Anthropological journals in electronic format
Shared workstation applications project
Brief reviews of three text data base management systems
(with commentary)
Excerpts from network comments on Kling's article and comments on AskSam
HELP Editorial
Reply to reviews of Needle-In-A-Haystack
Fugawiland: educational courseware in archaeology
Association for Studies on Transitions to Agriculture (ASTA)
HRAF data released in microcomputer formats
State-of-the-art review of computing in anthropology
Computer professionals for social responsibility
The Native American Research Information Service
U N I T E X
United Nations Information Transfer and Exchange
Product announcements
Notebook II
An expert sample design program
University of California, Irvine
This paper begins by answering basic questions about electronic journals and their use in solving problems of publishing anthropological data and analyses, including interactive research and educational use. It closes with case studies of electronic journals, either existing, planned, or likely to be developed in the near future. The goal is to show the role that electronic journals may play in the further development of the discipline. Answering Some Common Questions about Electronic Journaling The subject of electronic journaling assumes that anthropologists want to share access to certain kinds of data and analytic procedures.2 An electronic journal, accessible on personal computers, is an interactive medium for sharing data, software, and other information.
Why share data, procedures and communications through electronic journals rather than through other modes of computer access? Electronic journals in the social sciences, as elsewhere, are in their infancy. They might be likened to the communities and infrastructures that develop around the use of general software packages, such as SPSS or UCINET, or around database archives, such as HRAF or ICPSR. However, they actually function more as distributed research labs, circulating communications within the community of users, such as, researchers, teachers, students, about relations between theories, methods, databases, and pedagogy. They can facilitate communication between those who write programs or develop databases and those who use them. They can provide a substantively oriented mix: of data, analyses and articles, useful software, and instructional applications. They can also reach a broad international community and help to overcome the technological access bias that favors wealthier nations and institutions.
What advantages do professional electronic journals offer? Electronic journals focusing on areas of substantive interest can potentially steer a sensible path through the treacherous rapids of computer evolution at a time when academic computing is seeking to establish its own style for outlets. Compared to conventional journals, electronic journals offer the obvious benefits of the computer revolution, plus some, not-so-obvious, illustrated in the case studies that follow.
What kinds of electronic journals exist? The two types are the more practical diskette journal, such as anthropology's World Cultures or the computer hackers' Big Blue Disk3, and the more futuristic and high-tech dial-up journals, such as Learned Information's on-line, and The Electronic Magazine4, just started in England5. In practice, the dial-up journal has been tested only for communities that are already networked through subsidies for electronic communication, such as the BLEND experiment in England or EIES6 in the U.S. Diskette-based journals are not likely to give way to dial-up services, but to maintain their complementarity. They are less costly, do not require modems or special expertise, and serve a more general audience, even if narrowed by the substantive focus of the journal. Not until electronic communication facilities become more universally available at lower cost and cease to require special modems, dial-up charges, and specialized data transfer procedures, will electronic journals become a natural subset of electronic communication. The complementarity between conventional and electronic, or laser disk, journals will then be established on an equal footing. Currently, on-line journals for the social sciences are rarely more than edited bulletin boards. Although electronic bulletin boards will be of growing importance to anthropologists7, the focus in this article is on full fledged diskette journals.
Are electronic journals here to stay? The economics of electronic journals as an alternative to costly archival institutions and commercial software tells the story. Personal computers lower the costs of archival data distribution by an order of magnitude. For example, it costs $1500 for a magnetic tape of cross-national data from OECD, but $175 a year to subscribe to OECD's comparative statistical series on computer diskettes. Floppies give way to laser disk CD-ROM at reduced unit-storage costs.8 PC- SIG, the distributor of programs in the user-supported and public domain, now sells its library of 817 software diskettes for $295 on a laser disk, at $.36 per floppy. With the low cost of diskettes and without heavy overhead, electronic diskette journals can pay their way at subscription rates appropriate to professional journals. With a modest demand for their advantages over conventional journals, electronic (or optical) journals will maintain a niche in the shifting arenas of information technology.
What will happen to big archival institutions such as the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), which distributes coded survey data, or the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), which facilitates the use of ethnographic texts for comparative purposes? They too will undergo a transformation in how they handle information. HRAF has purchased an optical character reader (OCR) and has begun to scan a selection of its ethnographic literature for publication on CD-ROM. When this five-year project is done, costs to the user might be $200-600 for a laser disk containing much of the ethnography, for example, on societies in the standard cross-cultural sample.
Optical compact disk (CD) and interactive video (IV) storage are hot technologies being rapidly developed on a convergent track towards a single system. Erasable optical disks are now under development. Electronic journals will likely be supplemented by hybrid optical storage systems within five years.
My thesis is that high end computing, represented, for example, by the massive on-line databases being seen in science and industry, is less likely to serve anthropology's needs than carefully constructed low-end capability, aimed toward database development with optical technologies, which will soon provide low-cost information systems. We will probably have CD-ROM card catalogues of anthropology's literature within the next few years, followed by HRAF's selection of texts from that literature. On-line high-end computing, however, even if it were funded for anthropological resources, might have limited value for the discipline. For example, we are unlikely to be able to use on-line journals and databases for communications with our professional colleagues in the Third World, since the infrastructure of high-end technology is costly. The wealthier nations and universities benefit mostly from it no matter what the subsidies. Electronic diskette journals, on the other hand, are more accessible and more independent of national wealth.
Low end computing can easily result in a hands-on approach in which anthropology steers its own computer evolution to suit its needs. For those participating in this evolution, software is now available for publishing electronic journals, both of the on-line and diskette variety. 9 Electronic journaling within the discipline is likely to become an extension of desk-top publishing, another hot area of technological development. As editor of World Cultures I have tried this mix of new technologies, and my experience has been positive, as will be seen in the case studies below.
There are currently five areas and perhaps others where electronic journaling is taking place in anthropology. They range from cross-cultural research, where a quarterly journal has been published for the last three years, to the current formation of such a journal in the study of development and social change. Anthropological workstations where computer modules are integrated into portable software systems for use in research, education, and field work, will probably also soon experience this kind of development. The case studies below represent ones in which I have been a participant observer and, in some cases, an active organizer.
World Cultures arrived on the diskette publishing scene in 1985 with quarterly journal issues that include articles, databases, codebooks, and software. Designed to be self- contained and self-instructing (White 1985a,b,c) and to pre- process cross-cultural data for use with PC statistical packages like SPSS or SYSTAT, its readership grew slowly but steadily and is now at about 140 subscribers. Its instructional materials are used in classes at 20 or so universities. 10 Several dozen anthropology departments and a lesser number of libraries maintain subscriptions, but most subscriptions are personal and many are at student rates. It is popular and affordable overseas. The journal is not specialized for the cross-culturalist and fills a significant gap for the general anthropologist working in the field of comparative studies. A general anthropologist with a PC is somewhat better off using the journal than someone involved in pre-computer styles of cross-cultural research. 11 The electronic journal goes hand-in-hand with a new wave of research: large samples, cumulative databases, multivariate analyses, possibly testing for autocorrelation among contiguous or related cases in the sample, analyses of reliability of codes from independent judgments in different coding projects, computer generated maps with zoom capabilities for detail analyses of spatial, world-system, and other historical patterns as well as functional hypotheses.
World Cultures publishes and maintains updated versions of major comparative databases available in anthropology: for example, Murdock's 1270 society Ethnographic Atlas (1962-70), Jorgensen's 272 tribe (1980) Western Indians database, and Oregon State's Physical Anthropology: Paleontology and Anthropometrics database (Beals, Dodd and Smith 1987). The most massive database, covering a vast range of topics, is one contributed by scores of different authors for the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (Murdock and White 1969). Because variables overlap from study to study and are coded independently, this is the first cross cultural dataset in which it has been possible to publish analyses of reliability and validity of data coded for this sample. Authors of codes and reliability studies have begun to annotate the codebooks for this database to indicate strengths and weaknesses of particular variables or types of variables. A summary version of these data for educational use , the Cultural Diversity Database (White 1987), created distributed by the journal, is also being distributed by PC- SIG and the National Collegiate Software Clearinghouse. 12
The journal provides a computerized annotated bibliography of ethnographic sources used in cross-cultural studies on the standard sample (White 1986), and is developing an indexing system to move between codes on particular societies and page numbers for ethnographic sources used in making coding decisions. Once HRAF's CD-ROM ethnographic texts are published, the page-referencing system can be incorporated into a scholar's workstation where one can move electronically from coded comparative data to original ethnographic sources, or from sources to codes. It will be relatively easy to re-analyze coding decisions and reformulate critical kinds of variables that are used in comparative representations of the ethnographic knowledge base.
The journal is moving towards more elaborate graphics and mapping capabilities, including zoom maps, and towards integrating different levels of analysis. At the level above individual societies there are now studies of contiguous ecological regions, zones in the world economic systems, and larger regions of shared cultural patterns. At the level of variability within individual societies one database, for example (Winkelman 1986), examines the cultural performances of different types of specialized magico-religious practitioners. Here the coding units are particular practitioners (e.g., priests, shamans, diviners) within societies.
