Geoffrey Rockwell | University of Alberta (original) (raw)
Papers by Geoffrey Rockwell
Scholarly and Research Communication, 2012
In this article, we discuss the first year research plan for the INKE interface design team, whic... more In this article, we discuss the first year research plan for the INKE interface design team, which focuses on a prototype for chaining. Interpretable as a subclass of Unsworth’s scholarly primitive of “discovering”, “chaining” is the process of beginning with an exemplary article, then finding the articles that it cites, the articles they cite, and so on until the reader begins to get a feel for the terrain. The chaining strategy is of particular utility for scholars working in new areas, either through doing background work for interdisciplinary interests or else by pursuing a subtopic in a domain that generates a paper storm of publications every year. In our prototype project, we plan to produce a system that accepts a seed article, tunnels through a number of levels of citation, and generates a summary report listing the most frequent authors and articles. One of the innovative features of this prototype is its use of the experimental “oil and water” interface effect, which uses...
Currently, AI ethics is failing in many cases. Ethics lacks a reinforcement mechanism. Deviations... more Currently, AI ethics is failing in many cases. Ethics lacks a reinforcement mechanism. Deviations from the various codes of ethics have no consequences. And in cases where ethics is integrated into institutions, it mainly serves as a marketing strategy. Furthermore, empirical experiments show that reading ethics guidelines has no significant influence on the decision- making of software developers. It is a boom time for artificial intelligence (AI) and ethics. All sorts of groups have launched manifestos, declarations, toolkits and lists of principles to set the ethical agenda. There are so many lists of principles that now other groups are providing guides to all the lists. You would think that having all these principles and checklists would be a good thing, but many of them are being generated by industry or by scientists. We risk ignoring other approaches to ethics that come from the humanities. In this panel we will present a dialogue of philosophical perspectives and informati...
The International Review of Information Ethics, 2020
Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, 1998
... Notes. [1] TACT was developed originally by John Bradley and Lidio Presutti at the University... more ... Notes. [1] TACT was developed originally by John Bradley and Lidio Presutti at the University of Toronto starting in 1984. For more information, or to download TACT, click here. ... The BTACT module reuses TACT code originally written by John Bradley and Lidio Presutti. ...
Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, 2019
This is a peer-reviewed article in Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, a journal published by the... more This is a peer-reviewed article in Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, a journal published by the Open Library of Humanities.
Journal of Educational Computing Research, 1997
While hypertext systems are changing the way we communicate, many computing humanists have concen... more While hypertext systems are changing the way we communicate, many computing humanists have concentrated on how computers can help with the study of traditional texts. The TACTweb workbook was designed to teach humanities students to use computer-assisted text-analysis tools in a hypertext environment thus bridging the study of electronic editions of classics and the study of new forms of text. TACTweb is a World Wide Web based text-analysis environment that represents the results of text queries as hypertexts. The TACTweb workbook is a hypertext tutorial that introduces students first to both the hypertextual capabilities of electronic literature and to the analysis of electronic editions of traditional texts. The TACTweb workbook has been remodeled using feedback from a student questionnaire in order to improve the interface.
UCL logo UCL Discovery. ...
Our Cultural Commonwealth, a report of the American Council of Learned Societies' Commission ... more Our Cultural Commonwealth, a report of the American Council of Learned Societies' Commission on Cyber Infrastructure for Humanities and Social Sciences, (ACLS 2006) mentioned the relative "conservative culture of scholarship" in the humanities and social sciences (as compared to the natural sciences) as one of the explanations why researchers in these knowledge domains might be hesitant in using the web and other digital resources for their research.1 Before pointing to these researchers however, we may want to question first of all the infrastructures and tools offered to those researchers. Tools and services will only be taken up if they truly serve researchers in their daily work. Infrastructures and tools offered to humanities scholars should support concepts and approaches specific to scholarly practices in humanities research, and, to that end, the ACLS commission advocates “working in new ways” by “tools that facilitate collaboration; an infrastructure for autho...
University of Calgary Press eBooks, Oct 5, 2018
Open Book Publishers, Mar 1, 2021
Copyright and permissions for the reuse of many of the images included in this publication differ... more Copyright and permissions for the reuse of many of the images included in this publication differ from the above. This information is provided in the captions and in the list of illustrations. This book is dedicated to Doris and Peter Kule for their support for the advancement of social sciences, humanities and arts research. Their gift established the Kule Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Alberta that brought us together. We are also deeply grateful to the researchers and support teams that made the Around the World conference series such a success over the years. And we also dedicate this to future scholars, for everything you will do to help weave together our civil society to face the shared challenges of climate change.
