Libby Hemphill » libbyh

Simple Data Sharing

libbyh — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 03:30:19 +0000

All of my research is collaborative. Even on my "own" projects, I rely on others to help me polish drafts of publications and usually to talk about my data. Getting my colleagues that data is harder than it ought to be. Usually, my data consist of interview transcripts, interview audio recordings, video recordings, and spreadsheets of survey results. I write primarily in Word and LaTeX. So, that leaves me with text data, numerical data, and media (audio/video) data that I need to share with my colleagues. I just checked, and all together, my data, as exists on my hard drive today, measures ~4 GB. I have 12 hours of video yet to rip, so let's call it ~ 15 GB. How should I share it with my colleagues? I've made a table of options, and none is perfect. My favorite, though, is Dropbox because it's so simple.

I have not included any institutional storage systems or sharing options such as Blackboard or CTools. I have also not included Google Groups or Google Docs. Instead, I've focused just on services that let you share data, not collaboration suites or whatever the other stuff calls itself. I've found those to be useless when it comes to sharing video and annoying when it comes to sharing anything else. Annoying means it takes too many steps to upload or download (e.g., Blackboard, CTools) or it ruins my formatting (e.g., Google Docs). Dropbox wins because it works just like a local folder but automatically syncs elsewhere. I'm currently using it for 3 projects and sharing LaTeX, BibTex, Word, Excel, plain text, AVI, MOV, and MP4 files.

Note: I'm ambidextrous and use these services on both Mac and Windows machines. I don't use other platforms.

Data Sharing

Service	Space	Price	Transfer	Version Control	Comments
Dropbox	2GB 50GB 100GB	Free $9.99mo $19.99mo	App Browser	Yes	Win! Dropbox syncs files across your computers and with people you grant access. Doesn't care what type of file and allows you to create folders, etc. Interaction is much like Finder or Windows Explorer.
Windows Live Skydrive	25GB	Free	Browser	No	Lots of free space, but you have to manage files through the browser, bad for working at home or on any slower connection
Adrive	50GB - 1TB	Free - ?	Browser (free) FTP (paid)	No	Tons of space, browser management interface is a pain for free users, sharing limited for free users
Box.net	1GB 10GB 15GB/user	Free $9.99 $15/mo/user	Brower, email, other	No	Personal use is about the same price as sharing is on other services. More bang for your buck elsewhere.
Amazon S3	Unlimited	<$0.15/GB	Complicated	Yes	If you have developer chops and lots of data, may be a good route

Post Doc survey now open

libbyh — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 01:04:29 +0000

Dr. Libby Hemphill and Dr. Stephanie Teasley of the University of Michigan, School of Information invite you to be a part of a research study that examines the experiences and preferences of post doctoral researchers (postdocs). The purpose of the study is to understand the kinds of experiences postdocs have and to design better support and training programs for postdocs and their advisors. We are asking you to participate because you are currently a postdoc.

If you agree to be part of the research study, you will be asked to complete a web-based survey about your experiences as a postdoc. We expect this survey to take 15 to 20 minutes to complete.

At the end of the survey, you will have the opportunity to enter a drawing for one of three $50 Amazon gift certificates. Researchers will not be able to link your survey responses to you, but you will be asked to enter your name and email if you wish to be included in the drawing for Amazon gift certificates. The survey software keeps your identifying information separate from the answers you provide to the survey.

We plan to publish the results of this study but will not include any information that would identify you. We will share anonymous, aggregated data with colleagues at the Arizona State University School of Public Affairs (ASU); Dr. Erik Johnston at ASU will use the aggregated data to inform agent-based models of research labs. These models will also help us understand and improve postdoc experiences.

Participating in this study is completely voluntary. Even if you decide to participate now, you may change your mind and stop at any time. You may choose to not answer an individual question or you may skip any section of the survey. Simply click “Next” at the bottom of the survey page to move to the next set of questions.