The journal is exploring the use of new generation Relational Database Management software with integrated query formats for moving between levels in preparing data for multi-level analysis. This is an example where subscribers can share compiled modules from applications developed within commercial software packages such as INGRESS (or earlier generations of RDBMs such as DBase III), Royalties are prepaid by the journal by purchase of an appropriate compiler.
The success of World Cultures helped to stimulate the formation of Linkages, a network of anthropologists (initially funded by Wenner-Gren) addressing common research questions about social change and developmental processes from evidence of different longitudinal field sites. Hence, Linkages was concerned with establishing comparability among field sites by computerizing data and analysis, partly through application of common computer-driven methodologies to comparable kinds of materials from different sites. A principal objective of Linkages was to promote collaborative research with anthropological colleagues overseas. A Chapter of the organization has been proposed within India, for example, by Indian social scientists. The group plans to start an electronic journal under the name of Social Dynamics. It will include the development of software for pre-processing social demographic data from linked anthropological censuses on various units of analysis like individuals, households, and villages, through time. Resultant datasets will link with standard packages for network analysis, demographic, and time series analysis.
A general purpose anthropological workstation, as useful in the field as in the analysis of field data back home, is more than a glint in many anthropologists' eyes. Many have tried experiments with various results. What the field may need is a pooling of ideas and resources in the construction of linked software modules for the kinds of tasks that need to be done. The development of an anthropological workstation is not an easy task, but it is one ideally suited to an electronic journal format as a means of sharing ideas, software, sample databases, as well as an outlet for completed modules or software systems. Feasibility is indicated by the prototype of the Linkages journal, built around the kind of databases developed in field research. What is needed is someone with the personal computing, editing, and programming know-how needed for oversight to come forward as editor, or perhaps both editor and desktop publisher, as I have been for World Cultures.
One group of social scientists, including anthropologists, met to consider this problem in July, 1987. They issued a proposal for a Shared Workstation Applications Project (SWAP) in which basic procedures could be documented
and written to a common standard, and a variety of software applications could call up the procedures. Collaboration in the user community could be organized to lead to a 'living book' of applications -- with chapters such as social demography, household and genealogical analysis, language and text processing, questionnaire development, spatial analysis, network analysis, time series, etc. -- all of which use procedures in the library. This is a variant of the model by which BMDP, UCINET, GLIM, and other software packages were built, but here the integration takes place around personal computing and the needs of social scientists kindred to the anthropologist.
The Linkages group has also explored the possibilities of developing extensive comparative databases on development and social change. This would include Third World data such as those developed by the Village Studies Programme at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex. By agreement with the IDS, this database has already been prepared for diskette publication. Also being explored are a variety of other means for assembling and systematizing data that would be useful in testing theories of development and change. A great deal of such data have been produced by anthropologists and scientists in related disciplines. The examination of theories, methods, and data bearing of these topics can usefully be conducted via the electronic journal approach that facilitates sharing, discussion, and cumulativity of results. The Linkages group is currently debating whether to include such databases in the Social Dynamics journal, or to keep that journal more specialized around longitudinal field research and form another journal in which the more broad-scale comparative data could be published in the context of a broad audience concerned with development issues.
The worldwide remote sensing database produced by NASA and other space agencies provides a new basis for the dynamic analysis of global, regional, and local ecologies. Once the PC technology for image processing is coupled, a few years down the road, with low-cost optical disk storage of the massive amounts of digital data needed for such image- processing, it may be feasible to foster the anthropological development of this technological application by means of an electronic journal.
Complex image processing is not an easy task, but the same technology that can process digitalized multispectral data from weather satellites, LANDSAT, or the newer satellites, can also process large-scale data imaging systems such as would be needed to image-process an archaeological site and its component artifacts. These two areas and their interrelations are almost certain to be
extensively explored in coming years by archaeologists and ecological anthropologists.
Electronic journals are an important means that anthropology has at its disposal to foster the computer evolution in ways that are as accessible as knowledge dissemination via conventional journals. Anthropology has been a leader in innovative use of computerization in the social sciences. Many examples could be given. Electronic journals, such as World Cultures, with the development of extensive electronic databases including the digitalizing of a substantial portion of HRAF's inventory of ethnographic literature, may continue to be critical as public forums and as needed stimuli to guide the evolution of computer techniques relevant to the needs of the discipline. Groups such as Linkages are fostering extensive new developments that may help carry computer evolution into useful articulation with longitudinal field research, field research generally, and perhaps the development of general purpose anthropological workstations. Archaeologists and social or ecological anthropologists may find the development of new electronic journals an appropriate means to explore the horizon of the evolution of computer imaging processing systems that will begin to figure as new research tools for the analysis of material and ecological systems. This article has provided a review of progress to date in anthropological electronic journals that are stimulating leading edges of research in some subfields and that are likely to provide such stimulus to other areas. These stimuli include the linkage of theoretical problems central to the discipline with comparative and processual frameworks for integrating the results of current field work. Hopefully some of the case studies and suggestions that have been made along the way of this review will stimulate others to find additional and fruitful uses of electronic journaling as a means of steering a computer evolution that is substantively advancing their discipline.
1 Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association, Session on Cutting Edge Computer Applications, November 1987.
2 Shared access to data requires conventions for insuring the anonymity of families and individuals. Alternative conventions for shared access to programs developed by social scientists include public domain, user supported software, share-ware, etc.
3 Big Blue Disk is not an academic journal but a "fun, games and utilities" monthly subscription service for $69.95/year.
4 The Electronic Magazine is an on-line journal about electronic publishing. It is published by the people who put out the Electronic Publishing Review, now the Electronic and Optical Publishing Review. CompuServe has an on-line as well as printed journal on dial-up services, appropriate called ONLINE.
5 The Birmingham-Loughborough Electronic Network Development (BLEND) project is an electronic communications system that includes a journal and newsletter in a new scientific paper format, e.g., reading from the abstract to results and conclusions, then to methodology. Referees' and readers' comments can be appended.
6 The EIES experiment with electronic journals was not successful, perhaps because the system was an early prototype with cumbersome software.
7 Electronic bulletin boards in Anthropology include two that were announced in the Anthropology Newsletter in 1986: one out of Washington State and one out of New Mexico. IBM is about to set up a "room" for anthropology in their Bulletin Board system. The contact person is Chad McDaniel, Anthropology, University of Maryland. BITNET is widely used as a messaging system but does not have public bulletin board facilities. Low-end systems like FIDO do not seem to be much used. FIDO allows you to call a local FIDO bulletin board and leave a message for someone with a FIDO address.
8 A single laser disk (CD-ROM) holding the equivalent of 300 floppies or a dozen magnetic tapes could be distributed at a cost of $20 per disk over an initial $15,000 to make the original master through U.S. manufacturers. Tsuru Technology in Tokyo makes CD-ROM masters for $2,000 plus $1,300 for under 100 disks, $10/disk over 100, down to $7/disk for over 500. This does not include the cost of the preparing data for CD-ROM format. Data conversion is provided by firms such as Pacific Data Services - Dallas, by agreement with information processing facilities in mainland China. To give an idea of current prices, PC-SIG sells a K-8 math- science series on CD-ROM for $195, and a Biotechnology CD- ROM for $495.
9 The World Cultures diskette journal shell is freeware to anyone wanting to start an electronic journal. Reynolds (1984) discusses more complex on-line journal software.
10 Examples of schools using World Cultures instructionally are American University, Cal State-Sacramento, Cornell, CUNY, Florida, Florida Atlantic, Illinois State, Indiana, Nebraska, Regina, San Diego State, UC Irvine, UCSD, UCLA, Wisconsin; Tübingen and Köln in Germany, and Kent in England.
11 A hand-calculation style of cross-cultural research limited to a few variables and small samples, associated with the early days of HRAF, was entrenched among researchers of various social science disciplines. It was based on stating hypotheses in terms of rather simple bivariate relationships, picking a "random" sample of cases, going to the HRAF files to code a relatively small sample, and reporting the results of testing the hypothesis by hand calculations of correlations and chi-squared tests of significance.
Elaborated versions of this research model involved a preference for procedures that made the research appear more objective: naive rather than knowledgeable coders, use of random numbers tables to select societies rather than representative well-described cases of different cultural types, fresh samples for each study rather than the use of cumulative or standard samples. Computer programs would be employed to compute the correlations and significance tests. If cross-cultural studies languished somewhat under criticisms of the simpler pre-computer style of research, many in the cross-cultural field viewed the elaborated version of this research model to be misguided. It often involved rigid prescriptions about method (naive coders, spurious sampling procedures, purposely small samples, and spurious rating systems for scientific quality), and substituted pseudo-scientific rigor for the pursuit of deeper scientific understandings based on experimentation with more sophisticated theoretical models, coding and sampling procedures, and analyses.
