Markdown Version | Session Recording
Session Date/Time: 30 Mar 2023 04:00
# rasprg
## Summary
This was the inaugural session of the Research and Analysis of Standard Setting Processes Proposed Research Group (rasprg). The session included an introduction to the group's objectives, followed by several presentations on diverse research methods and tools for analyzing standardization processes, particularly within the IETF. Topics ranged from qualitative ethnographic studies to quantitative data-driven approaches using large language models.
## Key Discussion Points
* **rasprg Objectives:** The group aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, standards users, and standards developers to study standardization processes and policies within and across SDOs. Objectives include producing open-source tools, methodologies, and data for analysis, organizing workshops, and conducting evidence-based, reproducible research. Non-objectives include hierarchical comparisons between SDOs and direct influence on IETF operations.
* **Ethnographic Study of Power Dynamics in the IETF (Corinne):** A presentation on how the IETF's culture, despite its procedural openness, can exclude civil society participation due to existing power disparities and informal practices. Key themes discussed were the role of "senior incumbents" and the influence of the private sector. The talk focused on the "hum," a consensus-building mechanism, and its potential to mask underlying power dynamics.
* **Data-Driven Reviewer Recommendations (Steven):** A presentation on a tool developed under the SODAS project to recommend Internet Draft reviewers based on analyzing document content and participant mailing list activity. The tool uses TF-IDF and cosine similarity to match drafts to reviewers and is publicly available for testing and feedback.
* **Big Bang Tools for Infrastructure Governance Analysis (Sebastian):** An overview of the Big Bang project, an open-source software community building research infrastructure for analyzing infrastructure governance and standard-setting processes. Topics included dashboard prototype for providing analytics.
* **Applying Techniques to IETF Data (Bianca):** A presentation on applying computational methods, including temporal activity series clustering and cause-learning frameworks, to analyze IETF mailing list data and identify relationships between participants, looking beyond demographics and affiliation.
* **Large Language Models for Standard Discourse Analysis (P):** A presentation on using large language models, such as BERT and GPT-3, for extracting information from IETF mailing list bodies. This included named entity recognition and knowledge graph extraction.
## Decisions and Action Items
* **Data Protection Issues:** Investigate the legitimacy basis for data processing, using the sign-on process.
* **GitHub Organization:** Create a GitHub organization to put all tools together.
* **Feedback on Tools:** Encourage participants to try out presented tools (reviewer recommendation, Big Bang dashboard) and provide feedback.
## Next Steps
* Solicit suggestions, comments, and ideas on the rasprg mailing list.
* Plan the next session based on community input.