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That one damn article…

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Of course, the one article I really want right now is no where to be found and is not available in any digital repository I have access to. This is one of the few times it really sucks to be so far away from the university as I know I could walk into the library tomorrow and make a photocopy of it. 

If I ever do find it, I will scan it in, OCR it, and make sure it’s in at least three different accessible places with backups as I’m almost certain I’ll be referencing it for my dissertation. 

And so it begins…

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This morning I got my list of 8 qualification exam questions of which I am to choose 4 to answer. At first it of course looks overwhelming, but I’d be disappointed if it didn’t. While I can’t discuss the exact content of the questions or my answers, I can discuss the process I go through to answer them and all of the real life stuff I have to deal with at the same time.

Like for example, should I leave the house to do this? Or, should I just barricade myself in my office (where I have all of the sudden noticed the lack of flat space on which to lay out materials), turn up my music, and try to get it done here.

I can say, for those who are interested, my questions focus on things like the interdisciplinarity of info sci, open source, virtual ethnography, and social informatics.

This entire process is wrapped up in a mess of excitement and anxiety. Oh and procrastination of course, but I only have a week to complete four papers that will determine whether or not I actually get to begin my dissertation process, so that really can’t last long. As I look around though, I have to say, my desk could use some tidying before I even try to start this madness…

Applying Lean Startup Methodology toward PhD Studies

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So, while staying up late to do a paper for class (yes it is spring break, PhD students never rest!), I got this wild brainstorm of how to apply both my development training (I work in an agile development environment as a UXD), and the lean startup methodology I spent all day hearing about at SXSW toward my PhD studies. Below is what I quickly jotted down (instead of writing my paper) as the clock turned from 1am to 3am due to DST.

Agile Development – As in, how to quickly get started and iterate on a project in order to get it to releasable state as fast as possible.

I believe the biggest problem with most of us PhD students is just getting started on that damn 20 page paper or huge research project. Why? Because we don’t know how to begin. Well, who says you need to start at the beginning? If you know that you can knock out a section of your document faster than the others, why not start there then move on to the next fastest and the next fastest until you’ve reached the one part that will take you the longest and now it won’t take so long because you’ve already written the rest and it all applies to what you have left!

MVP: Minimum Viable Product / Paper / Project – What’s the least amount you can get away with? As in, what can I do to make a C? Then, what do I need to do to make it better in order to get an A?

Do what you need to in order to fulfill the barest and most minimum of requirements of your assignment, then build on it. At least at that point you know you’ve touched on every point the professor asked of you, and now you’re going above and beyond.

Or – how to quickly iterate on a paper. Write out a bunch of crap for a paper even though you know not all of it will go in, because you know at least some of it will and you just need to get it typed out. Then, you go back and cull it down to something respectable and focus just on that one thing rather than the overly broad dribble you spewed out to begin with.

Pivot – Change in direction after gaining valuable information

Ever get to that point in your research where you go – “damn it, now that I know more I should really go in this direction instead of the one I originally intended!” Go with it! Change the entire direction of your paper/project it even if it takes more research. In the end your final product is so much better than it would have been had you gone on your initial assumptions without exploring your research further.

Business Plan Vs Business Model – Paper/Project Plan vs Paper/Project Model

What’s the difference? One you’re following simply because you’re told that’s the way you’re supposed to do it (plan). The other you’re modifying and iterating on until it fits your paper/project needs (model). Both give you something to start with, it’s just one is a lot more versatile than the other. You end up with something much better when you can improve upon it rather than sticking with something just because “that’s the way it’s done”.

Metrics – Quantify your results

I figure for us PhD students this plays out in figuring out the least amount of time you can spend on something and still get an A. By keeping track of the time you spend doing each part of the task for each project you do until you know with certainty how long it will take you to nail that paper/project you can then plan accordingly and be not only much more efficient in your work, but also be a lot more engaged in it because of your confidence level and high ROI.

It isn’t a finished piece of work, but hey – I got it out as fast as possible and I can always iterate on it later – especially if I get feedback from readers! So tell me what you think. 🙂

As always you can find me @sollitaire – or email me diana [@] cyber-anthro.com.

Open Letter…

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Dear James Paul Gee – gamer and published author on gaming,

Thank you so much for writing on gaming and in particular for writing on WoW. This allows me to write about what I know with “published scholarly references”. I hope to be your peer one day.

Sincerely,
A tired PhD Student

p.s. Currently writing a paper for cognitive psychology on gamer collaboration in regards to problem solving and decision making and how to apply what gamers already know to business and education!

Book List: Seminar in Information Science

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I thought some of you may find this interesting. It’s my book list for one of my intro PhD courses. Which would you pick? What would you add based on what you see here?