12 PC-SIG stands for Personal Computer Software Interest Group, at 1030D East Duane Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 (800)245-6717 (Calif 800)222-2996. NCSC is the National Collegiate Software Clearinghouse, N.C.S.U., Box 8101, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695 (919)737-3067.
Beals, Kenneth L., Stephen M. Dodd and Courtland L. Smith 1987. Physical Anthropology Database: Paleontology and Anthropometrics. World Cultures 3(4).
Jorgensen, Joseph G. 1980. Western Indians. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.
Murdock, George P. 1962-70. Ethnographic Atlas journal installments. Ethnology. Summary Volume 867 societies, 1967.
Murdock, George P. and Douglas R. White. 1969. Standard Cross-Cultural Sample. Ethnology 8: 329-369.
Reynolds, C. F.1984. A software package for electronic journals. 7th International. Online Info. Meeting London. pp. 111-118.
White, Douglas R. 1985a. The World Cultures Database. World Cultures 1(1).
1985b. The World Cultures Workstation. World Cultures 1(3).
1985c. Micro-Computer Statistical Packages for Cross Cultural Research. World Cultures 1(3).
1986. Focused Ethnographic Bibliography for the Standard Cross Cultural Sample. World Cultures 2(1). Also to appear in Behavior Science Research.
1987. Cultural Diversity Database: An instructional and research module from the World Cultures Electronic Journal. National Collegiate Software Clearinghouse, N.C.S.U., Raleigh, North Carolina. Hard Cover, with codebook (item 41). Also published as PC-SIG disk 4062.
White, Douglas R., Michael L. Burton. 1986 Annotated cumulative codebook: Standard cross-cultural sample. Offprint, World Cultures Electronic Journal, 201 pp.
Winkelman, Michael. 1986. Cross cultural study of magico-religious practitioners: Database. World Cultures 2 No. 3.
Aveney, Brian. 1986. Editing an electronic journal. National Online Meeting Proceedings - 1985. p. 19-23.
1984. Biomedicine gets its first electronic journal. Outlook on Research Libraries 5(4):6-7.
Bernard, Paula. 1983. BLEND: A theoretical and practical examination of an electronic journal. London: City University.
BARD 1976. The electronic journal - an assessment. London, Aslib. BLRD Report 5322.
Calabrese, Andrew M. 1986. The electronic journal: A review of trends and their implications for scholarly communication. Paper presented the Annual Meeting of the Central States Speech Association.
Campbell, Neil A. 1984. On paperless-ness. Canadian Library Journal 41:181-6.
Campbell, R. 1980. Survival of the fittest: Adaptive strategies in journal publishing. In D. P. Woodworth, ed., Financing serials from the producer to the user. Proc. of the U.K. Serials Group Conference, pp. 27-39.
Case, Donald. 1986. The personal computer: Missing link to the electronic journal? Journal of the Amer. Soc. for Info. Sci. 36(5): 309-313.
Graddon, Pamela H. B. 1986. Electronic journals. State Librarian 32(4): 40-41.
Guillaume, Jeanne. 1983. Computer conferencing and the development of an electronic journal. Canadian Journal of Information Science 5(May):21-29.
Gurnsey, J. 1985. The information professions in the Electronic Age. Bingley: UK [contains article on the electronic journal] Jarratt, P., W. P. Dodd, and T. Maude.
1987 Electronic Journal Research Support Programme. Current Research Record (1987)
Judge, P. J. 1987. The electronic journal: More than just a publishing alternative? Libraries: after 1984 Proc. LAA/NZLA Conf.
Kench, Robin.1984. Some developments in electronic journals and electronic document delivery services. LASIE 14(4): 14-21.
Lerner, Rita G. 1984. The professional society in a changing world. Library Quarterly 54(1):36-47.
Lubans, John, Jr. 1987. Scholars and serials. American Libraries 18(3):180- 182.
Moray, Neville, and Manis Stocklosa. 1983. Electronic journals: an editor's view. EURIM 4: A European conference on Innovation in primary publication -- impact on producers and users, presented by Aslib, 23-26, March 1980.
Pullinger, D. J. 1984. The BLEND electronic journal project. Program 18(3): 263-4.
1984. Facilities in an electronic journal system: Towards the cost evaluation of the BLEND experiment. Electronic Publishing Review 4(4): 275-287.
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Reynolds, C. F. 1984. A software package for electronic journals. 7th Internl. Online Info. Meeting London. pp. 111-118.
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Addresses for Electronic Journals
Anthropology Other
World Cultures Big-Blue Disk
Social Dynamics (forthcoming) SoftDisk
P.O. Box 12524 LoadStar
San Diego, CA 92037-0650 Magazines on Disk
P.O. Box 30008
Shreveport, LA 71130-0008
Ethnographic Atlas (1270 societies, 110 variables) Vol. 2#4
Cultural Diversity Database (186 societies, 110 variables) Vol. 3#2
Standard Cross Cultural Sample (186 societies, 1200 variables) Vols. 1-3
Western Indians (172 societies, 470 variables) Vol. 3#3
Paleontology Database (sites, specimens, dates, locations) Vol. 3#4
Anthropometry Database (135 societies) Vol. 3#4
IDS Village Study Programme (400 villages, 152 variables) unpublished
World Cultures
P.O. Box 12524
San Diego, CA 92037-0650
Death and Dying in the Life-Cycle (60 societies, 207 variables)
General Cultural and Religious Data (60 societies, 103 variables)
HRAF
P.O. Box 2054
Yale Station
New Haven, CN 06520
Cultural Diversity Database (186 societies, 110 variables) [from World Cultures]
PC-SIG
Personal Computer Software Interest
Group
1030D East Duane Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
(800)245-6717 (Calif 800)222-2996.
Cultural Diversity Database (186 societies, 110 variables) [from World Cultures]
Death and Dying in the Life-Cycle (60 societies, 207 variables) [from HRAF]
General Cultural and Religious Data (60 societies, 103 variables) [from HRAF]
NCSC
National Collegiate Software
Clearinghouse
N.C.S.U.
Box 8101
Raleigh, North Carolina 27695
(919)737-3067.
World Cultures, an electronic journal and database, is published quarterly on micro-computer diskettes. The General Editor is Douglas R. White, U.C. Irvine. The following issues are available for library, instructional and research use:
1#1 March 1985. Murdock and White's Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, Part 1 Article: D. R. White, The World Cultures Database and MAPTAB Program Codes and Codebooks: D. R. White & M.L.Burton, Standard Cross-Cultural Codebook I. G. P. Murdock and D.Morrow, Subsistence Economy and Supportive Practices H.Barry III and L.Paxson, Infancy and Early Childhood. G.P.Murdock and S.Wilson, Settlement Patterns and Community Organization A.Tuden and C.Marshall, Political Organization. G.P.Murdock and C.Provost, (1) Division of Labor (2) Cultural Complexity G.J.Broude and S.J.Greene, Sexual Attitudes and Practices J.M.W.Whiting, Weather Station Data for the Standard Sample
1#2 June 1985. Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas for the Standard Sample, and Other Codes and Codebooks: D.R.White & M.L.Burton, Standard Cross-Cultural Codebook II. G.P.Murdock, The ETHNOGRAPHIC ATLAS for the Standard Sample. H.Barry III, L.Josephson, E.Lauer, C.Marshall, Traits Inculcated in Childhood. H.Barry III, Josephson, Lauer, Marshall, Agents and Techniques Child Training. R.Rohner and E.Rohner, Parental Acceptance-Rejection and Parental Control
.1#3 September 1985. Software Supplements for the Electronic Journal Software (IBM PC): MAPTAB rapid access data management, mapping and tabulation. PC-WRITE word- processor (courtesy of Quiksoft's share-ware agreement) Articles: D.R.White, Setting Up a Cross-Cultural Work Station. Micro Statistical Packages for Cross-Cultural Research Satellite Data, Ecology, and Geographic Information Systems. Computer Assisted Anthropology; Micro-Computer Software; Entailment Analysis World Cultures News in Review; World Cultures Readership Activities Social Science Teleconferencing. L.C.Freeman, UCINET - UC Irvine's Network Analysis software.
1#4 December 1985. Standard Sample Codes, Part 3. Codes and Codebooks: D.R.White & M.L.Burton, Standard Cross-Cultural Codebook III H.Barry III and A.Schlegel, Adolescent Initiation Ceremonies. K.Paige and J.Paige, Reproductive Rituals. M.Whyte, Status of Women in Preindustrial Societies. G.P.Murdock, Kin Term Patterns. G.P.Murdock, S.Wilson, and V.Frederick, Theories of Illness. P.Sanday: Female Power and Male Dominance. M.Whyte, Independent Variables for the Status of Women. G.J.Broude and S.J.Greene: Husband-Wife Relationships.
2#1 March 1986. Standard Sample Ethnographic Bibliography Article: D.R.White, Focused Ethnographic Bibliography: Standard Sample.
