Category Archives: Meta-data

Busy in the Literature

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This summer (June-August) I added 629 new citation to EndNote - mostly by hand. Of those citation 392 of them had PDFs attached to the citation. I am ready to learn how to more effectively use Endnote. I estimate that I still have 450 PDFs in various folders from courses and research trips to the library over the last few years that I need to add to EndNote.

I usually try and download .ris files when I find a resource I want to cite or use. The problem is that EndNote X6 does not allow for importing more than one .ris file at a time.

To speed up the process I have learned to use the OS X Concatenate command in terminal: cat.

I open up terminal. type cd type drag my folder containing the .ris files I want to add to EndNote over the blinking cursor and hit enter. I then type cat and drag all the .ris files I want to concatenate to one .ris file. type a > symbol and the new .ris file's name. The result is a concatenation of all the data from the many .ris files into one .ris file. This allows me to go back to EndNote and import all the one massive .ris file and save clicks.

The Data Management Space for Linguists

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This week I have been outlining the types of data that linguists need to be able to use and relate to each other as they do Language Documentation and Linguistic Research. I try to express these things graphically and then also express where some of the leading tools which SIL International is offering sit in the problem space.

The Data Management Space for linguists with SIL software.

The Data Management Space for linguists with SIL software.

Useful or Not?

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This post is a open draft! It might be updated at any time... But was last updated on at .

The online version of the SIL Bibliography contains a subset of over 29,000 citations from the more than 40,000 publications representing 75 years of SIL International's language research in over 2,700 languages. [1] SIL Bibliography Online. April 2012 version. SIL International on Ethnologe.com. http://www.ethnologue.com/bibliography.asp [Accessed: 21 August 2012] [Link]

Finding Resources through SIL.org's (as of 2 August 2012) Bibliography can be a challenge at times - Maybe even a time-wasting endeavor. Time wasting because it might not be very useful to consult the online Bibliography.

The challenging aspect which affects usefulness is primarily three fold:

  1. Items known by SIL to have been created by SIL staff may or may not be listed. (The on-line Bibliography is a sub-set.)
  2. Items listed in the Bibilography may or may not have digitally accessible resources.
  3. Items created by SIL staff may or may not be in the bibliography because they have not been submitted to the Language and Culture Archive (managing division of the SIL Bibliography).

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References

↑1 SIL Bibliography Online. April 2012 version. SIL International on Ethnologe.com. http://www.ethnologue.com/bibliography.asp [Accessed: 21 August 2012] [Link]

The Citation Problem

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In a team framework where there are several members of a research team and the job requirements call for the sharing of bibliographic data (of materials referenced) as well as the actual resources being referenced. In this environment there needs to be a central repository for sharing both kinds of data. This is true for small localized (geographically) groups as well as large distributed research teams. New researchers joining a existing team need to be able to “plug-in” to existing foundational work on the project and be able to access bibliographic data as well as the resources those bibliographic details point to. It is my point here to outline some of the current challenges involved in trying to overcoming the collaborative obstacle when working in the fields of Linguistics and Language Documentation [1]Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. 1998. Documentary and Descriptive Linguistics. Linguistics vol. 36:161-195. [PDF] [Accessed 24 Dec. 2010].This sentiment is echoed by many in the world of science. Here is someone on Zetero’s forums [INSERT LINK]. (Though Zetero does claim to combat some of these issues.)

Bibliographic Data v.s Citation Data

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References

↑1 Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. 1998. Documentary and Descriptive Linguistics. Linguistics vol. 36:161-195. [PDF] [Accessed 24 Dec. 2010]

Socio-linguisitc Profiles for Language Documentation

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Some researchers in linguistics (in my acquaintance) have been less than excited about the notion of asking for socio-linguistic data or socio-personal data from language informants. The objection has been that it is just bad form. While I am a great advocate of personal privacy (especially in digital formats), I see that one of the most informative parts of the language documentation process is understanding who the speakers being recording or being worked with are. Language variation is fundamentally connected with identity. While crucial elements of how a community segments itself along identity lines may not be known for several years, having a robust socio-cultural or socio-personal questionare about the language informants will later help place the documentation data in perspective of the larger waves of variation in the community.

