Streamlining Social Decision Making for Improved Internet Standards
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Glasgow
Department Name: School of Computing Science
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Organisations
Publications
Healey P
(2024)
Power and vulnerability: managing sensitive language in organizational communication
in Frontiers in Psychology
Karan M.
(2023)
LEDA: a Large-Organization Email-Based Decision-Dialogue-Act Analysis Dataset
in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics
Khare P
(2022)
The Web We Weave: Untangling the Social Graph of the IETF
in Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media
Khare P.
(2023)
Tracing Linguistic Markers of Influence in a Large Online Organisation
in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics
McQuistin S
(2021)
Characterising the IETF through the lens of RFC deployment
McQuistin S
(2023)
A First Look at the Privacy Harms of the Public Suffix List
| Description | Initial findings highlight that Internet standards are becoming more complex over time, and taking longer to publish. The show that academics can have a significant impact on the development of the Internet, and that although there is a dominant clique developing Internet standards, it is possible for newcomers to have an impact. Initial analysis is starting to identify factors that lead to success in developing Internet standards. |
| Exploitation Route | We have ongoing work with the Internet Engineering Task Force, the key standards development organisation relating to the Internet, to explore how to improve their standards development process, diversity of participation. This includes formation of the Research and Analysis of Standards Processes Research Group, which had an initial planning meeting at IETF 115 in November 2022 and was formally chartered early in 2023. |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) |
| Description | In conjunction with the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), the oversight body for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the premier standards development organisation for technical standards relating to the Internet, we organised a workshop to explore how organisational data about the IETF could be used to understand and improve the standards development process. The IAB, and the Internet Engineering Steering Group that oversees day-to-day standards development, are using our results, and those of other related activities, to try to improve the diversity and inclusivity of the process. Ongoing work has led to the formation of a Research and Analysis of Standards Processes Research Group in the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), the research arm of the IETF, that is coordinating an international programme of study in how Internet standards are developed. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
| Sector | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) |
| Impact Types | Economic |
| Description | Internet Futures: Spotlight on the technologies which may shape the Internet of the future |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/internet-and-on-demand-research/internet-futures |
| Title | Characterising the IETF Through the Lens of RFC Deployment |
| Description | Supporting code and data for Stephen McQuistin, Mladen Karan, Prashant Khare, Colin Perkins, Gareth Tyson, Matthew Purver, Patrick Healey, Waleed Iqbal, Junaid Qadir, Ignacio Castro, Characterising the IETF Through the Lens of RFC Deployment, Proceedings of the ACM Internet Measurement Conference, November 2021. DOI:10.1145/3487552.3487821 |
| Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Supporting code and data for Stephen McQuistin, Mladen Karan, Prashant Khare, Colin Perkins, Gareth Tyson, Matthew Purver, Patrick Healey, Waleed Iqbal, Junaid Qadir, Ignacio Castro, Characterising the IETF Through the Lens of RFC Deployment, Proceedings of the ACM Internet Measurement Conference, November 2021. DOI:10.1145/3487552.3487821 |
| URL | https://researchdata.gla.ac.uk/1187/ |
| Title | IETF Datatracker Data Access Tool |
| Description | Data access software, developed by project EP/R04144X/1, used to support development of paper published in the ACM Internet Measurement Conference 2021 (DOI: 10.1145/3487552.3487821) under funding form project EP/S036075/1. |
| Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This software tool supports ongoing research to improve the quality of IETF standards and to understand the diversity, inclusion, and development of the standards process. This particular release supported work published in the ACM Internet Measurement Conference 2021. Other versions have been used to support the Internet Architecture Board workshop on Analysis of IETF Data (https://www.iab.org/activities/workshops/aid/), the BigBang Project (http://datactive.github.io/bigbang/), and our follow-on work in EPSRC project EP/S036075/1. |
| URL | https://github.com/glasgow-ipl/ietfdata |
| Title | ietfdata library |
| Description | This software library contains Python 3 libraries to interact with, and access, the (IETF data tracker)[https://datatracker.ietf.org], (RFC index)[https://www.rfc-editor.org], and related resources. This support data collection for the project, and for related projects. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | This software library supports the goals of the research project and other related projects. In particular, it has been incorporated into the BigBang tool for scientific analysis of Internet standards development and Internet governance communities, developed by Sebastian Benthall (NYU School of Law), Nick Doty (UC Berkeley), and Niels ten Oever (University of Amsterdam). The BigBang tool is the basis for several publications, and has been discussed at IETF and IRTF Internet standards/research meetings. |
| URL | https://github.com/glasgow-ipl/ietfdata |
| Description | Connecting Internet protocols and standards with policy (Article 19/CDT at IETF 115) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Participated in panel discussion at a "Connecting Internet protocols and standards with policy" event organised by Article 19 and the Centre for Democracy and Technology, held co-located with the 115th Internet Engineering Task Force Meeting. Audience was civil society organisations, seeking advice on how to engage with the Internet standards development process. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.com/e/connecting-internet-protocols-and-standards-with-policy-tickets-4308107... |
| Description | DCMS/Internet Society Policymaker Engagement Programme at IETF 115 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Presentation and panel discussion as part of the policymaker programme organised by the Internet Society and the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport, training policymakers on the Internet's design and operations, to allow them to participate effectively in the Internet standards process. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.internetsociety.org/policy-programs/policymakers-program-to-ietf/ |
