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Showing posts from November, 2015

2015-11-28: Two WS-DL Classes Offered for Spring 2016

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Two WS-DL classes are offered for Spring 2016: CS 725/825 - Information Visualization , Dr. Weigle CS 432/532 - Introduction to Web Science , Dr. Nelson Information Visualization is being offered both online (CRNs 29183 (HR), 29184 (VA), 29185 (US)) and on-campus (CRN 25511).  Web Science is being offered for the first time with the 432/532 numbers (CRNs 27556 and 27557, respectively), but the class will be similar to the Fall 2014 offering as 495/595 .  --Michael

2015-11-24 Twitter Follower Analysis of Virginia University Alumni Associations

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The primary goal of any alumni association is to maintain and strengthen the ties between its alumni, the community, and the mission of the university. With social media, it's easier than ever to connect with current and former graduates on Facebook , Instagram or Twitter with a simple invitation to "like us" or "follow me." Considering just one of these social platforms, we recently analyzed the Twitter networks of twenty-three (23) Virginia colleges and universities to determine what, if any, social characteristics were shared among the institutions and whether we could gain any insight by examining the public profiles of their respective followers. The colleges of interest, ranked by number of followers in Table 1, vary in size, mission, type of institution, admissions selectivity and perceived prestige. Each of the alumni associations has maintained a Twitter presence for an average of six (6) years. The oldest Twitter account belongs to Roanoke C

2015-11-06: iPRES2015 Trip Report

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From November 2nd through November 5th, Dr. Nelson , Dr. Weigle , and I attended the iPRES2015 conference at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill . This served as a return visit for Drs. Nelson and Weigle; Dr. Nelson worked at UNC through a NASA fellowship and Dr. Weigle received her PhD from UNC. We also met with Martin Klein , a WS-DL alumnus now at the UCLA Library. While the last ODU contingent to visit UNC was not so lucky, we returned to Norfolk relatively unscathed. Cal Lee and Helen Tibbo opened the conference with a welcome on November 3rd, followed by Nancy McGovern 's keynote address delivered with Leo Konstantelos and Maureen Pennock . This was not a traditional keynote, but instead an interactive dialogue in which several challenge areas were presented to the audience, and the audience responded -- live and on twitter -- significant achievements or advances in those challenge areas from #lastyear. For example, Dr. Nelson identified the #iCanHazMemento