Web Knowledge and Web Governance: WAIS PhD Research Reports

Abstract This seminar consists of two very different research reports by PhD students in WAIS. Hypertext Engineering, Fettling or Tinkering (Mark Anderson): Contributors to a public hypertext such as Wikipedia do not necessarily record their maintenance activities, but some specific hypertext features - such transclusion - could indicate deliberate editing with a mind to the hypertext’s long-term use. The MediaWiki software used to create Wikipedia supports transclusion, a deliberately hypertextual form of content creation which aids long terms consistency. This discusses the evidence of the use of hypertext transclusion in Wikipedia, and its implications for the coherence and stability of Wikipedia. Designing a Public Intervention - Towards a Sociotechnical Approach to Web Governance (Faranak Hardcastle): In this talk I introduce a critical and speculative design for a socio-technical intervention -called TATE (Transparency and Accountability Tracking Extension)- that aims to enhance transparency and accountability in Online Behavioural Tracking and Advertising mechanisms and practices.

"Le serment de Procné" (Jean Geschwin, 1962): una alegoría dramática de los horrores de la guerra

Análisis de la tragedia legendaria en tres actos publicada en 1962 por el dramaturgo francés Jean Geschwin, en la que, a partir de una original recreación del mito de Progne y Filomela, se expresa la preocupación y el desasosiego provocados por las dos décadas de sangrientos conflictos bélicos casi ininterrumpidos que estaban desgarrando a Francia.

Educação na era do hipertexto: uma experiência diferenciada na biologia

Acompanha: Sequência didática: trabalhando o conceito e as características dos fungos: pesquisa de campo para identificação dos fungos

Dynamic Link Inclusion in Online PDF Journals

Two complementary de facto standards for the publication of electronic documents are HTML on theWorldWideWeb and Adobe s PDF (Portable Document Format) language for use with Acrobat viewers. Both these formats provide support for hypertext features to be embedded within documents. We present a method, which allows links and other hypertext material to be kept in an abstract form in separate link databases. The links can then be interpreted or compiled at any stage and applied, in the correct format to some specific representation such as HTML or PDF. This approach is of great value in keeping hyperlinks relevant, up-to-date and in a form which is independent of the finally delivered electronic document format. Four models are discussed for allowing publishers to insert links into documents at a late stage. The techniques discussed have been implemented using a combination of Acrobat plug-ins, Web servers and Web browsers.

Experience with the use of Acrobat in the CAJUN publishing project

Adobe's Acrobat software, released in June 1993, is based around a new Portable Document Format (PDF) which offers the possibility of being able to view and exchange electronic documents, independent of the originating software, across a wide variety of supported hardware platforms (PC, Macintosh, Sun UNIX etc.). The fact that Acrobat's imageable objects are rendered with full use of Level 2 PostScript means that the most demanding requirements can be met in terms of high-quality typography and device-independent colour. These qualities will be very desirable components in future multimedia and hypermedia systems. The current capabilities of Acrobat and PDF are described; in particular the presence of hypertext links, bookmarks, and yellow sticker annotations (in release 1.0) together with article threads and multi-media plugins in version 2.0, This article also describes the CAJUN project (CD-ROM Acrobat Journals Using Networks) which has been investigating the automated placement of PDF hypertextual features from various front-end text processing systems. CAJUN has also been experimenting with the dissemination of PDF over e-mail, via World Wide Web and on CDROM.

Adobe's Acrobat -- providing the missing link?

