Eleanor Mattern

Eating disorder questions in Yahoo! Answers: Information, conversation, or reflection?

This study investigated a particular form of social Q&A – Yahoo! Answers – and the nature of the questions posed by teens on the topic of eating disorders. The goals of this study were to identify the information needs of questioners in Yahoo! Answers vis a vis the topic of eating disorders, to create a taxonomy of question types in Yahoo! Answers on the topic of eating disorders, and finally, to contribute to broader models of question-asking in social Q&A. We achieved these goals through a content analysis of 2230 questions posed in Yahoo! Answers between December 2005 and April 2011. This resulted in a classification scheme with five overarching themes - Seeking Information, Seeking Emotional Support, Seeking Communication, Seeking Self-Expression, and Seeking Help to Complete a Task, and the sub-categories of factual, diagnosis, treatment or intervention, validation, seeking comfort, conversation starters, deep talk, confession, reflection, homework help, and manuscript ideas. Through the investigation of the socio-emotional aspects of social Q&A, this study enriches our understanding of the affective dimension of health information behavior.

I know what you are going through: answers to informational questions about eating disorders in Yahoo! Answers: a qualitative study

The purpose of this study is to enrich our understanding of social question and answer (Q&A) sites as a health information source for teens. To do so we investigated answers to 81 informational questions about eating disorders posted in Yahoo! Answers, a social Q&A site. Through a content analysis, we found that users do not always respond to eating disorder questions with credible, factual information, even if the need for it was expressed in the question. The findings suggest that people who pose questions in Yahoo! Answers use it as a social and emotional scaffold rather than an informational source, even if their questions are couched in terms that suggest they are seeking information. Further, a large portion of the people who answer such questions understand this to be the purpose and rarely provide answers drawn from evidence-based medicine or reliable, credible sources for health information. Through the investigation of the answers to questions on a health topic that is prevalent amongst teens, this study deepens our understanding of the health information behavior of young people and the quality of the health information they find in Yahoo! Answers.

Linguistic characteristics of eating disorder questions on Yahoo! Answers - content, style, and emotion

Social Q&A provides the possibility of looking into how people verbally express their information needs in natural language. In this study, we analyzed linguistic properties of different types of questions on the topic of eating disorders in Yahoo! Answers. Using term frequency analysis, Part-of-Speech (POS) analysis, and sentiment analysis, we examined linguistic content, linguistic style, and emotional expressions in two broad categories of eating disorder questions from Yahoo! Answers -- socio-emotional questions and informational questions. Overall, the results of this study show that the language used in these two categories of questions are substantially different, suggesting the different nature of the needs that underlie these questions. Socio-emotional questions take similar characteristics to personal narratives, focusing on past experiences and emotions. The heavy use of negative emotion words in this question type, along with other distinct linguistic characteristics, suggests that a key motivation of users asking this type of question is to work through their emotions related to the given health issue (eating disorders). On the other hand, informational questions show traits of relatively complex, precise, and objective writing, and reflect much varied interests with regard to the topic of eating disorders. All in all, this study demonstrates that the combination of simple text analytic techniques reveals much about the linguistic characteristics associated with different kinds of questions, and thereby shed lights on the nature of the needs underneath the questions.

Developing Design Interventions for Cyberbullying: A Narrative-Based Participatory Approach.

This paper presents a user-generated framework for designing affordances that would counter acts of cyberbullying on social media sites. To do so, we used narrative inquiry as a research methodology, which allowed our two focus groups – one composed of teens and the other of undergraduate students – to map out a cyberbullying story and overlay it with a set of design recommendations that, in their view, might alleviate mean and cruel behavior online. Four “cyberbullying stories” were constructed by the participants, each one revealing two sub-plots – the story that “is” (as perceived by these participants) and the story that “could be” (if certain design interventions were to be embedded in social media). In this paper, we describe seven emergent design themes evident in the participants’ design recommendations for social media: design for reflection, design for consequence, design for empathy, design for personal empowerment, design for fear, design for attention, and design for control and suppression.