2#2 June 1986. Standard Sample Codes, Part 4 Codes and Codebooks: D.R.White, Standard Cross-Cultural Codebook IV M.Ross: Political Decision-Making and Conflict. R.P.Rohner, D.S.Berg and E.C.Rohner: Data Quality Control H.Barry III and A.Schlegel, Contributions by Women to Subsistence H.Barry III and A.Schlegel, Measurements of Adolescent Sexual Behavior G.P.Murdock and D.R.White, Standard Cross-Cultural Sample M.L.Burton, D.R.White, and J.M.W.Whiting, Language Classification D.R.White, J.M.W.Whiting, and M.L.Burton, Climate and Subsistence. Article: D.R.White, Forms and Frequencies of Polygyny: Standard Sample Codes.
2#3 September 1986. Standard Sample Codes 5 and Magico- Religious Practitioners Article and Codes: M.Winkelman and D.R.White, A Cross-Cultural Study of. Magico-Religious Practitioners and Trance States: Data Base [Codes on 115 Practitioners include: (1) Identification, Data Quality Assessments and General Codes (2) Health Care, Divination and Malevolent Activities (3) Propitiation and Socioeconomic Concerns (4) Altered State of Consciousness]. D.R.White, Female Subsistence Contribution: Measures and Reliabilities Codes and Codebooks: D.R.White, Standard Cross-Cultural Codebook V. M.Winkelman, Magico-Religious Practitioners (45 Std. Sample Societies).
2#4 December 1986. The Ethnographic Atlas (double issue). Codebook and Codes: G.P.Murdock and D.R.White, Ethnographic Atlas Codebook G.P.Murdock, ETHNOGRAPHIC ATLAS (1267 societies). Article: G.Palsson, Maritime Hunters and Gatherers of the Sea: Ethnographic Perspective [using Atlas data].
3#1 March 1987 Standard Sample Codes, Part 6, and Regional Analysis Articles: A.B. Kasakoff, World Fertility Regions. M.L.Burton, World Cultures and World System Codes. Codes and Codebooks: D.R.White, Standard Cross-Cultural Codebook VI V.Wheeler, A Cross-Cultural Study on the Nature of War O.Patterson, Slavery and Social Death. F.Pryor, The Adoption of Agriculture. S.G.Frayser, Varieties of Sexual Experience. R.P.Rohner and E.C.Rohner, Enculturative Continuity and Child Caretakers Supplementary Diskette: C.Bodamer, Graphic Arts Codebook.
3#2 June 1987 Cultural Diversity Database: A Cross-Cultural Instructional Atlas Includes an HRAF-Indexed Guide to Published Variables on the Standard Sample.
3#3 September 1987 Physical Anthropology: Paleontology and Anthropometry Codebooks and Data: K.Beals, C.Smith, S. Dodd, Anthropometric Data Bases
3#4 December 1987 Jorgensen's Western North American Indians Data
Forthcoming Issues (Provisional) 1988-1989: 4#1 Cross-Cultural Sampling Frames. 4#2 Galton's Problem and Autocorrelation. 4#3 Russian Atlas Narodi Mir. 4#4 Comparative Social Change and Development. 5#1 Representative and Random Cross-Cultural Sampling. 5#2 Standard Sample Codes, Part 7. 5#3 World System Linkage Codes for the Standard Sample. 5#4 Blue Ribbon Variables for the Standard Sample.
Policy: World Cultures welcomes articles, brief communications, datasets, programs and comparative research or instructional material from scientists of any nation, dealing with any aspect of human groups, or any type of comparative database.
Contributions: All materials should be submitted on IBM PC diskettes, using Ethnology format for articles, and published World Cultures prototypes for codebooks and datasets. Limit text and tables to 79 columns, and font to ASCII characters. Authors may disseminate their materials by other means, and republish material in conventional journals. Revisions of codes previously published are provided by agreement with authors and the editors of other journals.
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UC -Irvine
Nine social scientists assembled by Anthropologists in Linkages, a group coordinating research on linked longitudinal field sites, met for a workshop in Santa Fe in July, 1987, at the School of American Research. They were funded by the Wenner Gren Foundation to consider, in addition to their specific research programs, how best to coordinate software developments in anthropology and related disciplines. The specific focus was on contributions toward development of a workstation for longitudinal field sites and for related problems of population-based and ethnographic or cultural-historical data analysis in the social sciences. At the end of their meeting, they issued the following statement.
The tool kit idea incorporates two perspectives -- one substantive/ theoretical and the other procedural/methodological. The first organizes modules relevant to substantive areas of analysis. The second organizes modules of algorithms that might be provided by general methods programmers. One goal is to make available collections of procedural modules cross-referenced to solutions of substantive problems. Some of these already exist. For example, UCINET for social network analysis, and BMDP for statistical analysis. Areas we are currently organizing include genealogical analysis (contact Chad McDaniel, UMCP), spatial analysis (Doug White, UC Irvine), and full text analysis (Ossy Werner, Northwestern). The modules may be used in several ways. For example, a matrix inversion module may be part of a network analysis or a regression and time series, while a full text analysis may be used in decision-modeling, descriptive ethnography, etc. We envision several means of exchange: SWAP columns in newsletters that discuss strategies and standards for contributions, SWAP nights at professional meetings, SWAP meets that bring users and program builders together for longer workshops and applications sessions, and specific projects that underwrite further SWAP developments and integration. We promote an environment in which the community of contributors writes a 'living book' to introduce social science users to the basics of modular computer software workstation usage, and provide resources to different areas of substantive analysis.
Plans are underway for a meeting sometime during the academic year of 1987-88. We are also planning SWAP nights at several national and regional scholarly meetings. These will be announced in the respective newsletters of the different organizations and societies. Finally, we are eager to have volunteers to coordinate tool kit development in other areas than those mentioned above. Anyone who would like to become involved with SWAP should contact Dr. Chad McDaniel, Dept. of Anthropology / Computer Science, College Park, MD 20742 (CKMD@UMDD).
Computing, Organizations, Policy & Society (CORPS) Department of Information and Computer Science University of California - Irvine
I'm responding to an inquiry and several brief comments about text database management systems (TDBMS) for IBM-PC's. I use several different TDBMS for different applications including maintaining annotated bibliographies, documenting statistical data files for research purposes, keeping to-do lists, managing mailing lists, managing a phone book, keeping a restaurant file, keeping notes about research sites, maintaining narrative commentaries about the status of a set of related projects, etc. I find TDBMS to be an essential tool in my daily work, but find the state of the art products not meeting my preferences. Even so, I use some TDBMS because they are useful in different ways and provide tremendous advantages over the alternatives: various paper systems, text editors, outliners, and DBMS with short fields (80-255 characters and text facilities such as word wrap, margin settings, block copy and mode, etc.).
I use three different TDBMS: Notebook, Dayflo, and AskSam. Each of these meets some minimal requirements:
1. Allows fields to include lots of text (often up to 28K)
2. Gracefully handles word wraps at the margins when text is entered.
3. Includes a text editor with abilities to copy, move and delete blocks of text.
4. Abilities to search bodies of text easily for particular words.
5. Some kind of report writer integrated into the package.
These is no common core of requirements currently met by all systems. The TDBMS area is less well understood than, say, spreadsheets, text editors, and other kinds of databases. I suspect that each TDBMS is designed with some narrow range of applications and users in mind. While each is subtly advertised as universal, none is. I would like to consolidate all my active text databases into one system. Each of these three TDBMS could serve as a medium for all my text databases, but none would do all the jobs very well. And none of these would serve other needs in organizing and coding interviews and qualitative field data - a kind of SPSS for ethnographic research.
Each of these 3 systems is powerful in different ways, but none is ideal. None of these databases is good at taking a raw body of notes and slowly organizing them into some structure. (A good outliner, like PC-Outline may be better for that kind of task.)
Notebook II is a menu driven system which requires that each record have the same field names. The fields and records can be very long (about 28K max ). It has facilities for easily adding fields to records & restructuring records. Its searching is quite fast, and its report writer is OK. It's relatively fast. It is menu driven and does not include any macro capability. For me, its biggest limitation is that all fields are of one type: ASCII characters. Dates and numbers are interpreted as ASCII strings. Dates must be represented as strings like 87/04/15 to have date comparisons work properly. Numbers must all be represented as strings of the same length.
$12 < $9, but $12 > $09.
Notebook has evolved through several versions with increasing refinement at each stage. It handles pages of text rather gracefully, searches them rapidly and stores them concisely, and I find it to be the best of the lot for annotated bibliographies. I have three annotated bibliographies in Notebook, and two of them have over 600 entries apiece. Notebook handles these the best of all the three databases. It also has some features, such as the ability to compile a list of "keywords" -- all the words used in any field within a file, or a list of all the words used in a file, including counts of each word. In contrast, AskSam is clumsy in handling pages of text in fields that run longer than 20 lines. Version 3 has a "document mode" which lets one string together a set of 20 line shorter segments of data, but it does not automatically reformat text across these segment boundaries when new text is inserted in the middle of existing text blocks. Dayflo is relatively slow on an 8088 based machine, and its file storage consumes more space. However, I'm told that it zips along nicely on an 80286 based machine. I find Notebook's one type of field to be it's greatest disadvantage since it makes dealing with dates and numberscumbersome. I also dislike its screen layout which forces each field to take at least one line. I would sometimes like to place several short fields, such as a name, city and date, one line.
