, and will help scholars find each other. We hope that the site will be particularly useful for graduate students.

Participation in the SocialStudiesOf.Info community is free and open to an international audience. Making our plans work and expanding our activities to new areas will only be possible with the active involvement of many people. The content management system we are using makes it easy to add additional features such as blogs, discussion areas, or groups focused on particular topics. So if you would like to get involved with the project then please contact us.

Digital Library Teaching Resource (DLTRe)

14/07/24 at 7.23pm / by eabenoit / 0 Comment

DLTRe serves as a supplemental resource for students of the Certificate of Advanced Studies in Digital Libraries at UW-Milwaukee, students in the L&I SCI 682: Digital Libraries course, and anyone interested in digital libraries. The website is presented in five major modules for digital library development and execution including: Collection Development, Digitization, Metadata, Interface Design, and Evaluation. Each of the modules contain introductory information on the topic, software & tutorials, sample files, practice exercises, and suggested readings.