This is to say, I am thoroughly convinced that a socio-linguistic questionare is important as part of the language documentation process. It might not need to be done first, but it will help researchers and future users of archived material understand where to place these speech samples in context of that speakers society.

The outstanding question, and one with a variable answer is how to appropriately approach the questions in the questionare. Should the questionare be approached formally? Or should it be asked in conversational format? Should it be elicited digitally? One of the interesting things about eliciting things digitally is that they may have the appearance to be less intrusive because they are less formal. While I have no empirical evidence based on years of cross cultural work, I do have the Facebook phenomena. That is minority language users all over the world are using Facebook. And Facebook is collection (and allowing the users to volunteer) and then verifying the users’ provided data.

Facebook User Base Graph from 2010

Facebook User Base Graph from 2010

Below is a list of elements which Facebook is collecting (it is also collecting log-in locations and times). So, some of these questions are certainly in-scope of what language documenters would minimally like to know about their indigenous language speaking informants and collaborators. Others of these questions are certainly not in-scope for the recommended socio-linguistic profile from language documenters or socio-linguists.
[table id=13 /]

Grants being aggregated in OLAC Search results

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I have been doing some thinking about what would make OLAC search more valuable to its current users and to its targeted users. One of the things which would make it more useful would be if the NSF, a partial funder for OLAC and OLAC search, would aggregate its language related grants, scholarships, fellowships and awards through OLAC.

Some of these Grant proposals are really well written, and well cited documents which explain a certain snapshot of the language situation. Even the announcements that a grants like From Endangered Language Documentation to Phonetic Documentation has been awarded would allow other researchers to know that someone has applied or been awarded a block of funding to work on a particular language situation.

Notice of NSF Grant award

Notice of NSF Grant award

I was particularly happy to find that NSF does have a grant offering and grant awarded search section. But aggregating this knowledge with prior research would really give interested parties in particular languages the integrated perspective.

The role of relationships in an data centric industry

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I once listend to a Creative Commons Salon titled: What Does it Mean to Be Open in a Data-Driven World? and in that discussion there was a great discussion on what it means to have data which flows and is openMinute 50 has a really interesting comment about sharing scientific data.


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iPhone geo-data

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I have been playing around with data available from the iPhone (and also separately visualizing Map data).

I came across a project, iPhoneTracker which was done to show iPhone users the kind of data that the iPhone collects about a users travel and whereabouts. I downloaded the app and ran it. Looks like about a complete history since I activated the phone… The interesting thing for me was that this app did not collect the data from my phone directly but rather from my computer.

iPhone location history from my iPhone

DOIs and URLs same or different?

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A document’s DOI (http://www.doi.org/ or on Wikipedia under Digital Object Identifier) is an important part of the citation of a document [1] Chelsea Lee. 21 September 2009. A DOI Primer. APA Style Blog. http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2009/09/a-doi-primer.html [Accessed: 10 April 2011] [Link] . Many style sheets allow for just the DOI of a paper as the citation. Because DOIs are unique they can act as URIs which are resolvable and look like URLs [2] Dion Almaer. 23 November 2007. URI vs. URL: What’s the difference?. Ajaxian. http://ajaxian.com/archives/uri-vs-url-whats-the-difference. [Accessed: 10 April 2012] [Link] . However, a DOI is different than a URL for where a digital object might be located. It might be well argued that a DOI should be tracked in the metadata schemes of archives which collect language and linguistic data.
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References

↑1 Chelsea Lee. 21 September 2009. A DOI Primer. APA Style Blog. http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2009/09/a-doi-primer.html [Accessed: 10 April 2011] [Link]
↑2 Dion Almaer. 23 November 2007. URI vs. URL: What’s the difference?. Ajaxian. http://ajaxian.com/archives/uri-vs-url-whats-the-difference. [Accessed: 10 April 2012] [Link]