Blog da tese

coffee, tea, you and me - new place

2009-06-11T11:44:00.005+01:00

This space was weaved around the work for my master thesis and very connected to the places I inhabit at that time. It was also the starting point for the doctoral research.I felt the need for another space that could be turned into my place. At first I retracted from out loud thoughts. There where to many things I needed to sort out for myself and I could not express them in public. Most of those writings acted like mind «dumping», scattered and confusing pieces that I felt the need to take of my mind. For almost 2 years, I've used mainly my notebooks (moleskines) and a restricted blog mainly intended for documenting my ongoing doctoral work.

Two years might not seem long, but it as been way to long for all the changes that have taken place with my life... and with myself. Slowly I've started to sort things out. Little by Little am crafting a new time/space. Some pieces fit for building what I hope it's growing to be my place. The most important of those bits are the memories of people from past times. The conversations that took place around coffee, tea, you and me.

So in case you want to stop by for a coffee, this is where I am now. You're very welcome to drop in, look around to what's been occupying my thinking and share your own thoughts. And sorry for not twitter, but I've discovered that I like it slow with time to appreciate all the silences in between what is said, felt, and shared. Playing around with ideas is an integral part of my way of learning. That requires time and can not be rushed. A lot like friendship, I guess.

Thanks! Hope to see you around :-)

on the use of «labels» for writing research

2008-07-04T11:44:00.001+01:00

McKechnie, L., Julien, H., Pecoskie, J.L. & Dixon, C.M. (2006). The presentation of the information user in reports of information behaviour research. Information Research, 12(1) paper 278 [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/12-1/paper278.html]:

"(...) the terms partner and participant, may perhaps be regarded as the most inclusive of all as they construct the individual as a member of the research team and an active player in the research process."

When addressing participants in a research, McKechnie et al (2006) suggest to use the words «participants» or «partners» since it acknowledges their active paper in the research process and denotes a more centralized role in the research then the use of words such as «subjects», «objects» that distance the researched from the research. Also, there was a correlation with the data collection methods used where the participant label was used:

"The important role of the user or research participant was evident in the method section of some of the papers. Some data collection practices reported by authors were designed to bring, and were effective at bringing, researchers closer to users and capturing their perspectives. These included open-ended interviews, face-to-face interviews, close interaction over an extended period of time, audio-recording of interviews, full transcription of audio-recorded interviews and participant checking. Conversely, data collection practices such as transaction log analysis or the use of secondary survey data served to distance the researcher from the researched."

The core of the paper is concerned not only with the labels a researcher uses, but how this labels might reflect how the researcher sees the participants. To be avoided, specially if one is using the qualitative paradigm, reports that address participants by numbers, by letters, by pie charts, etc., not giving voice to the participants.

This is one of the differences that might be an issue when presenting my research in an engineers context. They might say that I used a lot of quotations and little aggregated information. Also, it may reflect how I see the world of engineers: my pre-conceptions of what it is expected of my research in the context of the Department I'm going to present my PhD.

research, living & life

2007-07-07T11:38:00.000+01:00

For the few people that still come to this space expecting to find news on my research, just some notes to let you know that what i had dream and fight to get a grant for being able to finance my PhD, turned out to be something far from what i would discovered. I am still waiting for my grant!

Because I'm a full time worker in a research government lab (where they do not invest in workers research education & only use it at workers costs), in order to receive the grant that i won, from last years national FCT's grants:

I need the written consent of my research lab, saying that they authorize me to do my PhD without receiving my salary (according to Portuguese National Science & Technology Foundation norms for the research grants). I have been waiting for the answer since last year, and still nothing!
When they eventually decide, I will loose my salary, and my income will be even worst then before i applied for the grant, making the grant feel like a poisoned gift

In the course of my life I married and proudly became the mother of two kids. It's becoming real difficult to tell them to proceed with their studies (they are now 17 & 15 years old), in a country were a house maid (that i would gladly pay for, if i could) earns more than someone that works full time in research. What lessons are they taking out of my discourse versus practicing?

Something must be wrong in my present life. It seems that the efforts I've been making in the last years are all wrong and do not make any sense. Since I went to work for my current organization:

I have been told that always exceeded the objectives they have given me
I have worked in team and helped create sharing practices
I've introduced new practices where old ones didn't work
I've shared my resources and documented my practices
I found solutions to solve problems, when resources where scarce or unavailable
I have had the best evaluations from my hierarchies since I came to work for them, but...
... the promotions only included more work, more responsibility, but no money!