Using participatory design and visual narrative inquiry to investigate researchers’ data challenges and recommendations for library research data services

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on an information gathering study on users’ research data-related challenges and proposals for library research data services (RDS). This study probes how early career researchers visually conceptualize the research process in their disciplines, their self-reported research data challenges, and their recommendations for library RDS. Design/methodology/approach – Two focus group sessions were undertaken with a total of eight early career researchers. Adopting the visual narrative inquiry method, the participants were asked to sketch the general research process in their domain. The individuals’ illustrations of the research process were then used as the basis for reflecting on their data-related needs and potential RDS that would assist them during the research process. Findings – Participants presented a research process that was more personal and, in most cases, more imperfect than the research lifecycle models that academic libraries are increasingly usin...

Education for Real-World Data Science Roles (Part 2): A Translational Approach to Curriculum Development

This study reports on the findings from Part 2 of a small-scale analysis of requirements for real-world data science positions and examines three further data science roles: data analyst, data engineer and data journalist. The study examines recent job descriptions and maps their requirements to the current curriculum within the graduate MLIS and Information Science and Technology Masters Programs in the School of Information Sciences (iSchool) at the University of Pittsburgh. From this mapping exercise, model ‘course pathways’ and module ‘stepping stones’ have been identified, as well as course topic gaps and opportunities for collaboration with other Schools. Competency in four specific tools or technologies was required by all three roles (Microsoft Excel, R, Python and SQL), as well as collaborative skills (with both teams of colleagues and with clients). The ability to connect the educational curriculum with real-world positions is viewed as further validation of the translational approach being developed as a foundational principle of the current MLIS curriculum review process

Design techniques for revealing adolescent memory processes related to information seeking: a preliminary study

This study investigates the effectiveness of design techniques as a means for uncovering metamemory, an attribute of metacognition, and its role in information seeking. A focus group with four adolescents aged 13 and 14 used design techniques such as brainstorming and sketching, metaphorical design and fictional inquiry, to help express their thinking about their own memory processes during the information search process. Results showed that metaphorical design and fictional inquiry are both effective tools for revealing conceptual thinking about metamemory and information seeking. Coupling these techniques with brainstorming and sketching helped the teens to visualize and communicate their ideas. Results from this study will contribute to knowledge about adolescent thinking, metamemory, and information seeking behavior, broaden the range of methodological approaches used in the study of information seeking behavior, and will provide cognitive models for the design of information systems and tools that scaffold metacognition.

Exploring Cyberbullying Through Visual Narratives.

This poster reports on a study that examined the use of visual narratives to explore young people’s views on cyberbullying and for generating design interventions that would combat mean and cruel behavior online. Two focus groups – a group of five teens in high school and a group of undergraduates– used storytelling and sketching to frame their perceptions of cyberbullying around a narrative and to propose design features that might afford young people the time to pause and reflect on their actions in social media before they participate in cyberbullying.

World War II Archivists: In the Field and on the Home Front

In response to the widespread looting and destruction of cultural property in the European Theater during World War II, the Allies established the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) Sub-commission, a unit charged with safeguarding historic sites and protecting, recovering, and repatriating objects of cultural heritage. This article discusses the inclusion of an archival program in the MFAA mission and identifies the American and British archivists who were members of the MFAA along with their notable advocates on the home front.

Unpacking the “black box”: a preliminary study of visualizing humanists and social science scholars’ data and research processes

Due to the significant variations in their needs, attitudes, and practices toward their research, different scholars could have different research processes and interact with different kinds of data. We report the preliminary results of a qualitative study that examines how humanities and social science (H&SS) scholars interact with their data throughout the course of their research process. By conducting two focus group sessions with eight H&SS scholars, our results show that scholars indeed took different research patterns and thus interacted with distinctive data. The sketches produced in this study provide insights on future larger-scale focus group design, and also identify opportunities for an academic library or data service provider to support H&SS scholars’ research activities.