Special issue call for papers from Aslib Proceedings
Twitter data analytics

Aslib Proceedings (AP) has an ISI impact factor of 0.635 and is the major publication for ASLIB – the Association for Information Management in the United Kingdom - a membership association for people who manage information and knowledge in organisations and the information industry.

This special 2014 Aslib Proceedings issue is guest edited by Professor Axel Bruns, Queensland University of Technology and Dr Katrin Weller, GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences

What is the focus of this special issue?
This special issue explores the possibilities and limitations of Twitter data analytics. We are particularly interested in papers that place carefully conducted studies into the wider framework of current Twitter research.

Research into Twitter and its uses has been gaining momentum over the last few years, with an increasing number of studies of Twitter communities and Twitter data. Twitter’s role within contemporary internet dynamics and its impact on different areas of private and public life have attracted attention. Researchers in many disciplines have been making progress in the establishment of both theories and methods for Twitter research. However, there still is a lack of comparison across individual studies and a need for commonly accepted standards in analysis and data interpretation.
Twitter research is often based on rich data sets, so called big data, that can be retrieved via the Twitter API and subsequently be mined with specialised tools. This poses several challenges in theory and methods, which have been the subject of much recent discussion; the current hype around ‘big data’ has now also resulted in a critical response which seeks to determine the limitations of working with such only apparently comprehensive data sets and highlights the persisting value of research which draws only on ‘small data’.

For this special issue, we invite articles which address the opportunities and challenges of Twitter data analytics from theoretical and practical, conceptual and empirical perspectives.

Topics of interest include but are not restricted to:

•Qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse Twitter content
•Evaluation of metrics and approaches for Twitter analysis
•Representativeness of Twitter data
•Comparison of data collection approaches
•Legal and ethical issues of Twitter research
•Information visualisation
•Twitter data retrieval and ranking
•Information dissemination on Twitter
•User behaviour and the evolution of norms and conventions
•Information behaviour and information literacy
•Linguistic analysis of Twitter content
•"Embedded" content on Twitter (photos, URLs) and Twitter’s relations to other social networks
•Network analysis
•User surveys
•Usage scenarios and case studies
•Twitter’s role for information management
Submissions
•Papers should clearly connect their studies to the wider body of Twitter scholarship, and spell out the implications of their findings for future research. In general, only research-based submissions will be considered. Viewpoints, literature reviews or general reviews are generally not acceptable
•Papers should be 4,000 to 6,000 words in length (including references). Please see the author guidelines for citations and references style
•For all additional information prior to submission, please contact Professor Axel Bruns or Dr Katrin Weller

•Please make submissions to Aslib Proceedings using ScholarOne Manuscripts, our online submission and peer review system quoting this reference number APCALL6

Schedule dates and submission deadlines
•Paper submission: 15 September 2013
•Notice of review results: 15 November 2013
•Revisions due: 31 December 2013
•Publication: Aslib Proceedings, issue 3, 2014