So 5 years of my life telling my family that "working hard will help us have a better life", working full time, finishing a masters research (extra time), even incurring in costs in the name of a better future for my Organization and hence for myself and all the people i work with, translates in nothing that i can give back to the well being of my family:

I've been moved by the dream of being able to contribute to my family needs
I always believed in giving the most to the people i am with
I enjoy learning knew things and use them in everyday work and life
My best learned lessons have been those where something didn't work

I have been trying to make sense of all this situation... but i keep going in circles. I feel that i am wasting my time. There must be other ways of living life

I once thought that money was not important, but in the last years I've changed my mind: the grocery man thinks it is, so I «had» to agree with him ;-)

National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS)

2007-04-15T10:19:00.000+01:00

Many useful resources in the The National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS). Among many worth of exploration, i found one for the design of my research. It deals with the need of ethnographic studies to understand complex interactions among social and technical relations in ubiquitous and mobile contexts of way-of-life:

(2006) Supporting Ethnographic Studies of Ubiquitous Computing in the Wild A. Crabtree, S. Benford, Chris Greenhalgh, University of Nottingham P. Tennent, M. Chalmers, B. Brown, Dept of Computing Science, University of Glasgow. Published in the Proceedings of the 2006 ACM Symposium on Designing Interactive Systems

...!

2007-02-25T16:50:00.000Z

Grad Students Unite, Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham in PhD Comics

experimental phase

2007-02-10T11:45:00.000Z

From Piled Higher and Deeper, Get to know your Advisor's Negation Field... although I'm still to find out if it's going to happen with me ;-)

LEMe

2007-02-10T11:37:00.000Z

[Portuguese Excelence Lab in Mobility] LEMe - Laboratório de Excelência em Mobilidade:

"(...) desenvolvimento em consórcio em Computação Móvel e Ubíqua bem como nos serviços inovadores para cidadãos nas suas actividades do dia-a-dia, trabalho e lazer."

Adicional Information (in portuguese): localization, people, partnerss e projects, among others.

i3 Conference - Information: Interactions and Impact

2007-01-28T12:12:00.000Z

i3 Conference - Information: Interactions and Impact

"i3 is an attempt to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in exploring such interconnections between information behaviour, information literacy and impact of information. The conference will provide a forum for exchange of research findings and an opportunity to identify key questions and issues for future research. It should be relevant to those involved in researching, developing or delivering information and knowledge services in any sector as well as those concerned with the development of skills for a knowledge society."

things can never be the same

2007-01-28T10:34:00.000Z

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

About Heraclitus

Aura project

2007-01-20T12:03:00.000Z

Papers talking or referencing Aura Project in UMinho:

Hélder Pinto & Rui José (2004) Supporting Localized Activities in Ubiquitous Computing Environments [presentation pdf]
Hélder Pinto (2004), Supporting Localized Activities in Ubiquitous Computing Environments, in Advances in Pervasive Computing, Vienna : Austrian Computer Society, pp. 119-124.
Hélder Pinto (2004), User-centered support to localized activities in ubiquitous computing environments (paper pdf)

information moves

2007-01-03T14:29:00.000Z

Maglio, P.P., & Matlock, T. (1999). The conceptual structure of information space. In Munro, A., Benyon, D., & Hook, K. (Eds.), Social navigation of information space (pp.155-173). Springer Verlag:

"(...) people see themselves as metaphorically moving toward information, rather than information as moving toward them.", p. 156

Corporate Values and Employee Cynicism

2006-12-12T12:50:00.000Z

Via HBS Working Knowledge - Cha, Sandra E. & Edmondson, A. C. (2006). When values backfire: Leadership, attribution, and disenchantment in a values-driven organization. The Leadership Quarterly, vol. 17, pp. 57-78:

"Theory on charismatic leaders suggests that shared values play an important role in promoting employee effort and organizational performance. This article proposes a theoretical model to identify conditions under which charismatic leadership and values inadvertently give rise to employee disenchantment, despite the good intentions of leaders and followers."

