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The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) serves as a hub for interdisciplinary research, combining social and computer science to explore information, communication, and technology. It is an integral part of the University of Oxford's Social Sciences Division in England.
The OII is spread across three locations on St Giles in Oxford, with its main hub at 1 St Giles, owned by Balliol College. This department focuses on exploring digital life to influence Internet research, policy, and usage.
Founded in 2001, the OII explores how the Internet affects our lives. It unites experts in fields like politics, sociology, and science to study online behavior. The current director is Professor Victoria Nash. [1]
Research at the OII covers a diverse range of topics, with faculty publishing journal articles and books on issues including privacy and security, e-government and e-democracy, virtual economies, smart cities, digital exclusion, digital humanities, online gaming, big data and Internet geography. The OII currently has the following research clusters reflecting the diverse expertise of faculty:
The research conducted at the OII covers a wide range of topics in Internet studies and the social impact of online technologies. Online politics, online education, social media and mental health, Internet-based collaboration, online dating, digital economy, the geography of the internet, and ethical and legal aspects of online technologies are among the main research topics followed at the Oxford Internet Institute.[ citation needed ]
OII has published several studies on Internet geography and Wikipedia. In November 2011, The Guardian Data Blog published maps of geotagged Wikipedia articles written in English, Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, French, Hebrew and Persian. [2] OII researcher Mark Graham [3] led the study and published the results on his blog, Zero Geography. [4]
Graham also leads an OII project focused on how new users are perceived, represented, and incorporated into the Wikipedia community. [5]
In 2013, OII researchers led by Taha Yasseri published a study of controversial topics in 10 different language versions of Wikipedia, using data related to "edit wars". [6]
The OII has also been involved in research on the effects of computational propaganda, the ethics of big data in different contexts and the political implications of the Internet and social media. It collaborates with other institutions of the University of Oxford such as the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, the Department of Computer Science, and the Oxford Martin School.[ citation needed ]
In 2020, OII researcher Fabian Stephany and his colleague Hamza Salem published a study on using information-seeking behaviour patterns of Wikipedia users to predict US congressional elections. [7] Their model accurately predicted the election outcome for 31 of 35 states in the 2020 United States Senate elections. [8]
Several researchers at the OII study the digital economy. The OII is home of the Online Labour Index (OLI), the first economic indicator measuring the activity of the global online gig-economy, [9] which was created and is administered by the OII researchers Otto Kässi, Vili Lehdonvirta, and Fabian Stephany. The index is a globally recognised reference for the measurement of the online freelance economy. [10] [11] [12] [13] Since 2021, the Online Labour Index is hosted on a new research hub, the Online Labour Observatory [14] jointly administered by the OII and the International Labour Organisation. [15]
In 2020, OII researchers initiated the CoRisk Index, [16] the first economic indicator of industry risk assessments related to COVID-19.
Since 2006, the OII has offered a DPhil (doctoral) degree in "Information, Communication, and the Social Sciences." [17] Since 2009, it has offered a one-year Master of Science (MSc) degree in "Social Science of the Internet". [18] From 2015, prospective students can apply to study the MSc degree part-time over two years. [19] In addition, the department also runs an annual Summer Doctoral Programme which brings outstanding PhD students to study at the OII for two weeks each July. [20] From 2018, prospective students also have the option to apply for a one-year Master of Science degree in Social Data Science [21] with the related DPhil in Social Data Science available from 2020 onward. [22]
The Oxford Internet Institute was made possible by a major donation from the Shirley Foundation of over £10m, with public funding totalling over £5m from the Higher Education Funding Council for England. [23]
The idea originated with Derek Wyatt MP and Andrew Graham, then Master-Elect of Balliol. Two Balliol Alumni, who knew Dame Stephanie from The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, persuaded Dame Stephanie to meet Andrew Graham and it was following their meeting that she agreed to give the idea her support. [23]
The Oxford Internet Institute is part of a small network of research centres that includes the centres like the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and Information Society Project at the Yale Law School. But it is the only one that functions as a fully functioning, degree-granting department.[ citation needed ]
For its 10th anniversary, the OII launched the OII awards for lifetime achievement awards on the internet research field and the Internet & Society awards for significant recent contribution to develop the internet for public good. [26]
Balliol College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world.
Andrew Graham is a British political economist. He is currently Executive Chair of the Europaeum and Chair of the Academic Council of the Europaeum, Senior Fellow of the Oxford Internet Institute, Trustee of Reprieve, and an Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford and of St Edmund Hall, Oxford.
Richard Rose is a political scientist, author, and academic whose comparative studies in social science have significantly influenced political science and public policy in both practice and theory. He is a Professor and Director of the Centre for the Study of Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde (UOS) in Scotland, and is a Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
Charles R. Conn is a Canadian and American CEO, conservationist and author. In 2021 he co-founded and is partner of Monograph, a life sciences venture firm. In 2019 he was the CEO of Oxford Sciences Innovation. Previously, he was the warden and global CEO of Rhodes House and the Rhodes Trust, the organization responsible for administering the Rhodes Scholarship from 2013 to 2018.
The Department of Social Policy and Intervention is an interdisciplinary centre for research and teaching in social policy and the systematic evaluation of social intervention based in the Social Sciences Division of the University of Oxford. It dates back to Barnett House, a social reform initiative founded in 1914 by a reform movement clergyman, Samuel Barnett, becoming a department of Oxford in 1961.