| Description | HotRFC talk at IETF 112 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Recorded a short lightning presentation and attended a virtual Q&A session. The HotRFC session at the IETF is intended to provide a venue for new IETF or IRTF related work, the goals of encouraging conversation and collaboration, and raising awareness of relevant work. We presented our IMC 2021 paper ("Characterising the IETF Through the Lens of RFC Deployment"). This led to discussion about avenues for future work, including additional data about the IETF that we could analyse. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/112/materials/agenda-112-hotrfc-sessa-20 |
| Description | IETF 110 Hackathon |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Participated in the IETF 110 hackathon. This is a collaborative software development event, intended to foster collaboration and to develop utilities, ideas, sample code and solutions that show practical implementations of IETF standards and related technologies. The focus of our engagement was to enhance collaboration with the BigBang project for analysis of standards development and internet governance, a closely related project to our work at UC Berkely, NYU Law School, and the University of Amsterdam, by integrating the two toolsets, as a prelude to future collaboration. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.ietf.org/how/runningcode/hackathons/110-hackathon/ |
| Description | IETF 113 Hackathon |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Led a project at the IETF 113 hackathon. Co-located with IETF 113 in Vienna, the hackathon aims to provide a venue for collaboration between developers and standards authors, with a view to produce running code and practical implementations. Our participation was a co-creation activity, aimed at engaging with the IETF community to ensure that our tools development and data analysis was focused on issue of importance within that community. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://trac.ietf.org/trac/ietf/meeting/wiki/113hackathon |
| Description | IETF 115 Hackathon |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Championed a project at the IETF 115 Hackathon. This event, co-located with the IETF 115 meeting in London, brought together standards authors, developers, and the wider community, with the aim of developing practical implementations of IETF standards. Our participation at the Hackathon was largely as a co-creation activity, where we shared our ongoing results and tools development with the community, and received feedback that was useful in shaping future work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://wiki.ietf.org/en/meeting/115/hackathon |
| Description | IETF 115: Research and Analysis of Standards Processes Research Group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Meeting at the 115th Internet Engineering Task Force to gauge interest in, and plan creation of, a Research and Analysis of Standards Processes Research Group. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Nominet's "Defending the Free and Open Internet" roundtable |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Roundtable on "Defending the Free and Open Internet", organised by Nominet, focusing on bolstering good internet governance when faced with hostile state and non-state actors. Held at the House of Commons in November 2022, with participation by industry experts, policymakers, and MPs, |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Organise and co-chair IAB AID Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Organised and co-chaired the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) workshop on Analysing IETF Data. The IAB Workshop on Analysing IETF Data (AID) brought together standards developers and researchers to explore trends in IETF data (including mail archives, documents, and metadata). The event was spread over four days, with short lightning-style presentations on the first and fourth days, and a hackathon on the second and third days. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.iab.org/activities/workshops/aid/ |
| Description | Participation in the IAB AID workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presented both the tooling that we have developed, and the key results from our recent IMC 2021 paper ("Characterising the IETF through the lens of RFC deployment"). The IAB Workshop on Analysing IETF Data (AID) brought together standards developers and researchers to explore trends in IETF data (including mail archives, documents, and metadata). The event was spread over four days, with short lightning-style presentations on the first and fourth days, and a hackathon on the second and third days. Our participation in the event led us to identify future research questions, and potential collaborators. Additionally, it helped us to demonstrate the tooling that we have developed to help others with their research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.iab.org/activities/workshops/aid/ |
| Description | Seminar Talk (Multi-Service Networks workshop) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Gave a talk, entitled "Making the Internet: A longitudinal analysis of the IETF", at the Multi-Service Networks workshop (MSN 2022) in July 2022. This talk described some of the key findings of the project to date, along with an overview of its broader goals and next steps. The audience was primarily comprised of academics, but also included participants from industry. The goal was to give visibility to the project and, in particular, the datasets that we have gathered, to encourage collaboration with other members of the community. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://coseners.net/history/previous/coseners-2022/ |
| Description | Seminar Talk (Scottish Networking Event) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Gave a talk, entitled "Can we Improve Internet Protocol Standards?", at the Scottish Networking Event in March 2020, describing the goals of the project and outcomes to date. The audience was primarily other academics, but with some Scottish SMEs present. The goal was to raise awareness of the project, and the techniques we are promoting to improve the standards development process, to members of the research community who engage in technology transfer and Internet standards development. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Seminar Talk (Scottish Networking Event) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Gave a talk, entitled "Making the Internet: A longitudinal analysis of the IETF", at the Scottish Networking Event held at the University of Edinburgh in February 2023. The audience was largely comprised of academics and PhD students from Scottish universities. The goal was to increase the visibility of the project, and to identify possible collaborations with other academics in the community. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://scone.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/meetings/scone-meeting-10-02-2023/ |