  1. Berners-Lee, T., Fischetti, M., & Dertouzos, M. L. (1999). Weaving the Web: The original design and ultimate destiny of the World Wide Web by its inventor. San Francisco: Harper.
  2. Braman, S. (Ed.). (2003). Communication Researchers and Policy-Making. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  3. Brown, J. S., & Duguid. (2002). The social life of information. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
  4. Bush, V. (1967). Science is not enough. New York: William Morrow.
  5. Campbell, J. (1982). Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language and Life. New York: Simon and Schuster.
  6. Churchland, P. M. (1995). The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul: A Philosophical Journey into the Brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  7. Dretske, F. (1981). Knowledge and the flow of information. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.
  8. Dreyfus, H. L. (1992). What Computers Still Can’t Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  9. Gardner, H. (1985). The Mind’s New Science: A History of the Cognitive Revolution. New York: Basic Books.
  10. Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  11. Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  12. Pérez-Montoro, M. (2007). The phenomenon of information: A conceptual approach to information flow. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow.
  13. Raskin, J. (2000). The humane interface: New directions for designing interactive systems. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.
  14. Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations. New York: Free Press.
  15. Seife, C. (2006). Decoding the universe: How the new science of information is explaining everything in the cosmos, from our brains to black holes. New York: Viking.
  16. Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
  17. Shneiderman, B. (2002). Leonardo’s laptop: Human needs and the new computing technologies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  18. Stephenson, N. (1999). Cryptonomicon. New York: Avon Press.
  19. Taylor, R. S. (1986). Value-added processes in information systems. Norwood, N.J. : Ablex.
  20. Tufte, E. R. (1990). Envisioning Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

Master’s completed, check! Onward to PhD!

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Wow, it’s been a while I know!

Master’s Completed!

On August 12 I presented my practicum / thesis to my anthropology department on the Fedora Project titled: An Exploration of the Fedora Project’s Online Open Source Development Community.

The unique part of my project was that I used virtual methods for almost the entirety of my research. The methods entailed the following:

  • Participant Observation In Person / Online
    • In Person
      • FUDCon Toronto
    • Online
      • Blogs / Fedora Planet
      • Twitter
      • IRC
      • Email / Mailing Lists
  • Qualitative Research
    • In-depth Semi-Structured Interviews based on data gathered during participant observation
      • Conducted via Email and IRC
  • Quantitative Research
    • Online Survey based on analysis of the Qualitative Data
      • Conducted using LimeSurvey

Based on the data gathered during this research I was able to structure my findings into five themes.

  1. Getting Started
  2. Turnover
  3. Collaboration
  4. Motivation
  5. Community

In the final report each of these themes had key points that surfaced to support them and recommendations that were made based on analysis of the data gathered throughout the entire research project. You can find the community version of this report here. If you would like the full thesis / practicum paper (a bit more academic than the community report), please email me: diana [@] cyber-anthro.com. If you would like me to give the presentation again, just let me know. I am more than happy to share this data with anyone in the Fedora / FLOSS / Anthropology or Academic communities.

My committee was very pleased with my work and the results of my research, which culminated in the previously mentioned final report and presentation. With that, they signed off on the last of my graduation requirements and on August 13th I graduated with my Master of Science in Applied Anthropology!

Virtual Methods Report

I am hoping to find time in the coming months to write up a report on how I approached my research from a virtual methods perspective and did everything virtually from taking down and organizing field notes to daily interactions within the community. Not to mention the trials and tribulations of doing a study like this and lessons learned for those who wish to embark on a similar path. If you think you’d find this useful, please email me and nudge me to get it done!

Onward to PhD!

Last year I applied and was accepted into the Interdisciplinary Information Science PhD (IIS PhD) program at UNT where I started this fall. I will be focusing my studies on Human Computer Interaction and Information Policy. Due to my academic record I was nominated for and subsequently awarded a fellowship that covers my full tuition for the next four years. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be continuing on with my PhD studies, daunting though they may seem right now!

While my PhD is not in anthropology, the program is heavily centered around research, which is where my anthropology background will be a huge benefit. I will be utilizing all of my anthropologist skills in each of my research projects and final dissertation. Being interdisciplinary, I am able to blend all of my previous education as well as my skills in information architecture, usability, interaction design, and user experience together into a combined subject of study.

I am very excited to start down this new path and my goal is to aim my studies on the same subjects I did for my undergraduate and masters degrees. Those being, gaming, social networking, blogging, online communities, and open source. My hope is to also extend this into the realms of the digital divide, digital property rights, net neutrality, information accessibility, and more!

Thank you Fedora & Red Hat

Thank you to each and every single one of you who worked with me on my Fedora research. Every single one of you made a difference and I hope we get the chance to work with each other again!

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