Gina Neff is the Executive Director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge. Neff was previously Professor of Technology & Society at the Oxford Internet Institute and the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford. Neff is an organizational sociologist whose research explores the social and organizational impact of new communication technologies, with a focus on innovation, the digital transformation of industries, and how new technologies impact work.
Helen Zerlina Margetts, is Professor of Internet and Society at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), University of Oxford and from 2011 to 2018 was Director of the OII. She is currently Director of the Public Policy Programme at The Alan Turing Institute. She is a political scientist specialising in digital era governance and politics, and has published over a hundred books, journal articles and research reports in this field.
Taha Yasseri is a physicist and sociologist known for his research on Wikipedia and computational social science. He is a professor at the School of Sociology at University College Dublin, Ireland. He was formerly a senior research fellow in computational social science at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), University of Oxford, a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute for data science, and a research fellow in humanities and social sciences at Wolfson College, Oxford. Yasseri is one of the leading scholars in computational social science and his research has been widely covered in mainstream media. Yasseri obtained his PhD in theoretical physics of complex systems at the age of 25 from the University of Göttingen, Germany.
Safiya Umoja Noble is a professor at UCLA, and is the co-founder and co-director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. She is the author of Algorithms of Oppression, and co-editor of two edited volumes: The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class and Culture and Emotions, Technology & Design. She is a research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. She was appointed a Commissioner to the University of Oxford Commission on AI and Good Governance in 2020. In 2020 she was nominated to the Global Future Council on Artificial Intelligence for Humanity at the World Economic Foundation.
Marina Denise Anne Jirotka is professor of human-centered computing at the University of Oxford, director of the Responsible Technology Institute, governing body fellow at St Cross College, board member of the Society for Computers and Law and a research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute. She leads a team that works on responsible innovation, in a range of ICT fields including robotics, AI, machine learning, quantum computing, social media and the digital economy. She is known for her work with Alan Winfield on the 'Ethical Black Box'. A proposal that robots using AI should be fitted with a type of inflight recorder, similar to those used by aircraft, to track the decisions and actions of the AI when operating in an uncontrolled environment and to aid in post-accident investigations.
The iLabour Project is a research project at the Oxford Internet Institute funded by the European Research Council and led by the Finnish economic sociologist and Internet researcher Vili Lehdonvirta.
Vili Lehdonvirta is Professor of Economic Sociology and Digital Social Research at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He is also a senior research fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, an associate member of the Department of Sociology, Oxford and a former Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute, London. Lehdonvirta is an economic sociologist, whose research draws on theories and approaches from economic sociology, new institutional economics, and political science. His research examines the socio-economic and political implications of new digital technologies.
Sandra Wachter is a professor and senior researcher in data ethics, artificial intelligence, robotics, algorithms and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute. She is a former Fellow of The Alan Turing Institute.
Yakaré-Oulé (Nani) Jansen Reventlow is a human rights lawyer who specialises in strategic litigation at the intersection of human rights, social justice, and technology. She is the founding director of Systemic Justice, which works to radically transform how the law works for communities fighting for racial, social, and economic justice. She previously founded and built Digital Freedom Fund, which advances digital rights in Europe through strategic litigation.
The Department of Economics is an academic department of the University of Oxford within the Social Sciences Division. Relatively recently founded in 1999, the department is located in the Norman Foster-designed Manor Road Building.
James M. Manyika is a Zimbabwean-American academic, consultant, and business executive. He is known for his research and scholarship into the intersection of technology and the economy, including artificial intelligence, robotics automation, and the future of work. He is Google's first Senior Vice President of Technology and Society, reporting directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. He focuses on "shaping and sharing" the company's view on the way tech affects society, the economy, and the planet. In April 2023, his role was expanded to Senior Vice President for Research, Technology & Society and includes overseeing Google Research and Google Labs and focusing more broadly on helping advance Google’s most ambitious innovations in AI, Computing and Science responsibly. He is also Chairman Emeritus of the McKinsey Global Institute.
Wikipedia has been criticized for the inequality in the distribution of its content with respect to the geographical association of article subjects. The research shows that despite considerable differences of this distribution depending on the language of Wikipedia, there is a common trend towards more content related to the United States and Western Europe coupled with the scarcity of information about certain regions in the rest of the world.
The Online Labour Index (OLI) is an economic indicator measuring the activity of the global online gig-economy. It was created and is administered by the researchers Otto Kässi, Vili Lehdonvirta, and Fabian Stephany, at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.
The CoRisk Index is the first economic indicator of industry risk assessments related to COVID-19. In contrast to conventional economic climate indexes, e.g. the Ifo Business Climate Index or Purchasing Managers' Index, the CoRisk Index relies on automatically retrieved company filings. The index has been developed by a team of researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, and the Hertie School of Governance in March 2020. It gained international media attention as an up-to-date empirical source for policy makers and researchers investigating the economic repercussions of the Coronavirus Recession.
Limor Shifman is a professor of communication at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. Her work has been in researching and developing an area of study surrounding Internet memes, a subarea of digital culture and digital media research. Since the late 2000s she has been an active contributor to the research area of memetics, a more broad area of research interested in cultural evolution of ideas. She is married to neurogeneticist Sagiv Shifman.
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