e-Social Science as an Experience Technology: Distance From, and Attitudes To...
The End(s) of e-Research
1. The End(s) of e-Research
Ralph Schroeder, Professor, MSc Programme Director
Eric T. Meyer, Research Fellow, DPhil Programme Director
October 25, 2012
@etmeyer
2. research using
digital tools and data
for the distributed and collaborative
production of knowledge
3. e-Research is not a separate entity; it
consists merely of computational
support for other disciplines, and these
are where the real research is taking
place.
4. Source: Meyer, E.T., Schroeder, R. (2009). Untangling the Web of e-Research: Towards a Sociology of Online Knowledge. Journal of Informetrics
3(3):246-260
5. We are all becoming e-Researchers;
successful e-Research will become so
mundane and expected that it will
disappear from daily notice, like other
infrastructures.
6. Grid computing (the original incarnation
of e-Science) was displaced by web
services, then by the cloud; the cloud is
now giving way to ‘big data’, which will
no doubt be replaced by something else.
9. Number of academic articles including mentions of computational approaches to research in their title,
abstract, or keywords. Source: Scopus queries by the authors. * 2012 only includes data through September.
10. Cloud computing: 3k-4k per month
Number of news articles including mentions of big data. Source: Lexis/Nexis queries by the authors.
11. Hacking: styles of science (after Crombie)
1. taxonomic
2. statistical
3. modelling
4. observation and measurement
5. historico-genetic development
6. mathematical postulation
+7. laboratory
(+8. algorithmic?)
Styles of science, but also mathematization and other forms of
symbolic manipulation via cataloguing, image analysis, etc.
12. Sciences: algorithms across the styles (modelling,
statistics,…), data deluge,...
Social Sciences: statistics, image analysis, mapping,…
Humanities: patterns in words, numbers, images,
sounds,… (ie. Google Books)
Arts: audience engagement, new forms of performance,
…
13. Particle Physics and EGEE: The world’s largest e-Science collaboration
Source: CERN, CERN-EX-0712023, http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1203203
15. Social Sciences: Growing influence of new tools and
approaches
VOSON (NodeXL version)
Ackland, R. (2010), "WWW Hyperlink Networks," Chapter 12 in D. Hansen, B. Shneiderman and M. Smith (eds),
Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a connected world. Morgan-Kaufmann.
16. Social Sciences: Search engine behaviour
Waller’s analysis of Australian Google Users
Key findings:
- Mainly leisure
- < 2% contemporary issues
- No perceptible ‘class’ differences
Novel advance:
- Unprecedented insight into what people search for
Challenge:
- Replicability
- Securing access to commercial data
V. Waller, “Not Just Information: Who Searches for What on the Search Engine Google?”,
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62(4): 761-75, 2011.
17. Humanities: Large-scale text analysis
Michel et al. ‘culturomic’ analysis of 5 Million Digitized Google
Books and Perc analysis of the same data
Key findings:
- Patterns of key terms
- Industrialization tied to shift from abstract to concrete
words
Novel advance:
- Replicability, extension to other areas, systematic
analysis of cultural materials
Challenge:
- Data quality
18. Fig. 1 Culturomic analyses study millions of books at once.
J. Michel al. Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized
Books. Science: Vol. 331 no. 6014 pp. 176-182. 2010.
Published by AAAS
20. Digital transformations of research
Computational
Manipulability +
Research Technologies
(Mathematization)
Transformations of
Research Front
(For different fields)
Socio-Technical
Organization
(Computerization
movements)
22. Oxford Internet Institute
Ralph Schroeder Eric T. Meyer
ralph.schroeder@oii.ox.ac.uk eric.meyer@oii.ox.ac.uk
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/?id=26 http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/?id=120
@etmeyer
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