Proceedings of SPIE, Mar 25, 1999
In this paper we will discuss a prototype visual programming environment for text applications ca... more In this paper we will discuss a prototype visual programming environment for text applications called Eye-ConTact. Eye- ConTact is modeled on scientific visualization systems such as NAG's ExplorerTM. The user creates a flow chart of how the 'experiment' on a text is to be conducted. The map of this flow of data allows the researcher to see the logic of the study of a text and then reproduce such studies with other texts, or alter the analysis. To adapt the visual programming model to the community of textual scholars, the program must be usable and extendable by a community with limited resources for computing, and not entirely convinced that computationally-based research is relevant. The 'keep it simple' injunction is crucial in such a project. Furthermore, there are no defined or de facto standards for data formats or data representations in this community. We will discuss the original (1997) prototype. Feedback from demonstrations led to changes to the programming interface, and the underlying text analysis engine, in order to make the former more indicative of the steps in the analysis process, and the latter more portable and extensible. We will discuss the design decisions we made to address these two issues.
In 1997 the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) was established by Act of Parliament to fund t... more In 1997 the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) was established by Act of Parliament to fund the development of research infrastructure. Since then it has committed over $5 billion for more than 6,600 projects across Canada. The legislation that set up the Foundation defines infrastructure thus, "research infrastructure" means equipment, specimens, scientific collections, computer software, information databases, communications linkages and other intangible property used or to be used primarily for carrying on research, including housing and installations essential for the use and servicing of those things." (From the Budget Implementation Act, 1997, c. 26) This massive investment in research infrastructure was intended to build capacity for innovation, attract and retain top researchers (often from the USA), train graduate students and research staff, foster collaboration and make sure Canadian institutions made good use of research infrastructure. 2
Flickr, are often characterized by broad participation in content creation. They leverage the web... more Flickr, are often characterized by broad participation in content creation. They leverage the web to enable content to be created, not by those who manage sites, but by a community of participants. Web 2.0 participatory technologies are now being used by humanists to structure collaborations for research. This chapter will look at the opportunities for collaborative research in the humanities through two humanities computing projects that enabled collaboration through crowdsourcing. This will be framed by a discussion of collaboration in the humanities. Humanists, in comparison to the sciences, are reputed to not collaborate on research. The image of the humanist as a "lone ranger" can be traced through images like Rembrant's "The Philosopher in Meditation" or stories like Descartes' , where he tells his story of original 2 Discourse on Method research when he "spent the entire day closed up alone in a room heated by a stove, where I had all the leisure to talk to myself about my thoughts." By contrast, the digital humanities are supposed to be 3 characterized by collaboration, partly because of the need for different skills to complete digital projects and because we have technologies that facilitate collaboration. As Lynne Siemens summarized it: 4 Traditionally, research contributions in the humanities field have been felt to be, and documented to be, predominantly solo efforts by academics involving little direct collaboration with others … However, Humanities Computing/Digital Humanities is an exception to this. Given that the nature of research work involves computers and a variety of skills and expertise, Digital Humanities researchers are working collaboratively within their institutions and with others nationally and internationally to undertake this research. 5
Scholarly and Research Communication, 2012
In this article, we discuss the first year research plan for the INKE interface design team, whic... more In this article, we discuss the first year research plan for the INKE interface design team, which focuses on a prototype for chaining. Interpretable as a subclass of Unsworth’s scholarly primitive of “discovering”, “chaining” is the process of beginning with an exemplary article, then finding the articles that it cites, the articles they cite, and so on until the reader begins to get a feel for the terrain. The chaining strategy is of particular utility for scholars working in new areas, either through doing background work for interdisciplinary interests or else by pursuing a subtopic in a domain that generates a paper storm of publications every year. In our prototype project, we plan to produce a system that accepts a seed article, tunnels through a number of levels of citation, and generates a summary report listing the most frequent authors and articles. One of the innovative features of this prototype is its use of the experimental “oil and water” interface effect, which uses...
Currently, AI ethics is failing in many cases. Ethics lacks a reinforcement mechanism. Deviations... more Currently, AI ethics is failing in many cases. Ethics lacks a reinforcement mechanism. Deviations from the various codes of ethics have no consequences. And in cases where ethics is integrated into institutions, it mainly serves as a marketing strategy. Furthermore, empirical experiments show that reading ethics guidelines has no significant influence on the decision- making of software developers. It is a boom time for artificial intelligence (AI) and ethics. All sorts of groups have launched manifestos, declarations, toolkits and lists of principles to set the ethical agenda. There are so many lists of principles that now other groups are providing guides to all the lists. You would think that having all these principles and checklists would be a good thing, but many of them are being generated by industry or by scientists. We risk ignoring other approaches to ethics that come from the humanities. In this panel we will present a dialogue of philosophical perspectives and informati...
The International Review of Information Ethics, 2020
Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, 1998
... Notes. [1] TACT was developed originally by John Bradley and Lidio Presutti at the University... more ... Notes. [1] TACT was developed originally by John Bradley and Lidio Presutti at the University of Toronto starting in 1984. For more information, or to download TACT, click here. ... The BTACT module reuses TACT code originally written by John Bradley and Lidio Presutti. ...
Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, 2019
This is a peer-reviewed article in Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, a journal published by the... more This is a peer-reviewed article in Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, a journal published by the Open Library of Humanities.