Adobe's Acrobat software, released in June 1993, is based around a new Portable Document Format (PDF) which offers the possibility of being able to view and exchange electronic documents, independent of the originating software, across a wide variety of supported hardware platforms (PC, Macintosh, Sun UNIX etc.). The fact that the imageable objects are rendered with full use of Level 2 PostScript means that the most demanding requirements can be met in terms of high-quality typography, device-independent colour and full page fidelity with respect to the printed version. PDF possesses an internal structure which supports hypertextual features, and a range of file compression options. In a sense PDF establishes a low-level multiplatform machine code for imageable objects but its notion of hypertext buttons and links is similarly low-level , in that they are anchored to physical locations on xed pages. However, many other hypertext systems think of links as potentially spanning multiple files, which may in turn be located on various machines scattered across the Internet. The immediate challenge is to bridge the "abstraction gap" between high-level notions of a link and PDF's positionally-anchored low-level view. More specifically, how can Mosaic, WWW and Acrobat/PDF be configured so that the notions of "link ", in the various systems, work together harmoniously? This paper reviews progress so far on the CAJUN project (CD-ROM Acrobat Journals Using Networks) with particular reference to experiments that have already taken place in disseminating PDF via e-mail, Gopher and FTP. The prospects for integrating Acrobat seamlessly with WWW are then discussed.

Development of an historical landscape photography database to support landscape change analysis in the Northeast of Portugal

Repeat photography is an efficient, effective and useful method to identify trends of changes in the landscapes. It was used to illustrate long-term changes occurring in the landscapes. In the Northeast of Portugal, landscapes changes is currently driven mostly by agriculture abandonment and agriculture and energy policy. However, there is a need to monitoring changes in the region using a multitemporal and multiscale approach. This project aimed to establish an online repository of oblique digital photography from the region to be used to register the condition of the landscape as recorded in historical and contemporary photography over time as well as to support qualitative and quantitative assessment of change in the landscape using repeat photography techniques and methods. It involved the development of a relational database and a series of web-based services using PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor language, and the development of an interface, with Joomla, of pictures uploading and downloading by users. The repository will make possible to upload, store, search by location, theme, or date, display, and download pictures for Northeastern Portugal. The website service is devoted to help researchers to obtain quickly the photographs needed to apply RP through a developed search engine. It can be accessed at: http://esa.ipb.pt/digitalandscape/.

Sapatilhando na blogosfera : narrando o processo de subjetividade e pronunciamento feminino

Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Educação, Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação, 2016.

