Wildcard session at the 2008 iConference, UCLA

Title: Information Credibility: Let’s Get Serious (download pdf )
Deadline extended. Email us today!

Email: credible@u.washington.edu
Organizers: Michael B. Eisenberg¹, Peyina Lin², Yuan Lin³

¹Co-Director of the Credibility Commons Project, Dean Emeritus and Professor, The Information School, University of Washington
²Ph.D. Candidate, The Information School, University of Washington
³Ph.D. Student, The Information School, University of Washington

Date & Time
Purpose
Background
Session Approach
Panelists
Research articles
Participant Registration

Date & Time
This 90 minutes-long wildcard session will take place at the iConference 2008 at UCLA on Friday, February 29 (1:30pm to 3:00pm) at the Covel Commons Room. All iConference participants are welcome to join us in this interactive session.

Purpose
Organized by the Credibility Commons,  a project funded by the MacArthur Foundation for the University of Washington’s Information School and Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, the purpose of this wildcard session is to push the boundaries related to information credibility. More specifically, the sessions goals are to:

(1) Discuss the new concerns and challenges of information credibility raised by new developments in search technology, online participatory publishing models, and social networking tools for both consumers and producers of information.

(2) Envision potential research, design and development directions to address these new challenges.

Background
How to effectively produce and assess the credibility of information is important to people’s daily functioning, including deciding what products to purchase, learning about health issues, and choosing one’s stance on political and social affairs. In the last few years, the boundaries between production and consumption of information have been blurred by participatory models of social media. Wikipedia defines social media as the multiple online tools and platforms that enable both conventional producers of media content and the audience of this content to participate in various forms, such as creating or editing content and adding comments to existing content. While these models of production and consumption prevail primarily in media such as blogs, wikis, and message boards, they have also shaped new practices around news production, academic publications, and business practices. How do these new models and practices change the role of libraries and librarians? What are directions in research, design, and development of technologies that contribute to the evolving nature of information systems and yet help with the assessment of information credibility? These are some of the motivating questions that shape the organization of this wildcard session. However the wildcard session is open to discussing questions and ideas that participants bring to the table.

Session Approach

(1) Panel: [20 min]
A panel of four key researchers in information credibility will start the discussion by introducing their current research projects, a summary of which will be made available to wildcard session participants in advance.

(2) Four to five smaller breakout discussion groups: [45 min.]

A. Conceptual frameworks and methodologies

B. Social impact and issues

C. Search and related tools

D. Participatory networks and tools

E. Open credibility, or other aspects of information credibility (optional)

Based on the project articles provided and the short project introductions, participants will select a project/researcher with whom to team up in smaller breakout groups. The purpose of the breakout groups is to enable more targeted in-depth discussions based on common interests. Breakout groups are suggested to adopt a project development model, as a way of concentrating discussions. Project ideas can range from curriculum and course planning, to empirical and/or interventionist research, participatory action research, and system design.

(3) Concluding discussions: [15 min]
To close the session, breakout groups will share with the wildcard session group as a whole their project development ideas. The session will conclude with a synthesis of research directions and project ideas, as a way of initiating a common ground for continued conversations with participants interested in research on information credibility.

Project and development ideas will be shared with potential funding agencies.

The whole session will last 1.5 hours :

- 5 min: session introduction

- 20 min: introduction of key panelists’ research

- 5 min: break out group formation

- 45 min: breakout group discussions

- 15 min: breakout groups present their outcomes and concluding synthesis

Panelists

Michael B. Eisenberg, Co-PI of the Credibility Commons Project, Dean Emeritus and Professor at the Information School of the University of Washington.

Automated, proprietary search engines like Google do not provide community-based approaches to cross-check for the credibility of information and are not transparent in their approach. How can search be made more accountable, credible, and directly accessible to users with diverse levels of search expertise? The Credibility Commons team has been conducting studies to assess the effectiveness of different approaches to search (e.g., “human-powered” vs. automated) in terms of their success in providing users with relevant, credible, accountable, and comprehensible information. The aim of the research studies is to provide empirical bases from which to develop tools that provide the necessary contextual information for users and their information needs.

David Lankes, Co-PI of the Credibility Commons Project, Director of the Information Institute of Syracuse, and Associate Professor at Syracuse University.

The rise of participatory networks and social sites such as Facebook, Flickr and the like has created a culture of users accustomed to actively shaping tools, systems, and resources. These users now encounter information providers and expect the same voice. What concrete directions in tools and practices can libraries take to support participatory models of knowledge construction? These are issues discussed in Dr. Lankes’ book chapter on Credibility on the Internet in the MacArthur Series on Digital Media and Learning. Dr. Lankes’ past research projects include the Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM), the Virtual Reference Desk (VRD), and the Educator’s Reference Desk. Dr. Lankes is also involved in projects related to the NSF’s National Science Digital Library (NSDL).

Miriam Metzger, Associate Director of the Center for Film, Television, and New Media and Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California Santa Barbara.

Dr. Metzger is interested in social uses and effects of communication technologies. Her research includes studies of the credibility of information in the new media environment, problems of online privacy and security, the impact of media on public opinion, and the theoretical and regulatory changes brought about by the development of new media technologies. Current projects include studies of trust and information disclosure in the online environment, Web credibility, and the impact of traditional and newer media on public opinion. Her work has been published in such journals as Human Communication Research, Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and Information, Communication & Society.

Soo Young Rieh, Assistant Professor at the School of Information, University of Michigan

Dr. Rieh’s research seeks to better understand people’s information-seeking behavior in various information use environments, such as the Web, libraries, home, and repositories. She has conducted and published research on Web information quality and cognitive authority; credibility in digital media; mental effort in Web searching; information-seeking in the home environment; search query strategies and patterns in Web search engines; and institutional repositories. Her current work centers on a unifying framework for credibility assessment that can characterize common aspects of credibility assessment across diverse contexts of information activities. Her work also discusses various methodological approaches for investigating information credibility with respect to the use of social media.

Participant Registration
All conference attendees are welcome to participate. However, we suggest that interested participants email us at credible@u.washington.edu in advance with the following information: (1) Full name and title (2) affiliation, (3) a one to two sentences describing your interest in information credibility, (4) the breakout discussion group of most interest to you.

To prepare for the wildcard session, registered participants will be asked to read research summaries and/or articles from the key panelists. These will be made available to registered participants starting February 5, 2008.

Research articles

We intend for the wildcard session to be as engaging and interactive as possible. Therefore, we ask that you read the attached articles prior to the session.

1) Metzger, M. J. (2007). Making sense of credibility on the Web: Models for evaluating online information and recommendations for future research. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 58(13): 2078–2091

2) Hilligoss, B., & Rieh, S. Y. (2007). Developing a unifying framework of credibility assessment: Construct, heuristics, and interaction. Information Processing and Management. doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2007.10.001

3) Flanagin, A. J., & Metzger, M. J. (2008). Digital media and youth: Unparalleled opportunity and unprecedented responsibility. In M. J. Metzger & A. J. Flanagin (Eds.), Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility. The John D. and Catherin T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

4) Lankes, R. D. (2008). Trusting the Internet: New approaches to credibility tools. In M.J. Metzger & A. J. Flanagin (Eds.), Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge,MA: The MIT Press. 101–122. doi: 10.1162/dmal.9780262562324.101

5) Eisenberg, M. & Kane, S. (forthcoming).