The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) is a multi-disciplinary department of social and computer science dedicated to the study of information, communication, and technology, and is part of the Social Sciences Division of the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, England.

Overview

The OII is housed over three sites on

St Giles Saint Giles (, la, Aegidius, french: Gilles), also known as Giles the Hermit, was a hermit or monk active in the lower Rhône most likely in the 6th century. Revered as a saint, his cult became widely diffused but his hagiography is mostly lege ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, including a primary site at 1 St Giles, owned by

Balliol College Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the ...

. The department undertakes research and teaching devoted to understanding life online, with the aim of shaping

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

research, policy, and practice. Founded in 2001, the OII has tracked the Internet's development and use, aiming to shed light on individual, collective, and institutional behaviour online. The department brings together academics from a wide range of disciplines including political science, sociology, geography, economics, philosophy, physics and psychology. The current director is Professor Victoria Nash.

Research

Research at the OII covers a huge variety of topics, with faculty publishing journal articles and books on issues including privacy and

security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...

e-government E-government (short for electronic government) is the use of technological communications devices, such as computers and the Internet, to provide public services to citizens and other persons in a country or region. E-government offers new ...

and e-democracy,

virtual economies A virtual economy (or sometimes synthetic economy) is an emergent economy existing in a virtual world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an online game, particularly in massively multiplayer online games (MMOs). People enter th ...

smart cities A smart city is a technologically modern urban area that uses different types of electronic methods and sensors to collect specific data. Information gained from that data is used to manage assets, resources and services efficiently; in retur ...

, digital exclusion,

digital humanities Digital humanities (DH) is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or Information technology, digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. It includes the systematic use of digital resources in the humanitie ...

, online gaming, big data and Internet geography. The OII currently has the following research clusters reflecting the diverse expertise of faculty: * Digital Politics and Government * Information Governance, and Security * Social Data Science * Connectivity, Inclusion, and Inequality * Internet Economies * Digital Knowledge and Culture * Education, Digital Life, and Wellbeing * Ethics and Philosophy of Information 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.

Studies of Wikipedia

OII has published several studies on Internet geography and Wikipedia. In November 2011,

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

Data Blog published maps of

geotagged Geotagging, or GeoTagging, is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data ...

Wikipedia articles written in English,

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

Egyptian Arabic Egyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian ( ar, العامية المصرية, ), or simply Masri (also Masry) (), is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic dialect in Egypt. It is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, and ...

, French,

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

. OII researcher Mark Graham led the study and published the results on his blog, ''Zero Geography''. Graham also leads an OII project focused on how new users are perceived, represented, and incorporated into the Wikipedia community. 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". 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 Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) is a UK-based research centre and think tank founded in 2006, which operates Thomson Reuters Journalism Fellowship Programme, also known as the Reuters Fellowship. History The institute ...

, the Department of Computer Science, and the Oxford Martin School. 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. Their model accurately predicted the election outcome for 31 of 35 states in the

2020 United States Senate elections The 2020 United States Senate elections were held on November 3, 2020, with the 33 class 2 seats of the Senate contested in regular elections. Of these, 21 were held by Republicans, and 12 by Democrats. The winners were elected to six-year t ...

Studies of Internet Economics

Several researchers at the OII study the digital economy. The OII is home of the

Online Labour Index 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 Vili Lehdonvirta is Professor of Economic Sociolo ...

(OLI), the first

economic indicator An economic indicator is a statistic about an economic activity. Economic indicators allow analysis of economic performance and predictions of future performance. One application of economic indicators is the study of business cycles. Economic ...

measuring the activity of the global online

gig-economy Gig workers are independent contractors, online platform workers, contract firm workers, on-call workers, and temporary workers. Gig workers enter into formal agreements with on-demand companies to provide services to the company's clients. In ...

, 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. Since 2021, the Online Labour Index is hosted on a new research hub, the Online Labour Observatory jointly administered by the OII and the International Labour Organisation. In 2020, OII researchers initiated the CoRisk Index, the first

of industry

risk assessment Broadly speaking, a risk assessment is the combined effort of: # identifying and analyzing potential (future) events that may negatively impact individuals, assets, and/or the environment (i.e. hazard analysis); and # making judgments "on the ...

s related to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

Teaching

Since 2006, the OII has offered a

DPhil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

(doctoral) degree in "Information, Communication, and the Social Sciences." Since 2009, it has offered a one-year

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast t ...

(MSc) degree in "Social Science of the Internet". From 2015, prospective students can apply to study the MSc degree part-time over two years. 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. From 2018, prospective students also have the option to apply for a one-year Master of Science degree in Social Data Science with the related DPhil in Social Data Science available from 2020 onward.

History

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. 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. 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 The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on the study of cyberspace. Founded at Harvard Law School, the center traditionally focused on internet-related legal issues. On May 15, 2008, ...

and

Information Society Project The Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School is an intellectual center studying the implications of the Internet and new information technologies for law and society. The ISP was founded in 1997 by Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Con ...

at the

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & Worl ...

. But it is the only one that functions as a fully functioning, degree-granting department.

Directors

* Andrew Graham Acting (2001–2002) * William H. Dutton (2002–2011) * Helen Margetts (2011–2018) *

Philip N. Howard Philip N. Howard is a sociologist and communication researcher who studies the impact of information technologies on democracy and social inequality. He studies how new information technologies are used in both civic engagement and social contr ...

(2018–2021) * Victoria Nash (2021–present)

Faculty

* Helen Margetts *

Luciano Floridi Luciano Floridi (; born 16 November 1964) is an Italian and British philosopher. He holds a double appointment as professor of philosophy and ethics of information at the University of Oxford, Oxford Internet Institute where is also Governin ...

* Vili Lehdonvirta * Viktor Mayer-Schönberger * Gina Neff * Taha Yasseri

OII awards

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.OII Awards , OII Awards
. Blogs.oii.ox.ac.uk (18 July 2013). Retrieved 2014-04-12.

References

External links

Oxford Internet Institute website
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