Journal of Educational Computing Research, 1997
While hypertext systems are changing the way we communicate, many computing humanists have concen... more While hypertext systems are changing the way we communicate, many computing humanists have concentrated on how computers can help with the study of traditional texts. The TACTweb workbook was designed to teach humanities students to use computer-assisted text-analysis tools in a hypertext environment thus bridging the study of electronic editions of classics and the study of new forms of text. TACTweb is a World Wide Web based text-analysis environment that represents the results of text queries as hypertexts. The TACTweb workbook is a hypertext tutorial that introduces students first to both the hypertextual capabilities of electronic literature and to the analysis of electronic editions of traditional texts. The TACTweb workbook has been remodeled using feedback from a student questionnaire in order to improve the interface.
UCL logo UCL Discovery. ...
Our Cultural Commonwealth, a report of the American Council of Learned Societies' Commission ... more Our Cultural Commonwealth, a report of the American Council of Learned Societies' Commission on Cyber Infrastructure for Humanities and Social Sciences, (ACLS 2006) mentioned the relative "conservative culture of scholarship" in the humanities and social sciences (as compared to the natural sciences) as one of the explanations why researchers in these knowledge domains might be hesitant in using the web and other digital resources for their research.1 Before pointing to these researchers however, we may want to question first of all the infrastructures and tools offered to those researchers. Tools and services will only be taken up if they truly serve researchers in their daily work. Infrastructures and tools offered to humanities scholars should support concepts and approaches specific to scholarly practices in humanities research, and, to that end, the ACLS commission advocates “working in new ways” by “tools that facilitate collaboration; an infrastructure for autho...
University of Calgary Press eBooks, Oct 5, 2018
Open Book Publishers, Mar 1, 2021
Copyright and permissions for the reuse of many of the images included in this publication differ... more Copyright and permissions for the reuse of many of the images included in this publication differ from the above. This information is provided in the captions and in the list of illustrations. This book is dedicated to Doris and Peter Kule for their support for the advancement of social sciences, humanities and arts research. Their gift established the Kule Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Alberta that brought us together. We are also deeply grateful to the researchers and support teams that made the Around the World conference series such a success over the years. And we also dedicate this to future scholars, for everything you will do to help weave together our civil society to face the shared challenges of climate change.
Proceedings of SPIE, Mar 25, 1999
In this paper we will discuss a prototype visual programming environment for text applications ca... more In this paper we will discuss a prototype visual programming environment for text applications called Eye-ConTact. Eye- ConTact is modeled on scientific visualization systems such as NAG's ExplorerTM. The user creates a flow chart of how the 'experiment' on a text is to be conducted. The map of this flow of data allows the researcher to see the logic of the study of a text and then reproduce such studies with other texts, or alter the analysis. To adapt the visual programming model to the community of textual scholars, the program must be usable and extendable by a community with limited resources for computing, and not entirely convinced that computationally-based research is relevant. The 'keep it simple' injunction is crucial in such a project. Furthermore, there are no defined or de facto standards for data formats or data representations in this community. We will discuss the original (1997) prototype. Feedback from demonstrations led to changes to the programming interface, and the underlying text analysis engine, in order to make the former more indicative of the steps in the analysis process, and the latter more portable and extensible. We will discuss the design decisions we made to address these two issues.
In 1997 the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) was established by Act of Parliament to fund t... more In 1997 the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) was established by Act of Parliament to fund the development of research infrastructure. Since then it has committed over $5 billion for more than 6,600 projects across Canada. The legislation that set up the Foundation defines infrastructure thus, "research infrastructure" means equipment, specimens, scientific collections, computer software, information databases, communications linkages and other intangible property used or to be used primarily for carrying on research, including housing and installations essential for the use and servicing of those things." (From the Budget Implementation Act, 1997, c. 26) This massive investment in research infrastructure was intended to build capacity for innovation, attract and retain top researchers (often from the USA), train graduate students and research staff, foster collaboration and make sure Canadian institutions made good use of research infrastructure. 2
Flickr, are often characterized by broad participation in content creation. They leverage the web... more Flickr, are often characterized by broad participation in content creation. They leverage the web to enable content to be created, not by those who manage sites, but by a community of participants. Web 2.0 participatory technologies are now being used by humanists to structure collaborations for research. This chapter will look at the opportunities for collaborative research in the humanities through two humanities computing projects that enabled collaboration through crowdsourcing. This will be framed by a discussion of collaboration in the humanities. Humanists, in comparison to the sciences, are reputed to not collaborate on research. The image of the humanist as a "lone ranger" can be traced through images like Rembrant's "The Philosopher in Meditation" or stories like Descartes' , where he tells his story of original 2 Discourse on Method research when he "spent the entire day closed up alone in a room heated by a stove, where I had all the leisure to talk to myself about my thoughts." By contrast, the digital humanities are supposed to be 3 characterized by collaboration, partly because of the need for different skills to complete digital projects and because we have technologies that facilitate collaboration. As Lynne Siemens summarized it: 4 Traditionally, research contributions in the humanities field have been felt to be, and documented to be, predominantly solo efforts by academics involving little direct collaboration with others … However, Humanities Computing/Digital Humanities is an exception to this. Given that the nature of research work involves computers and a variety of skills and expertise, Digital Humanities researchers are working collaboratively within their institutions and with others nationally and internationally to undertake this research. 5