See?? I don't write because I'm *WORKING*

And with that, she finishes the requirements for the MSIS degree (provided she doesn't end up failing Management for Information Professionals, which seems like a longshot).

Click here for the whole document (in PDF format). For those without the stomach, you can just read the abstract:

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Christy Adessa Wilkens. Inside the Black Box: Fitting Data Inputs to Communicative Outputs in Human Rights Information Management. A Master's paper for the M.S. in I.S. degree. November, 2003. 53 pages. Advisor: Paul Solomon.

After discussing the theoretical conflicts inherent in the measurement of human rights violations and in the formalization of data in computerized systems, this study examines a model of information flow within human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in order to make recommendations about the design of appropriate data standards.

The fact-finding practices and 2001 annual reports of Amnesty International, Freedom House, and Human Rights Watch were examined using discourse analysis. These findings were used to make inferences about how these NGOs analyze, organize, and record data (after fact-finding and before reporting). One current data standard was examined to see how it might support or hinder these intermediate steps. The author proposes that a data standard using a minimal set of elements, rather than a greater set that allows for wide interpretive variation, might permit human rights NGOs to exchange data on individual violations without impeding their distinctive rhetorical goals.

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Coming soon to a Library Lit database feed near you!

Posted at 12:42 PM .:. Link .:. Comments (2)

Swing

Back in it, that is to say.

Wednesdays feel like Fridays to me now! It's all downhill after finishing my two teaching sessions for the week (which are very enjoyable, but very taxing). I am teaching a section of INLS 180, Human Information Interactions, a course which was much inspiration to me when I began this journal two years ago. Already, re-reading the articles has been both informative and reassuring. First, it's so valuable to be forced to reconsider and reinterpret something long past, with two more years of experience to bring to bear on it. Second, I feel like I'm getting a handle on it all.

I'll be writing a masters paper this fall (I keep calling it a thesis; for some reasons SILS doesn't use that term), as a stepping stone to my comprehensive exams and dissertation proposal, which may happen by next summer.

It's exciting to be excited about work again.

Posted at 12:04 PM .:. Link .:. Comments (0)

A new frame

Todd and I had a great discussion yesterday on What The Hell I Mean by my research interests. I started by asking him whether he agreed with the basic idea I've been toying with, that information systems decontextualize knowledge. He basically agreed, and eventually we wound our way around to the fact that even language is an information system, i.e., a system for encoding and transferring knowledge. The problem that I've been driving at is that every encoding step -- from experience into language, from language into database, from database into report -- is a translation, with all of the inherent problems of linguistic translation. In other words, the categories from one "language" to another don't necessarily match directly. When you translate from English to French to English, you make tradeoffs at each step and the end product is not exactly what you started with. When you move from narrative to "traditional" information system back to narrative, the same thing happens.

This is getting a little convoluted. Let's start with some premises:

* Knowledge is contestible.
* Humans negotiate the meaning of knowledge through shared linguistic encodings.
* Information systems decontextualize knowledge.
* No information system can produce a perfect replica of knowledge in another system.

It may be that by knowledge I really mean experience (what happens in the real world), and that by information system I mean encoding system. But the Big Win from this discussion was me realizing that I can bring some linguistic theory to bear on this, specifically stuff about translation, semantics, categorization, and metaphor.

But what does this all mean? I'd like to take an ends-means approach to this. Given that we use information systems for all kinds of decisions that affect the human condition (policy making), what are the costs of decoupling the knowledge in those systems from the context in which it was produced? We assume that "data" can be zapped around, shared, transferred with no consequences. I'm not sure...

Gah. This was so much clearer when I started the entry. I think I need to start a lit review of representation, translation, standardization, and ethics. Or something.

Posted at 10:58 AM .:. Link .:. Comments (0)

Finals

...are over, and the new semester has nearly begun. I'm still working on the paper with Diane, to be presented in Finland in June. I did well in both statistics (which was surprisingly fun!!) and IS Effectiveness. Combined, I feel like all three of these classes have much better equipped me to actually *do* research.

The only research of note that I completed for the term was an analysis of the discourse of human rights NGOs, with the assumption that differences in discourse would reflect differences in their understanding of their data (and of what gets encoded in their system). I found some interesting distinctions that may prove the information systems themselves are worth looking at. Andy's critiques were just: the mission statements that I refer to as an explanatory mechanism need explanation and analysis in and of themselves; and I was not clear as to whether the groups talked about the same phenomena in different ways, or different things altogether.

But if you'd like to read it, look no further. (MS Word, right-click to download)

Posted at 01:37 PM .:. Link .:. Comments (0)

Walking

I had one of those moments where you are suddenly so seized by an idea that you must Stop Immediately and write it down. Luckily, I was walking home along a mostly deserted street with my bookbag, which actually contained pen and paper.

Diane has suggested that it's a good idea to just be alone with your data and your head sometimes, without *trying* to analyze it. In my personal life, living in my head has often gotten me into emotional trouble, but professionally it's rather freeing. I would like to fancy myself one of those researchers who is given to Fits of Eccentricity and Brilliance (and random capitalization). Maybe I only stopped to write the idea down for effect...

But no, I think it was a breakthrough. It related to my study of the discourse of human rights agencies' annual reports (comparing Amnesty International, Freedom House, and Human Rights Watch). Suddenly this framework started to spring from the void. I managed to find good descriptive words for the trends I had noticed, lurking but undefined: romantic, historical, and journalistic, respectively. I think I'm even going to be able to legitimately use the word Kafkaesque in my writeup (which will be posted here Friday, provided I actually finish on time).

So the Mojo is returning a bit.

Posted at 03:15 PM .:. Link .:. Comments (0)