In both AskSam and Dayflo, a record can be any arbitrary collection of fields. This makes it easy to include unusual records in any database - such as a description of the database, where it is archived, etc. as a special record. In practice, many records will have the same structure, but they need not. For example, a bibliographic entry for an "article" usually includes a journal/source, volume, issue #, etc. A record for a book doesn't include these fields, but may include the city/country of publication. In Notebook, records with such different sets of fields would have to be represented as different files (or one would create a "superrecord" which had all the fields.) In AskSam and Dayflo, records representing books and articles can easily co-exist in the same database, along with records which have many different structures (e.g., for films, etc.).
Dayflo and AskSam allow a user to place fields (and data) in any locations on the screen. They also support multiple field types, but also allow the types to be overridden. Data in Dayflow must have a type and in AskSam it can be treated as if it has a type so that data and numerical arithmetic work well there.
Dayflo is the most elaborate of these systems and has the slickest screen display. The product is menu driven, but also includes macro facilities to simplify certain repetitive tasks. Dayflo is also unique in allowing records to be placed on separate "stacks." There is no restriction about the format of records on any stack. Stacks can be used to help organize records in meaningful sets. For example, in a bibliographic database, one stack might contain records of books and articles to be gotten from the library while another stack might contain books loaned to friends. This kind of information can be handled in any DBMS by adding a status field to indicate books on loan, etc. and using the search routines or report generator to pull out a list of records that meet some status (e.g., get them from the library). But Dayflo's stacks offer a novel and useful different way to segment information and keep order. It is also easy to browse through the separate stacks. Initially, Dayflo is the most daunting system since it comes with two large manuals and several smaller booklets. But it's a well designed system. Its tutorials, menuing and help facilities ease learning.
AskSam does support some powerful reporting and record restructuring capabilities. It includes a powerful, but somewhat cryptic, text programming language. Of all these three systems, it is the only one where one can actually write a program to alter numbers and dates with arithmetic operations: e.g., add 30 days to a set of dates in the database, or add 10% to a set of prices.
AskSam is command driven and is very crude in many areas. Programs that generate reports or alter data are also records. This is a powerful concept, loosely akin to having LISP functions be LISP code. But these program records are mixed in with all the other data records in a data file and one must be careful to structure reports so that they print out genuine data records and don't sweep up other programs in record form when they scan the data file. Asksam's "help" system is the worst that I have ever encountered in a system which claimed to support "help" since it throws the user out of his place in the file he is working on and loads a new "help file" in its place (See below). It sets the concept of interactive "help" back 15 years.
AskSam has been the subject of several overly enthusiastic reviews. When I bought it, I struggled with it for several weeks and finally sent a long unsolicited letter to its designers. I received only a cursory acknowledgement of my letter, so I have no reason to believe that any of the problems I've identified will be fixed in the near future. I've excerpted from my letter below, as a way of indicating Asksam's several Achille's heels and providing further contrasts between these products.
I have been a beta tester for Notebook-II and a customer for Dayflo and Seaside Software (AskSam). I have not been monogamous and use each of these products for some application. If speed and space were not an issue for me, I would move to Dayflo. Which may mean that Dayflo indicates that graceful and robust TDBMS are difficult to squeeze into 8088 machines with 360K diskettes and many other programs sharing the hard disk. In Dayflo's case, the size of the programs is not as much of a problem for me as the rate at which the databases swell. The smallest database starts out at 100K and can swell to 500K with only 200 records. Dayflo includes facilities for backing such databases across multiple floppies. But I have a lot of different little databases. Dayflo could absorb them all into one humongous "superbase," but that is not how I choose to work. AskSam is a good bet if you have very short text fields -- say 10 lines or less -- and want to have good numerical and date arithmetic. You also have to be willing to write programs to get meaningful reports. AskSam has a programming language which generates reports, but no report writer for selecting parts of records.
Notebook is the best bet for someone who needs flexible manipulation for lots of text, such as annotated bibliographies. Both Notebook and AskSam will operate with floppy based machines and save relatively concise files -- starting perhaps around 2KB. Finally, if someone has found a "universal" TDBMS, please contact me ASAP at UC-Irvine. :-)
Dayflo is sold by Dayflo Software (17701 Mitchell Ave, N. Irvine California 92714. 714-474-1364). Dayflo 1.3 lists for about $700, including the report generator (Reportflo) and some very useful sample applications. It is sold to universities for about $350. Dayflo just came out with a somewhat simplified variant, called Tracker. Notebook II is sold by Pro/Tem (814 Tolman Drive, Stanford Ca 94305). Notebook lists for about $180, but I have seen it for well under $100 at a nearby discount software store. It can be site licensed to universities at a very low price per unit.
AskSam 3 is sold by Seaside Software in Perry, Florida. It sells for about $200. Excerpts from network comments on Kling's article and comments on AskSam For the last three years I've used Notebook (I & II) to build files about phone lists, books and articles with annotations and reading notes that run up to 75 lines, restaurants that I frequent, etc. Most of these databases have several hundred records each. The books and articles databases are the largest, with about 600 records and growing monthly. I have been a beta tester for Notebook for over 2 years.
I have found Notebook to be a versatile, useful, but somewhat unexciting product. Even so, I keep on returning to Notebook for new applications because its tradeoffs seem to work well in favor of the overall ease of designing and using applications.
I have been discouraged by some of Notebook's limitations, especially the weak handling of dates/numbers & limited text editor. One key application is a tickler file. I have moved it from Notebook to 1-2-3 to Enable's DBMS to Reflex (in early 1986). I am now trying that application and two others in AskSam.
Since last July, I've been using Dayflo in addition to Notebook and Reflex. I have built several databases including a large contact list (with about 1500 names, addresses, phone numbers, interests, etc.) , an equipment inventory for my research projects, tickler files of people to contact, and upcoming commitments.
I basically like Dayflo, and found that it has record structures which are substantially more flexible than Asksam's, a workably clean interface, and good reporting capabilities. I have found Dayflo and Notebook fairly easy to teach temporary part-time student assistants how to use. Nevertheless, I have found Dayflo to be generally sluggish since it goes to disk for many of its overlays and for moving records around. It is unacceptably slow in some key operations; for example, on an 8088 based PC, it can take an hour to print 1500 records to disk, and it can take 3 hours to reindex that database. Dayflo requires the use a hard disk machine. It builds large files, making archiving more time consuming and space consuming than it should be. Overall, I'm least happy with Dayflo's sluggish interaction.
I have found AskSam to be very quick with the small databases that I've built so far, but I wonder how it willwork with 2000-3000 names and addresses, when that database grows. I have found Notebook to be much faster than Dayflo in overall performance. Oddly, Vincent Puglia criticizes Notebook for sluggishness in his Fall 1986 PC-Magazine review and doesn't mention Dayflo's speed problems. I have also been using Reflex for financial reporting, a critical tickler file, managing a special contact list, and for managing the flow of articles for some journals which I edit.I have tried these various text DBMS because they offered special attractive features. However, each has limitations which make them problematic as a general DBMS for my purposes.
I hoped that AskSam could serve as a single DBMS for all (or at least most of my text applications). That is what Puglia's review and Asksam's promotional material lead me to believe. have found AskSam to be flexible in some ways and potentially very powerful. I like the fact that AskSam handles dates and numbers with their own logics, as well as text. The reporting capabilities are impressive and the ability to print multiple records per report line appears very useful. Some of the power comes through a programming language which I find OK, but which would be very problematic to teach to my short term assistants. However, I find AskSam needlessly rigid in handling long text fields and clumsy in small and unexpected ways. Many rave reviews mislead people about AskSam since they often miss some glaring weaknesses. AskSam is a TDBMS with the following peculiar style:
1. A few menus;
2. A complex command language which can't be avoided for almost any kind of formatted retrieval;
3. A control structure which is made powerful by several modes;
4. A overall environment which is made complicated by having to track the current modes in force (Document/Record, Stream/Image, *Sam/ASCII). One has to learn about and manage the interactions between modes. If more flexibility in later releases comes with more modes, then mentally managing the interactions between modes could become another club foot.
