Publikationen

At the beginning of a scientific study, it is usually quite hardto get an overview of a research field. We aim to addressthis problem of classic literature search using web data. Inthis extended abstract, we present work-in-progress on aninteractive visualization of research fields based on readershipstatistics from the social reference management systemMendeley. To that end, we use library co-occurrences as ameasure of subject similarity. In a first evaluation, we findthat the visualization covers current research areas withineducational technology but presents a view that is biasedby the characteristics of readers. With our presentation, wehope to elicit feedback from the Websci’13 audience on (1)the usefulness of the prototype, and (2) how to overcomethe aforementioned biases using collaborative constructiontechniques.

Barcamps are informal conferences whose content is not de-fined in advance, often referred to as ad-hoc conferences orun-conferences. Therefore, the outcomes of a barcamp arelargely unknown before the event. This raises the question ofthe participants’ motivations to attend and contribute. Toanswer this question, we conducted an exploratory empiricalstudy at Barcamp Graz 2012. We applied a mixed-methodapproach: first we used a socio-demographic questionnaire(n=99) which allowed us to characterize the ’typical barcamper’.Second, we conducted qualitative interviews (n=10) toget a deeper understanding of the participants’ motivationsto attend, expectations, and the use of social media in thatcontext. We identified three concepts, which could be deductedfrom the interviews: people, format and topics. Wefound that the motivation to attend and even a commonidentity is quite strongly based on these three factors. Furthermore,the results indicate that participants share a set ofactivities and methods by following the barcamp’s inherentrules and make extensive use of social media.

In this position paper, we argue that the different disciplinesin Web Science do not work together in an interdisciplinaryway. We attribute this to a fundamental difference in approachingresearch between social scientists and computerscientists, which we call the patterns vs. model problem.We reason that interdisciplinary teamwork is needed toovercome the patterns vs. model problem. We then discusstwo theoretical strains in social science which we see asrelevant in the context of interdisciplinary teamwork. Finally,we sketch a model of interdisciplinary teamwork in WebScience based on the interplay of collaboration and cooperation.