Technical Concepts

During this subsequent unit we will go over some technical topics that we need to cover so as to afterwards be able to discuss and analyze the implications of computer systems on individuals and societies.
We will approach this unit by first reading about these issues and then working on a series of assignments that will let us derive and infer their implications based on a sounder technical base.
Analog and digital data: How Analog and Digital Recording Works, from HowStuffWorks, an interesting tutorial on analog and digital recording that covers well the difference between analog and digital data. If you Google “analog and digital data” you will come across many reliable sources that will yield information on the differences between both types of data.
Difference between data and information: Again, a very clear distinction can be made between data, that is, recorded numbers, readings, etc. which in themselves are meaningless as opposed to information which can be derived from the processing and analysis of that data, in our context through computer software in a process known as data processing. There are abundant sources on this topic, a well-summarized and concise reference can be found at Understanding the Difference Between Data and Information.
Operating Systems: We will be watching a couple of videos from www.commoncraft.com
Then, we will once more be referring to HowStuffWorks for a general introduction on How Operating Systems Work. It provides a good and thorough introduction to this very important concept.

Recap for Evaluation

During this first part of our course, we have studied search engines, their underlying mechanism, characteristics and some of the potential implications on individuals and society of their manipulation.
The topics that we have covered include:
• Basic knowledge of the Internet, servers and clients, protocols, data packets, IP, DNS.
• The nature of search engines, their four main characteristics, indexing algorithms, what makes a search engine better than others.
• Validating sources.
• A brief glimpse into the nature of search engine algorithms. Search Engine Optimization. Pagerank. Google bombing.
• How search engines can be manipulated and their potential effects on individuals and society.
• User constructed search engine queries, search engine design criteria, tendencies, differences between novice and advanced users.
WARNING: I will not be doing this in successive units, since one of the learning objectives of this course is to be able to distinguish relevant and non-relevant information as well as developing the ability to sort out data that is not necessarily in written form.

Constructing queries

Our last lecture focused on how search engines study user habits and characteristics when designing their web searches.
Suppose you had to write a paper for your Biology class on possibilities for life existing on other planets. Working in pairs (once again, different from the previous two groups), your task is to identify four good sources to help you in the assignment.
Your assignment should include:
- A description of how you constructed/refined your successive queries.
- An analysis of why/how the search engine responded to your search terms, relevancy of the sites returned, a comparison of the efficiency of each query.
- The URLs of the sources.
- If you were the instructor of the class and had to give advice to your students on performing the search, without mentioning specific web sites, what would you tell them on how to build the query?
Assignments should be emailed to mailto:itgs.sass@gmail.com before the end of Friday, March 26th.

User interfaces

The following video provides interesting insight on search engine queries and their implications. The speaker is Dr. David Rose, from Yahoo! Search, and it will serve as a basis for our next assignment.

Search Engine Rankings

During the video that we watched, several key issues related to the inner workings of web search engines are discussed, as well as how web engines process their indexes.
We will use this assignment to try to visualize in a practical way how search engines, in this case Google, have such a powerful influence in how businesses and even individuals fare in society.
Answer the following questions in pairs, which have to be different from the groups you formed for the first assignment, and email them to itgs.sass@gmail.com before the end of the lesson on Friday, March 12th.
1) Suppose you want to find out about alternate energy and its applications, so perform a search query on electric cars on Google and one other web search engine and answer the following questions:
a. Compare the two search engines on the four criteria outlined in the video (Length, depth, frequency, types of files indexed)
b. Analyze the results from the first page and explain the reasons for the first four sites to be ranked on each engine.
c. What can you conclude about each search engine’s ranking algorithms?
2) Explain what Pagerank and SEO are and briefly outline how web site owners can utilize strategies to rank higher on search engines.
3) Conduct the following searches on Google:
- Arabian Gulf
- Talentless hack
- Miserable failure
and, with regards to the above searches, explain what “Google bombing” is as well as its potential implications for individuals and organizations.