AskSam would be superb if I were to use it primarily as a 3X5 card system with keyword retrieval. I suspect that many reviewers use it for collecting random short notes, contacts, leads, etc. It would be superb for that kind of application -- as long as the notes are less than 20 lines (see below). The freeform text capability is fine as long as the notes are short. However, all but the most trivial reports have to be rewritten to change the query criteria. That means I have to teach any assistant how to edit a somewhat jarring query language without inadvertently clobbering other parts of a report format. I would NOT call AskSam "easy to use" as an overall package, even though parts of it are very simple. (It's the parts of AskSam that aren't simple which cause the problems.) AskSam appears adequate for my trial databases to document data files and list casual contacts. It is a bit weaker as a tickler file manager. But I have the MOST trouble envisaging AskSam as a TDBMS to be used for my annotated lists of books and articles.
An ideal TDBMS would allow the user to enter unlimited amounts of text in any field and reformat and reorganize the text very flexibly. It would mix a fairly powerful editor/formatter with a good retrieval capabilities. Notebook allows a record to be up to 28 K long. Any field can be as long as a whole record - 28 K. For my purposes, this is long enough. Most of my comments about books and articles are only a few lines, but a few of them run to 6 K. Asksam's field limit of 20 lines (1.6 K) is short indeed. I spoke about Asksam's field size limit of 20 lines with one of the technical support staff. He suggested using multiple variants of a field in Document mode and printing with {ALL} enabled. This strategy sounds plausible as an off the cuff suggestion, but has two flaws, given Asksam's other limitations.
First and foremost, in AskSam, one cannot easily insert new text or move existing blocks of text around within a document since the text will not move across record boundaries when needed to accommodate a new long block. I sometimes want to add additional comments in the middle of an article's description that I've already written. The user has to manage the target space into which new blocks of text are inserted, or moved, to insure that there is sufficient room in a record. This can mean having to move parts of existing text into adjacent records within the document. This makes document mode a "hack," and a clumsy hack for a true TDBMS.
The second dilemma with this strategy is that the multiple field mode {ALL} seems to print field values at the left margin, REGARDLESS of the margin's settings. This makes an outdented report of this form impossible with {ALL} on:
Jones, Malcolm. TDBMS Design in 10 Easy Lessons. Yoho Press. [description................................................ ............................................................ ..30 line description....................................... ............................................................ ...................] Smith, Audrey. The Cold War in Context. Ypsilanti Press. [description................................................ ..........................................................40 line description............................................ ..... ...................................................... ............................................................ ....................................................... .......]
If the descriptions run longer than 20 lines, they will be continued at the left margin. Having to specify LONG fields in reports is also a hack. The user of a TDBMS should NOT have to think about the length of text fields and should not have to manage field types/lengths when writing a report. The TDBMS should manage that work. I find that Asksam's clumsiness and rigidity in manipulating long text fields cripple my applications the most. I think that this is a serious problem with Asksam's architecture. Document mode as a set of linked records is a hack if fields can't run across records and if the text editor won't slide text across record boundaries to accommodate insertions and deletions of paragraph length when they won't fit into an existing record. My other criticisms of AskSam touch upon features which I feel could be better implemented or which should be added.
a) I know how many records met a search criterion. That's useful to know if I want to narrow my search to expedite browsing and to print a shorter list.
b) A view provides a way to jump to the first, last & n-th records fetched by a query. AskSam is unduly primitive in NOT reporting the number of records that satisfy a search and by not allowing one to jump to the first or last recordswith one or two keystrokes. In my books and articles databases, I sometimes want to know approximately how many items match a search criterion. I should not have to count as I browse. If I've retrieved 40 or 50 books/articles and have bounced back and forth in the list of matched records, I'd like to know where I am. Why should the user of a TDBMS hailed as "one of the most powerful" have to hand simulate a counter when browsing through records?
c) Notebook's views also provides a way to keep a pointer to a set of records when one moves across modules (Query, Update, Execute) and also saves having to repeat queries. For simple queries and small data files, the view is less critical. But for as the databases get larger (thousands of records) and searches take longer, a view can save a lot of time. Notebook allows an effectively arbitrary number of views to be saved and accessible at any time.)
The editor does not allow blocks of text to be moved or copied into multi record documents so that text will have to spill from one record to the next. I would like a way to make end of field "]" characters sticky so that they can't be accidentally deleted with one keystroke. The ] is a distinguished character in AskSam. I have inadvertently clobbered a ] a few times when altering the contents of a record and then found surprising results in my reports.
The user should not have to commit to move or copy when marking a block. One should copy to a buffer and then move or copy as needed when at the target. HELP and the Logic of Seamless Work with Computing Asksam's Help facility is among the worst designs that I have seen. In AskSam, Help can only be called from the Main menu - not from a mode like Query, Update or Execute. The Help file - an AskSam file - replaces the user's file in use. From one angle, this is very elegant. The user can exploit Sam's query language to search the file. One can even customize the Help file with in the Update module. The implementation must have been relatively easy since the Help file is just another file.
In contrast with AskSam, Notebook provides descriptive information with the press of the F1 key within any module. Dayflo provides a standard set of help information that is not context sensitive on the F1-key. This is not great, but at least Dayflo doesn't swap out your file and your location within it. Your cursor is left its original location after returning from Help. Dayflo has superbly integrated help information and prompts into the menuing system. If a user presses F1 for help in the course of executing a command, Dayflo provides a Help screen or prompt for that menu option and every subsequent menu option in that command. That "help" supports the workflow. It doesn't distract from it. In summary, I have found AskSam to be powerful and promising in many ways. But I had overly high expectations based on the unreservedly rave reviews that PC Magazine gave AskSam.
AskSam deserves some praise, but not unrelenting praise. AskSam seems compromised by a somewhat disintegrated set of features and limited abilities to handle arbitrary sets of text flexibly. I am most limited by Asksam's clumsiness in text fields longer than 20 lines. But I'm disturbed that a feature as well understood as "help" could be implemented so badly.
13 This article originated as a computer network news item. The author has given permission for it to be reproduce here. The editor feels that it is an excellent example of how information and techniques developing in engineering sciences can be of immediate relevance to the social sciences, even to work that has a textual and humanistic framework.
14 kling%icse.UCI.EDU@ICSE.UCI.EDU
CAAN readers are probably wondering why a new issue hasn't arrived sooner. The publication schedule is definitely irregular. The basic problem in publishing CAAN is that it is a one-man show. I have hired a student assistant to take care of some of the subscription work. Nevertheless, after admitting to myself that, as a university professor, I do have other work to do, I find that I can manage to publish only about two issues a year without problems. Now, this could change if CAAN has some help. So if there are readers who have some interest in helping CAAN, please get in touch with me. My addresses are at the end of this issue. There are many things that could make the newsletter come out more often and improve the scope of its offerings. Editorial help in finding, reviewing, and editing news and manuscripts is needed. Help in typing, layout, and printing is needed -- This is real desktop publishing. Help is needed maintaining subscription lists and mailing. The system is worked out and I can pass along the know-how from laser printing to database management. Eventually I would like to form an editorial board that could take over when needed. I make this request, because CAAN is serving an important function. It is being requested by more and more university libraries and other subscribers. It is an important source of information for many people, and the only publication in the US devoted solely to communicating computer techniques to anthropologists.
Aurora Software, 8931 Elim St., Anchorage, AK 99507
Volume 2, number 4 of CAAN, contains two reviews of Aurora Software's Needle-In-A-Haystack program, the first by John J. Wood of Northern Arizona University and the second by Benjamin F. Crabtree and Pertti J. Pelto of the University of Connecticut. I would like to express my thanks to these reviewers for evaluating the program. Interested readers may wish to refer back to these reviews while considering the following comments. My intention here is to correct some reviewer errors and apparent misunderstandings of Needle's capabilities, to update readers on changes in program function, and to comment briefly on using Needle in a research program.
First, the address for Aurora Software has changed. The new address is: Aurora Software, 8931 Elim St., Anchorage, AK 99507. [Phone: (907) 349-6047].
Second, with reference to Dr. Wood's review, I should point out that Needle is not "relational" in the sense that "relational" is used with "database." The only sense in which Needle is relational is that it maintains the relationship between leading and trailing significant words. Third, I do not know what problem Wood encountered with the ".num" file extension. If the user moves, in a single session, from the numbering section of the program to the build data base section and simply enters a return when the name of the numbered file is requested, the program will fill in the entire name automatically. If numbering and building the data base take place in different sessions then, as he noted, it is necessary to enter the entire name from the keyboard.
In the second review, Crabtree and Pelto noted difficulties setting printer commands. Unfortunately, their review is of an obsolete version of Needle-In-A-Haystack. The current version, Version 1.33, sold since June, 1987, eliminates the need to deal with printer set-up entirely. With that admittedly involved section excised from the program, and from the manual, perhaps Crabtree and Pelto would now agree with Wood (who reviewed version 1.33) that "Needle is extremely easy to use, and the user's manual is helpful and comprehensive."
The remainder of my comments focus on the use of indexing programs, such as Needle-In-A-Haystack, in the overall analysis of text. Needle is perhaps most valuable in the initial stages of analysis when a researcher is pondering the data, noting points of interest and following connections from those points to others of potential interest. Often, at this stage, the original research plan is heavily modified, even abandoned, as ideas meet real data. In other cases, data collected by one or more field workers are being analyzed by multiple researchers in search of data relevant to each. In short, at this stage, flexibility (or redundancy as Crabtree and Pelto call it) is the key--we want to be able to get at information from any starting point.