Information Space for Europe

2006-11-21T13:20:00.000Z

eEurope - A single European Information Space:

"This pillar combines regulatory and other instruments at the Commission’s disposal to create a modern, market-oriented regulatory framework for the digital economy."

Blogging as a research tool - ethnography

2006-11-15T12:47:00.003Z

[via Lorenz Khazaleh] Erkan Saka (2006). Blogging as a Research Tool for Ethnographic Fieldwork. Paper submitted to the annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers, Internet Research 7.0: Internet Convergences, Brisbane, Qld, Australia, September 27 - 30, 2006:

"This presentation argues that blogging emerges as a new research tool for the ones conducting ethnographic fieldwork. Moreover, I argue throughout my paper that new media with a particular emphasis in blogging will have even larger consequences for the discipline of anthropology. In order to substantiate my main argument I focus on these issues: a) Blogging might be a remedy to the anxiety of being in ‘after the fact’ that is shared by many anthropologists. Blogging takes place in the present tense while actively engaging with ‘the fact’; b) blogging brings immediate feedback c) not only from the limited scholarly circles but from a wider public/audience d) which exposes the ethnographer to a much more effective issue of accountability. Moreover, e) blogging urges to see motives in a more regular sense, thus creates a strong sense of regularity f) that forces the ethnographer to produce on a regular basis g) with a constant appeal to narrate what would normally remain fragments of fieldnotes. In addition to depending on scholarly sources of interest, this paper exploits the presenter’s own experience of blogging during his fieldwork."

Tags: papers; blogging; ethnography

gatering info to Lyon

2006-11-04T12:44:00.000Z

Next week i'll be in Lyon (SINCT project). While preparing things to get my way around the city, i've started collecting pieces of information that can help me move around to an unknown place.

For getting a sense of the city i've started in Flickr and look for photos tagged with lyon (...i'm already seduced by it). After cheking prices for companies flying from Lisbon to Lyon, accepting the suggestion from a Lyon project partner for lodging, i'm now looking for other practicalities (weather, maps, what to do, transportation in the city,... and wi-fi internet access ;). Do have any suggestions / tips / must see / good places (not expensive) to eat?...

What do you do before going on a work trip to an unknown place?...

PS - And because of my passion for Paris (and good chocolate too ;-) ended up in paris breakfasts.

public internet spaces (in Portugal)

2006-10-28T09:23:00.000+01:00

Taking place in FIL Lisbon, on the 3 & 4 of November, organized by UMIC (Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento) to show and disseminate the network of internet spaces, financed with public fundings (more then 800).

weekend readings

2006-10-27T19:19:00.000+01:00

Bacon, C. J. and Fitzgerald, B. (2001). A systemic framework for the field of information systems. SIGMIS Database 32(2),pp. 46-67. [DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/506732.506738]

Carroll, J. M. and Swatman, P. A. (2000). Structured-case: a methodological framework for building theory in information systems research. European Journal of Information Systems, 9(4), pp. 235-242. [DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000374]

tags: information systems

crossing the divides

2006-10-23T16:42:00.000+01:00

Dervin, B. & Reinhard, C.D. (2006). "Researchers and practitioners talk about users and each other. Making user and audience studies matter—paper 1" Information Research, 12(1) paper 286:

"This paper reports on a qualitative study that compared what experts in three fields, library and information science, human computer interaction and communication and media studies, described as their big unanswered questions about users and audiences of information, library, electronic, communication and media systems and texts. It also compares what these experts thought about each other and the difficulties of crossing the divides between disciplines or fields and between research and practice."

(...)

"That users by any other name (...) increasingly have greater and greater control over their access and use of all manner of information and entertainment systems. In this sense they are no longer best conceptualized as users or as audiences but rather as persons with agency. While in the past access was highly constrained both in space and in time by institutional availability, now these independent agents may surf the planet and beyond at their own whims. This is so even when we acknowledge that all users are unwittingly or wittingly constrained by political economies that limit both arrays of offerings, modes of access and availabilities of specific contents."

(...)

"The study reported here is part of a larger multi-stage project, a dialogic surround of how researchers and practitioners in three fields look at: a) the big unanswered questions about users; b) the gaps that stand between them in finding value from each other's work; and c) the barriers to collaborating in the application of user research to system development, implementation and design."