If you have questions about this research study, you can contact Libby Hemphill, Ph.D., University of Michigan, School of Information, 1075 Beal Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109, (734) 678-9748,libbyh@umich.edu.

If you have questions about your rights as a research participant, please contact the University of Michigan Institutional Review Board Health Sciences and Behavioral Sciences, 540 E. Liberty, Ste. 202, Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2210, (866) 936-0933 (toll-free), irbhsbs@umich.edu.

By clicking on the link below, you are consenting to participate in this research survey.

Take me to the survey

If you do not wish to participate, click the “x" in the top corner of your browser to exit.

Pedestrian Tools and Character-driven Science: How Bones Helped Me Rethink My Research

libbyh — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:42:38 +0000

I wrote a memo for myself in which I develop analogies between television shows that involve collaborative science work and my own research on geographically distributed science teams. My goal is to use popularized science to get us to think differently about our own research. I use examples from the forensics drama Bones and data from my current study of post doctoral researchers and their labs to examine how we make sense of scientific collaboration and the tools used to accomplish science. I argue that we should focus more on the pedestrian tools scientists use to accomplish their work and to carefully study the scientists themselves and not just their tasks.

Download the full paper (3.5 pages)

Ruby on Rails on Snow Leopard

libbyh — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:12:58 +0000

I finally tackled the (hopefully) last bit of my Snow Leopard upgrade today: getting Ruby (and Rails) ready to go. I'm working on an information visualization project and am using Ruby to write the app. Mike Gunderloy at A Fresh Cup has a great step by step guide (I started at step 19 since I was happy to upgrade in place):

Migrating to Snow Leopard for Rails Development

As always happens when upgrading or installing, it seems, I did run into a few problems.

Errors and Workarounds

Problem: Git doesn't want to install.

Error:

ld: warning: in /opt/local/lib/libiconv.dylib, file is not of required architecture

Workaround:

MacPorts is to blame. To uninstall MacPorts, use

sudo rm -rf \ /opt/local \ /etc/manpaths.d/macports \ /etc/paths.d/macports \ /Applications/DarwinPorts \ /Applications/MacPorts \ /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.* \ /Library/Receipts/DarwinPorts*.pkg \ /Library/Receipts/MacPorts*.pkg \ /Library/StartupItems/DarwinPortsStartup \ /Library/Tcl/darwinports1.0 \ /Library/Tcl/macports1.0

(Thanks, Simon Engledew)

Problem: MySQL gem doesn't install.

Error:

ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension mysql

Workaround:

Make sure you installed the latest version of MySQL, the MySQL Preference Pane, and that you started the MySQL server before trying to install the gem. iCoreTech has directions for installing MySQL and MySQL gem on Snow Leopard.

Other Options

HiveLogic has another method for installing Git on Snow Leopoard. I was having trouble with the package installers, and doing it "by hand" via HiveLogic's instructions worked well.

My project uses RMagick. RMagick's DMG installer wouldn't work for me either. I was able to install RMagick from source using a script from OnRails.org.

Twitter network for danah boyd JSB Symposium talk

libbyh — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:07:56 +0000

Today's John Seely Brown Symposium had an active Twitter hashtag of #danahjsb. I imported the hashtag network* into NodeXL and had it draw up a graph for me (click the image for a giant BMP version):

#danahjsb network

Image size depends on the user's number of followers. Edge color depends on the kind of edge - yellow indicates a following relationship, blue a reply/mention relationship. Compare our graph to Marc Smith's graph of the #win09 hashtag users:

#win09 network

You'll notice a couple of things. First, Marc is better with NodeXL than I am, and his graph is just easier to read. Then, dig a little deeper and notice that the network of users who used the #danahjsb hashtag is more densely connected. The #win09 network is brokered by the guy in the middle, and the #danahjsb network has no obvious brokers. More to come on my thoughts about the symposium talk and panel, stay tuned.

* only users whose tweets are public are included in these network diagrams

More Info:

What the hashtag?! - view the tweets

Coming Soon - watch the symposium talk and panel