Crabtree and Pelto noted the redundancy in the Needle indexes, introducing a hypothetical example to demonstrate it. As an aside, their example index was not, apparently, produced by Needle-In-A-Haystack. If their phrase "...the storm delayed testing services until Wednesday..." were actually indexed by Needle the result would include just the major words on either side of the primary word, and the format would resemble the following:
delayed
storm
testing (no other words here,)
testing
delayed
services (here,)
services
testing
until (or here.)
Of course, in an actual text index there will be many entries of little or no relevance to a particular topic but, as Crabtree and Pelto, say, let's "think a moment." How do we use an index? It is not read from beginning to end; rather one goes directly to initial points of interest-- whether the index is 10 pages or 100 makes little difference from the point of view of use. It is the redundancy in the index that gives a user the freedom to approach a topic from any desired direction, and, even, to brainstorm. To return to the above example, if we are interested in "delays," we might well be interested in noting that they are caused by storms and that they result in the postponement of testing. Looking up the primary word "delayed" in the index would lead to that additional information. On the other hand our primary interest might be in "testing". Looking up that primary word in the index would lead us to additional information about delayed testing. This ability to start at any point and then to "browse" from topic to related topic with facility is one of the strengths of Needle's approach.
As Wood noted, Needle does provide a means of shortening an index by outputting only word pairs which occur at least twice in the text. This is a feature that works well heuristically to sort out phrases that writers find important enough to mention systematically. Random conjunctions of words are thus eliminated and typically, this "compact" index is about one fifth the length of the regular index. There is always the risk, however, that phrases of interest will be mentioned only once and, thereby, be omitted from the index. Choosing the regular or compact version of the index is thus a judgement left to the discretion of the researcher.
There is another advantage to complete indexing worthy of mention. Such an index, printed out and attached to a transcript, gives immediate assistance to any researcher, not just those with access to a computer, a program, and the knowledge to use these tools. Once Needle has produced an index, the data in the document are available to anyone with a copy. Public documents become truly accessible to the public, whether their interests coincide with those of the computer operator, or not.
Finally, one of the nicest features of personal computers is that they cost next to nothing to run, especially compared to the human beings who use them. Needle takes advantage of this economic verity by operating on unmodified ASCII or WordStar format files. By contrast, programs such as The Ethnograph require extensive and time- consuming coding before the program comes into play. That's fine in an ideal world with unlimited time for research, but in the real world where time is at a premium, Needle's fully computerized approach can save crucial hours. In fact, as the research focus sharpens, the compact index produced by Needle would be a good platform on which to construct a list of coding categories for input into programs such as The Ethnograph.
In summary, Needle-In-A-Haystack's approach, is at once both simplifying and complex. It is simple in the sense that Needle is designed to facilitate access to text without the need for preliminary coding. It is complex, in that Needle retains something of the relationship between words. As a result, Needle is a valuable tool in the early stages of text analysis.
Department of Anthropology
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, Wisconsin 53706
Archaeological materials are buried in the ground; sites and artifacts are generally not visible. Even excavations generally do not expose large areas to the naked eye. Thus, there is little opportunity for students to observe and/or investigate the occurrence of sites across the landscape or of artifacts on prehistoric settlements. Graphic displays on computers, however, can be used to simulate such distributions and to offer a means for rapidly investigating the nature of archaeological data - providing completely new views of this information for consideration. The visual and interactive aspects of such displays provides a special learning atmosphere that is unavailable from film, drawings, or even field work.
Fugawiland is an interactive computer assignment for use in introductory courses in archaeology and general anthropology. The software runs on IBM/compatible equipment with a minimum of 256K of memory, a graphics card, and a printer. Students are shown a map of twenty-five site locations across an hypothetical landscape and are asked to select and excavate ten sites from that group. "Excavation" reveals the plan of the site showing the distribution of artifacts, houses, hearths, and burials, graphically on the computer screen. Hard copy of the site maps can be obtained using the Print Screen key.
Through the visual examination of a number of "excavated" sites and their contents, patterns may emerge that provide information on prehistoric subsistence, settlement, season of occupation, population, and land use. This courseware emphasizes the learning experience by providing a wide variety of help screens with additional information about maps, artifacts, faunal resources, analysis, and the like. Fugawiland further requires creative problem solving inorder to resolve the nature of patterning in the distribution of sites, artifacts, and archaeological features.
Simple analytical routines permit students to sort through the tables of the data produced by the excavations, and to look at histograms and scatter-plots of specific artifact categories, types of sites, landscape variables, and/or combinations of these. Inspection, analysis, and interpretation of these data should enhance the student's appreciation for the nature of archaeological information. Students are evaluated using a series of multiple choice questions regarding the sites and their contents in Fugawiland.
Virtually no familiarity with personal computers is assumed for this courseware. Fugawiland is very easy to use and provides a series of prompts and help screens to lead students through the exercise. If no response is made, the next screen will be shown after an appropriate interval. Students are requested to enter their name and ID number at the beginning of the assignment. This step insures both some confidence in the computer and the entry of information required for a log of users and assignment scores. Fugawiland takes approximately one to two hours to complete and results in an answer sheet with responses to ten multiple choice questions. Students may look at these questions at any point during the assignment and may change any answer prior to completing the assignment. These ten questions are chosen randomly from a larger array, insuring a wide variety of possible responses. This question set is provided below with the correct answers. Fugawiland provides a printed sheet for each student with the questions they were given and the answers they gave. In addition to the multiple choice questions, you may ask the students to prepare a one-page written description of the archaeology of Fugawiland if you wish. The instructor is given information on individual student performance as well as summary statistics on the class use and performance. A separate program (Fugawi.Sec) is provided to obtain this information. We recommend a follow-up class hour devoted to a discussion of interpretation in archaeology. This session could be used to review the kinds of information that were presented in the assignment and how that information can inform about season of occupation, size of group, subsistence activities, group affiliation and the like. The concepts and basic patterns in information that structure Fugawiland are discussed below. In addition, the table of all information used to characterize the sites in Fugawiland is given at the end of this documentation. It should be emphasized that Fugawiland is a hypothetical situation with more and better information than is available in actual archaeological studies. Nevertheless it is a realistic simulation of the kinds of questions that archaeologists ask and it providesthe kinds of information that can be used to answer those questions.
Fugawiland was developed with support from a grant of equipment from IBM and additional assistance from the College of Letters & Science, University of Wisconsin- Madison. The program, documentation, and further information are available from WISC-WARE, Madison Academic Computing Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison WI 53706. Association for Studies on Transitions to Agriculture (ASTA) Gurcharan S. Khanna, Christopher B. Wagner Department of Anthropology UC Berkeley A computer network listing of scholars with intersecting interests, ASTA is compiling a directory of those with broad interests in the study of the transition to agriculture and the development of complex societies. We welcome scholars from diversely related fields, including anthropology, archaeology, geosciences, life sciences, ecology, computing, and more.
Become part of this Interdisciplinary Information Interchange. There is no cost. To be included in the Scholars' Directory, simply send us your name, addresses (electronic and postal), institutional-affiliation,and fields of specialization. Further details and aid in connecting to a network can be obtained from:
E-mail Postal arpa-style: asta@qal.berkeley.edu asta UUCP: ...ucbvax!jade!snowy.qal!asta 2220 Piedmont Ave. Bitnet: qalop@ucbviole Berkeley, CA 94720
The National Collegiate Software Clearinghouse has started issuing Human Relations Area Files diskettes for the IBM PC. This release puts these data in many popular microcomputer formats, including SPSS/PC+, Lotus .WK1, dBASE .DBF, DIF, comma-delimited ASCII, and column-aligned ASCII. Two volumes are available so far, at $35 each: Volume 1, General Cultural and Religious Data, and Volume 2, Death and Dying in the Life Cycle. Each contains over 100 variables on 60 cultures. For information and phone orders contact NCSC, NCSU Box 8101, Raleigh, NC 27695; (919) 737-2468. A catalog on 120 other products is available free.
The Winter 1987-88 issue of the Social Science Microcomputer Review (Volume 5, No. 4) contains an extensive state-of-the- art review of computing in anthropology, written by Dennis O'Neil of Palomar College. Other state-of-the-art essays in this issue will cover sociology, statistics, expert systems, psychology, history, political science, economics, public administration, and law. The SSMR COSTS $24 ($40 LIBRARIES) FROM DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 6697 COLLEGE STATION, DURHAM, NC 27708; (919) 684-2174.