Hyperlinks in e-books : expanding the functionality of end-notes

With its powerful search engines and billions of published pages, the Worldwide Web has become the ultimate tool to explore the human experience. But, despite the advent of the digital revolution, e-books, at their core, have remained remarkably similar to their printed siblings. This has resulted in a clear dichotomy between two ways of reading: on one side, the multi-dimensional world of the Web; on the other, the linearity of books and e-books. My investigation of the literature indicates that the focus of attempts to merge these two modes of production, and hence of reading, has been the insertion of interactivity into fiction. As I will show in the Literature Review, a clear thrust of research since the early 1990s, and in my opinion the most significant, has concentrated on presenting the reader with choices that affect the plot. This has resulted in interactive stories in which the structure of the narrative can be altered by the reader of experimental fiction. The interest in this area of research is not surprising, as the interaction of readers with the fabric of the narrative provides a fertile ground for exploring, analysing, and discussing issues of plot consistency and continuity. I found in the literature several papers concerned with the effects of hyperlinking on literature, but none about how hyperlinked material and narrative could be integrated without compromising the narrative flow as designed by the author. It led me to think that the researchers had accepted hypertextuality and the linear organisation of fiction as being antithetical, thereby ignoring the possibility of exploiting the first while preserving the second. All the works I consulted were focussed on exploring the possibilities provided to authors (and readers) by hypertext or how hypertext literature affects literary criticism. This was true in earlier works by Landow and Harpold and remained true in later works by Bolter and Grusin. To quote another example, in his book Hypertext 3.0, Landow states: “Most who have speculated on the relation between hypertextuality and fiction concentrate [...] on the effects it will have on linear narrative”, and “hypertext opens major questions about story and plot by apparently doing away with linear organization” (Landow, 2006, pp. 220, 221). In other words, the authors have added narrative elements to Web pages, effectively placing their stories in a subordinate role. By focussing on “opening up” the plots, the researchers have missed the opportunity to maintain the integrity of their stories and use hyperlinked information to provide interactive access to backstory and factual bases. This would represent a missing link between the traditional way of reading, in which the readers have no influence on the path the author has laid out for them, and interactive narrative, in which the readers choose their way across alternatives, thereby, at least to a certain extent, creating their own path. It would be, to continue the metaphor, as if the readers could follow the main path created by the author while being able to get “sidetracked” into exploring hyperlinked material. In Hypertext 3.0, Landow refers to an “Axial structure [of hypertext] characteristic of electronic books and scholarly books with foot-and endnotes” versus a “Network structure of hypertext” (Landow, 2006, p. 70). My research aims at generalising the axial structure and extending it to fiction without losing the linearity at its core. In creative nonfiction, the introduction of places, scenes, and settings, together with characterisation, brings to life the facts without altering them; while much fiction draws on facts to provide a foundation, or narrative elements, for the work. But how can the reader distinguish between facts and representations? For example, to what extent do dialogues and perceptions present what was actually said and thought? Some authors of creative nonfiction use end-notes to provide comments and citations while minimising disruption the flow of the main text, but they are limited in scope and constrained in space. Each reader should be able to enjoy the narrative as if it were a novel but also to explore the facts at the level of detail s/he needs. For this to be possible, end-notes should provide a Web-like way of exploring in more detail what the author has already researched. My research aims to develop ways of integrating narrative prose and hyperlinked documents into a Hyperbook. Its goal is to create a new writing paradigm in which a story incorporates a gateway to detailed information. While creative nonfiction uses the techniques of fictional writing to provide reportage of actual events and fact-based fiction illuminates the affectual dimensions of what happened (e.g., Kate Grenville’s The Secret River and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall), Hyperbooks go one step further and link narrative prose to the details of the events on which the narrative is based or, more in general, to information the reader might find of interest. My dissertation introduces and utilises Hyperbooks to engage in two parallel types of investigation Build knowledge about Italian WWII POWs held in Australia and present it as part of a novella in Hyperbook format. Develop a new piece of technology capable of extending the writing and reading process.

Análisis de las narrativas transmedia. Estudio de caso Comunica-Girón en la esfera digital

El periodismo ha dado grandes saltos hacia la modernidad digital pasando por la multimedialidad, convergencia digital y transmedialidad. La hipertextualidad e interactividad son características que definen a la Web 2.0 que rompen con la comunicación lineal y unidireccional permitiendo a los periodistas, medios de comunicación y usuarios estar estrechamente conectados. Para la investigación se realizó un análisis de las narrativas transmedia, el ciberperiodismo y las características que definen a un periodista digital. Se procedió a conocer y posteriormente a realizar un estudio de recepción del medio de comunicación Comunica-Girón, que asienta su estructura funcional en la esfera digital, para lo cual se aplicaron métodos y técnicas de investigación de alcance descriptivo-exploratorio, proceso de observación, recopilación documental y tabulación de la información.

Humanidades digitales y la escuela 2.0

During the last decades the growth and development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have led us to a new social paradigm that reflects a deep change not only in an individual but also in a social behavioural pattern. All these changes define the so-called knowledge and information society. This social evolution has had different textual states and types as its main core and instrument of transformation therefore scholars and specialists in the field of Humanities have not missed the opportunity of studying recent phenomena, which have come from the current setting given by new technologies. Researchers in Humanities have had to reconsider their own traditional working method based on printed text in order to analyse how nowadays we search for data, select them, analyse them and the ways we create and spread new information and knowledge. Having in mind this scenario where humanist works, the concept of Digital Humanities has arisen conditioned by the existence of cyberspace, digital text, hypertext, on-line text, implementation of new ways of communication, global access to information and various elements which build a common methodology for all humanistic disciplines. Most of these changes have affected the educational system and education as an academic and humanistic discipline.