Sausages, coffee, chicken and the web: Establishing new trust metrics for scholarly communication

Slide 2: Sausages, coffee, chicken and the web: Establishing new trust metrics for scholarly communication Eduserv Foundation Symposium 2008 Geoffrey Bilder Director of Strategic Initiatives

Slide 3: symposium |simˈpōzēəm| noun ( pl. -sia |-zēə| or -siums ) a conference or meeting to discuss a particular subject. • a collection of essays or papers on a particular subject by a number of contributors. • a drinking party or convivial discussion, esp. as held in ancient Greece after a banquet (and notable as the title of a work by Plato). ORIGIN late 16th cent. (denoting a drinking party): via Latin from Greek sumposion, from sumpotēs ‘fellow drinker,’ from sun- ‘together’ + potēs ‘drinker.’

Slide 6: Internet Trust

Slide 7: “Internet Trust Anti- Pattern” • System is started by self-selecting core of high-trust technologists (or specialists of some sort) • System is touted as authority-less, non-hierarchical, etc.- But this is not true (see A) • The unwashed masses start using the system. • The system nearly breaks under the strain of untrustworthy users. • Regulatory systems are put into place in order to restore order. Sometimes they are automated, sometimes not. • System is again touted as authority-less, non-hierarchical, etc. But this is not true (see E).

Slide 8: Trust: The Internet User Problem • Subjected to: • Spam • Viruses/Trojans • Phishing • Urban myths • Dodgy content • And they don’t realize that they have a general trust problem! Yet.

Slide 9: Trust: The Publisher Problem • Value proposition being questioned: • Distribution • Sales/Marketing • Editorial//Production • Accused of profiteering • Content comparatively hidden • Brand increasingly hidden • Deprecation of intermediaries (”stovepiping”)

Slide 10: Trust: The Librarian Problem • Value proposition being questioned: • Ownership v.s. Access • Organization, Categorization • Curation, Preservation • Awareness, Outreach • Content comparatively hidden • Brand increasingly hidden • Deprecation of intermediaries (”stovepiping”)

Slide 11: Publisher: Icon Books ISBN: 184046531X

Slide 12: Local Global •Through personal •Extends trust through acquaintance proxy •Sometimes Transitive •Proxy transitively extends trust to “strangers” Doesn’t scale Increases systemic risk

Slide 13: Horizonta Vertical l •Amongst equals •Within hierarchy (possibly •Little possibility of through deference) coercion •Coercion can be used to enforce behavior Not enforceable Subject to abuse

Slide 14: Internet Trust v.s. Scholarly Trust Vertical Scholarly Trust Local Global Internet Trust Horizontal

Slide 15: Avoiding the Internet Trust Anti-Pattern

Slide 17: The Connection? • Their success is largely attributable to their early adoption of simple “trust metrics” • Based on user-provided “stealth metadata” • Volunteered • Inferred • Resulting in a built-in “social feedback loop”.

Slide 18: The Problems? • Trust metrics restricted to their particular site. • Trust metric context is still primitive.

Slide 19: Web 2.0 is about trust

Slide 23: Implications • What person X is blogging • What person X is bookmarking- on several social bookmarking sites (e.g. del.isio.us, Connotea) • What person X is listening to (e.g. Last.FM) • What person X is taking pictures of (e.g. Flickr) • What person X's travel schedule is (e.g. iCal) • What books X is reading or planning on reading (e.g. Amazon wish lists)

Slide 25: Implications (Academic) • See the realtime annotated bibliography of Dr. W • Show all the ways in which people that you trust have categorized resource X • See how your taxonomy compares to the taxonomy of Dr. Y • See all the resources that your research group is categorizing as Z

Slide 27: But Web 2.0 is the problem too...

Slide 32: Average Articles Read per year per University Faculty Member *280 with outliers Figure from www.dlib.org/dlib/october03/king/10king.html

Slide 33: Average Minutes per Article by University Faculty Member Average Minutes Per Article Figure from www.dlib.org/dlib/october03/king/10king.html

Slide 34: Paucity of heuristics

Slide 35: We proto-librarians are informed with much fanfare in library school that librarians have a better sense for “source authority and quality” than the average joe, and that the information sources we choose are therefore better than those the average joe chooses when left alone to choose sources. One would think that a profession that makes sweeping claims like this would spend a lot more time than it does teaching students how to evaluate sources. Leaving that Achilles heel aside, however… Dorothea Salo http://cavlec.yarinareth.net/

Slide 36: We publishers will talk with much fanfare to anyone who will listen that publishers have a better sense for “source authority and quality” than the average joe, and that the information sources we choose to publish are therefore better than those the average joe chooses to publish. One would think that a profession that makes sweeping claims like this would spend a lot more time than it does providing mechanisms to help readers evaluate sources. Leaving that Achilles heel aside, however… Geoffrey Bilder

Slide 37: http://www.laspositascollege.edu/library/magazines_journals.php

Slide 38: Susan E. Beck Collection Development Coordinator New Mexico State University Library http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html

Slide 39: www.brown.edu/history/index.html www.brown.edu/~gbilder/history/index.html

Slide 40: .gov .edu .org .com

Slide 41: https

Slide 42: m co o. .fo www :// http

Slide 44: Citation Comment Argumentation source critical invalid pioneer supportive insufficient credit immaterial RelatedWork leads misleading misrepresents eponym alternative vacuum Background strawman FutureWork ignores is Superseded By Data Refutation is Refuted By inadequate Support is Supported By dubious Methodology redundant ignores Data Generalize ProblemPosing irrelevant Specialize trivial inapplicable Abstraction unimportant misinterpreted Example impossible Style Formalization ill-posed boring Application solved unimaginative Argument ambitious incoherent deduction Thesis arrogant induction trivial rambling analogy unimportant awkward intuition irrelevant solution redherring Summarization contradict Detail dubious AlternateView counterexample Rewrite inelegant Explanation simplistic Simplification arbitrary Complication Update unmotivated Correction Continuation Randy Trigg http://www.workpractice.com/trigg/thesis-chap4.html

Slide 45: nature nike pepsi apple

Slide 46: We want to know

Slide 62: Industry Precedents

Slide 67: The publishing process is invisible

Slide 71: Early Modern Internet

Slide 76: Thank You gbilder@crossref.org