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility is an alliance of computer professionals concerned about the impact of computer technology on society. We believe that decisions regarding this technology have far reaching consequences and reflect our basic values and priorities. As technical experts, we are responsible for providing the public with realistic assessments of the power, promise, and limitations of computer technology. As concerned citizens, we must direct public attention to the critical choices regarding applications of computer technology, especially where there are potentially dangerous consequences or important and widespread social implications. Because computers are often viewed as too complex for the general public to understand, decisions about their use are often left to experts. But we believe that the fundamental issues are not so complex as to be beyond the grasp of the lay person, and that the quality and even survival of society may in fact depend on citizen involvement in such issues. CPSR's purpose is to provide a public forum of informed discussion about critical applications of the signature technology of our age.
Currently, CPSR has two basic programs, one on "reliability and risk" issues, and one on computing, privacy and civil liberties. CPSR was started because of a concern about the reliability of computers used to control strategic nuclear weapons. We continue to do work on the role of computers in the arms race. We have broadened this part of our program to address the use of computers in all settings in which unreliability entails great risks to the public. We believe that a fundamental feature of a civilized society is a right to privacy and a protection of civil liberties. We are concerned by the explosive growth of computerized files of information on citizens, data banks which threaten our privacy and erode our liberties. CPSR works with individuals and organizations working to protect privacy and civil liberties. We provide a technical expertise in the technology that is making the modern compromise of privacy possible.
Most importantly, members of CPSR believe that computer technology should be used to make life easier, more productive, enjoyable and secure. We are working for a world in which science and technology are used not to produce weapons of war or systems of government control, but to produce the means to a safe and just society.
In June, 1985, CPSR published one of the first papers on the computer aspects of the Strategic Defense Initiative, or "Star Wars," by Drs. Greg Nelson and Dave Redell. In October, 1985, CPSR/Boston co-sponsored, with the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, the first public debate on the computing problems of the SDI, featuring CPSR members Professors Joseph Weizenbaum and David L. Parnas, and SDIO representatives Professor Chuck Seitz and Dr. Danny Cohen. In December, 1985, CPSR sent Professor David Parnas to Washington to testify on the SDI before the Senate Subcommittee on Strategic and Theater Nuclear Forces. CPSR/Boston has co-produced, with Interlock Media, an award- winning slide show called RELIABILITY AND RISK: COMPUTERS AND NUCLEAR WAR. The half-hour slide show, also available as a videotape, features interviews with prominent computer scientists and Pentagon officials, and discusses the preeminent role of computers in the U.S. strategic arsenal. In July, 1987, CPSR/Seattle organized and hosted CPSR's first research conference, Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing. The proceedings for this conference will be published as a book, and the conference will be held again in 1988, in Minneapolis/St. Paul. CPSR members have produced a book entitled COMPUTERS IN BATTLE: WILL THEY WORK? The book is published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. It is the first anthology of material written for the lay reader about the way computers are revolutionizing weapons.
CPSR is consulting with the House Subcommittee on Constitutional and Civil Rights regarding a proposed upgrade and expansion of the FBI's National Crime Information Center, one of the world's largest computer systems. CPSR also consists of fourteen chapters in the United States, each of which sponsors its own public meetings, speakers, symposia, research, and other projects. CPSR chapters are a vehicle for concerned professionals to meet and talk about the most important issues of the profession.
The Native American Research Information Service (NARIS) is a computerized data base containing complete bibliographic information and research abstracts related to Native American economic, natural resource, and human resource development. Designed to efficiently access specific information, NARIS provides a product tailored to meet the needs and interests of its individual service users. MARIS contains over 6,000 entries on research (including planning and evaluation studies) focusing on American Indian and Alaska Native issues. A very comprehensive system, NARIS also includes ongoing research and studies that have not been published or widely distributed. The studies comprising this data base are current and represent a period of coverage dating back to 1969. Each reference typically includes bibliographic information, funding source, document location, tribe, geographiclocation, index terms, and a brief abstract of the study contents. Utilizing an extensive list of topic areas, the NARIS staff can direct you to studies pertaining to your specific areas of interest.
NARIS
American Indian Institute
The University of Oklahoma
555 Constitution Avenue
Norman, Oklahoma 73037
United Nations Information Transfer and Exchange 15 Unitex is designed to help inform and educate people interested in the United Nations system, and to assist those who wish to help achieve the goals of the United Nations. We hope you enjoy the system. UNITEX is a trademark of Development Programme Initiatives, Inc. (DPII), Room 600, 22 West 38th Street, New York, NY USA 10018. Tax deductible contributions to help support this system made payable to DPII, and sent to the above address will be greatly appreciated.
This BBS is a voluntary effort of Development Programme Initiatives, Inc. DPII operates UNITEX for its' sponsor - the International Federation of Business and Professional Women, a Class I Non-Governmental Organization with consultative status before the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Ms. Dorothy Nicklus, UN Representative for the IFBPW, is the Chair of DPII. Dr. James Waldron is Senior Technical Director and SYSOP (System Operator) of Unitex, Dr. Marshall Whithed is Project Director and Assistant System operator of UNITEX, Mr Robert Osband is Assistant System Operator and Technical Coordinator of Unitex.
Your use of UNITEX is voluntary, as is our operation of it, and no claims for any damages arising from the use of UNITEX, real or imagined, can in any way be compensated for. In other words, we are not responsible for your use of our system.
If you feel that you have information that should be distributed to our "community of interest", please feel free to send it via FidoNET mail: James Waldron (1:107/701) or you can upload it, and then leave a message to the Sysop with information about the file you've uploaded. Do not be surprised, however, if you are considered "Well Meaning", and your material winds up in the MISC area. This sort of thing is very subjective, and the Sysop's decision is final. Dr. James Waldron (Sysop) and Robert Osband (Assistant Sysop) UNITEX (1:107/701) 212-764-5912 (300/1200/2400 baud, 24 hrs.)
15 1-212-764-5912 (FidoNET: 1:107/701) 300/1200/2400 baud.
STANFORD, CA., April 20, 1988--Scholars invariably complain about countless hours spent conforming bibliographies to rigid style requirements--hours that could otherwise be spent in research and writing. A new version of Notebook II, Pro/Tem Software's database manager, will minimize this tedious work. The new program allows a user to compile a properly alphabetized and formatted bibliography with ease in an unlimited number of styles. A third party developer has also created templates that automatically format bibliographies into any one of four standard formats -- Chicago, Turabian, MLA, and APA -- with more to come. The new version adds other features necessary for the scholar and researcher. When data from on-line databases are imported into Notebook II, the ever-pervasive duplicate entries can be automatically eliminated. Block text functions are supplemented by a "find and replace" function that allows users to search through a database to change specific words or phrases.
Notebook II sells as a modular collection of programs which can be purchased separately or together, as the researcher's needs dictate. The core database/word processing program is Notebook II at $189. Automatic bibliography compilation from a manuscript is performed by a separate module, "Bibliography," that sells for $75. For those capturing on- line database material in their research, "Convert" is available for $75. (The three programs together cost $299.) The templates that automatically turn bibliographies into standard formats are available for $30 from third party developer Oberon Resources.
Pro/Tem's "Bibliography" reads a manuscript file created by any word processor, identifies citations, and then compiles a bibliography of all works cited. The format of that bibliography is entirely under the researcher's control. "Convert" transforms files downloaded from an on- line database for use with a Notebook II database.
16 Notebook II is sold by Pro/Tem, 814 Tolman Drive, Stanford CA 94305.
EX-SAMPLE: An Expert System to Assist in Designing Sampling Plans, is an program using artificial intelligence techniques to assist researchers in designing sampling plans. Based on user responses to a series of questions, EX- SAMPLE determines the maximum possible sample size given resources of time, money, and personnel. It adjusts that size downward to reflect response rates, contamination, exclusions, and other factors. Then it compares the resultant sample size with the sample sizes required to perform specific analyses. It provides a detailed written report in an ASCII file describing its recommendations for sample size. That report may be inserted into a proposal, final report, or manuscript. Researchers can use EX-SAMPLE_ to plan research proposals, justify sample sizes to funding agencies, and conduct sensitivity analyses of the impact of various assumptions on sample size. Funding agencies can use EX-SAMPLE to evaluate the sample size in proposals. Teachers can use EX-SAMPLE to teach students how to determine sample size for a wide range of problems.
Unlike most statistics programs which only compute statistics for the user, EX-SAMPLE also helps the user decide which types of analysis to perform and how to interpret the results. EX-SAMPLE includes procedures to determine the sample size required to perform a wide range of statistical analyses including one- and two-sample comparisons of means and proportions, one-way analysis of variance, bivariate and multivariate contingency tables, regression and path analysis, comparisons of two correlations, log-linear models, and factor analysis. Features include context-sensitive on-screen help, a change- and-rerun feature for sensitivity analyses, references and notes documenting procedures used, and clarifications and explanations of questions on request.
EX-SAMPLE runs on an IBM-PC or true compatible with at least 384K RAM and one floppy disk drive. A second disk drive or hard disk is recommended.
Price: $95. Contact: The Idea Works, Inc. 100 West Briarwood, Columbia, MO 65203.