(colective) individual blog SWOT

2006-09-29T12:04:00.000+01:00

Margarida Cardoso & Mónica André, Individual Blog SWOT (?) with participants contributions, SHiFT, Lisbon, 28 -29 September, 2006.

shift06; bswot

There could be...

2006-08-25T19:51:00.000+01:00

... no better way to start my holidays. Just received the mail saying:

"We are pleased to inform that your fellowship application submited to FCT was evaluated positively."

:-)

extending information spaces

2006-08-23T14:20:00.000+01:00

Today my information space took me to Umea, Sweden, where Lilia was making a presentation on her research (weblogs at Microsoft). Following short message (GoogleTalk), into her digital space for more details (weblog), and to the presentation venue: HumLab.

There i had a link for the video stream, and a contact for Skype. Guess because i'm inside my organizational firewall i could not use the streaming video so i went for the skype contact and met Stephanie that guided me during the rest of the connection. Although i had Lilia's slides (she «left them» at her blog) one get's the feeling of being blind (i.e. not knowing when to change to another slide, when she is prssing a link that takes the audience to another space).

More then the presentation by itself, today i made some more progress on my own work, because of this experience. Wanting very much to establish connections due to topic research, makes one go around try all the possible ways of «being there». Having people anticipating the interest of others, helps create «around ways» for enlarging attendees presence and engagement (even farway ones).

Studying information spaces requires an holistic view of:

individuals (their motivations, their skills, their networks, their interests... their own information spaces)
infrastructures (acess, barriers... infrastructures that support information spaces)
organization (culture, norms and rules «to get work done»... provided organizational information spaces)

So much more that i have to work out... just because i was here and went there. Yes! Research is fun :-)

from expats' info needs to IM in expat cycle

2006-07-23T10:58:00.000+01:00

Submission of complete paper just finished. ~~Expecting for the results~~. In the mean time, here's the extended abstract:

André, Mónica & Barrulas, Maria Joaquina (2006). From expatriates' information needs to information management in the expatriation cycle. [abstract / paper]. I International Conference on Multidisciplinary Information Sciences and Technologies, 25th-28th October, 2006, Mérida, Spain.

PS [06/Ago/2006] - The paper is online at the conference site or you can see it in here :-)

space and time in information seeking

2006-07-19T10:11:00.000+01:00

Savolainen, R. (2006). "Spatial factors as contextual qualifiers of information seeking". Information Research, 11(4), paper 261:

"Typically, an individual's local information field consists of an interpersonal communication network and information terminals (e.g., computers providing access to the Internet), both of which are embedded within a physical context. The physical context in organizations serves to stabilize an individual's information field, and largely determines the nature of the information to which individuals are regularly exposed."

"As individuals become more focused in their information seeking they change the nature of their information field to support seeking of information related to particular purposes. This interpretation significantly expands the applicability of the concept of information fields by showing that information seekers may rethink the role of spatial factors."

"The concept of information pathways differs from information fields in that the former is more dynamic and active, focusing on an individual's actions in selecting information sources over time. A pathway may be understood as the route someone follows in the pursuit of answers to questions within an information field."

"Local communities both enable and constrain information seeking. Spatial factors are related to social ones such as norms and values reproduced in the local community and the conceptions of useful or useless information sources."

Information Source Horizon: "This construct refers to a set of information sources and channels of which the actor is aware and of which he or she may have obtained use experiences over the years. (...) When construing an information source horizon, the actor judges the relevance of the information sources available in the perceived information environment and selects a set of sources and channels, for example, to resolve a problematic issue at hand."

activity theory

2006-07-19T09:12:00.000+01:00

Wilson, T.D. (2006). "A re-examination of information seeking behaviour in the context of activity theory". Information Research, 11(4), paper 260:

Activity theory is "(...) a conceptual framework within which different theoretical perspectives may be employed. Typically, it is suggested that several methods of data collection should be employed and that the time frame for investigation should be long enough for the full range of contextual issues to emerge. Activity theory offers not only a useful conceptual framework, but also a coherent terminology to be shared by researchers, and a rapidly developing body of literature in associated disciplines."

Organizing small digital Information Spaces

2006-07-02T18:16:00.000+01:00

Aplication using real life information behaviours for organizing digital information to re-arrange desktop files :-)