TITLE

The Internet, Science, and Transformations of Knowledge

Ralph Schroeder Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

May 3, 2012

Overview

• Definition of e-Research• The sociology of advancing (online) knowledge • Examples and Cases• Implications

Research computing

The Grid

Supercomputing

Clouds

Big Data

Web 2.0

e-Research

Defined as distributed and collaborative digital tools and data for knowledge production

,

Digital transformations of research

Computational Manipulability +

Research Technologies(Mathematization)

Socio-Technical Organization

(Computerization movements)

Research Front(For different fields)

A Model of Transformations

Computational manipulability+ Research technologies+ Socio-technical organization= Transformations of research front

Computational Manipulability?

• ‘the distinctiveness of the network of mathematical practitioners is that they focus their attention on the pure, contentless form of human communicative operations: on the gestures of marking items as equivalent and of ordering them in series, and on the higher-order operations which reflexively investigate the combinations of such operations’

• ‘mathematical rapid-discovery science…the lineage of techniques for manipulating formal symbols representing classes of communicative operations’

Research Technologies and Driving Forces

• Off-the-shelf and special purpose, but ‘all-purpose’ (passport-like) machines across contexts

• A hard core around which researchers can focus attention on a common research front

• Movements (SIMs, Frickel and Gross) to computerize (mathematize?) research (Kling)

• Core (research technologies) plus organization and movements - driving science (and research)

The sociology of advancing (online) knowledge production

• Research instruments plus mathematics -> high-consensus rapid-discovery science

• Orientation to a community of researchers at the research front

• Focus of attention limited by law of small numbers (Collins)

• The extension of computation into research • The limits of understanding and explaining

research-in-the-making……versus a movement that applies across research

Varieties of Research

• Humanities: patterns in words, numbers, images, sounds…

• Social Sciences: statistics, image analysis, mapping…• Sciences: Hacking’s ‘styles’• Mathematization, now Cloudified• All knowledge is digitally manipublable in e-

Research…• …but relation of the object to the (physical) world or

to the research front varies

Examples and Cases

– GAIN = statistical data pooling– Galaxyzoo = taxonomic crowdsourcing– Integrative Biology = modelling– EGEE/LHC = observation and measurement– SPLASH = taxonomic– Swedish National Data Service = statistical, combined data– SwissBioGrid = statistical/modelling– VOSON = statistical, network analysis– PynchonWiki = interpretive crowdsourcing – Cultural genomics with Google Books = statistical/interpretive– Moretti = distance reading via network analysis

...what type of transformation?

GAIN:

Genetic Association

Information Network

IB:

Integrative Biology

Source: CERN, CERN-EX-0712023, http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1203203

Particle Physics and EGEE: The world’s largest e-Science collaboration

SPLASH: Structure of Populations, Levels of Abundance, and Status of Humpbacks

Meyer, E.T. (2009). Moving from small science to big science: Social and organizational impediments to large scale data sharing. In Jankowski, N. (Ed.), E-Research: Transformation in Scholarly Practice (Routledge Advances in Research Methods series). New York: Routledge.

e-Research in Sweden• Sweden has a major e-Research initiative• ’Universal’ personal identification• Uniquely powerful datasets (e.g. twin registry)• Significance: If Swedes can’t do it, no one can? • Use of population data in a ’transparent’ society with high trust between

people, authorities and researchers…• …but, implementation of secure distributed access and ’incidents’ creating

public concerns

• Swedish National Data Service

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.

Fig. 1 Culturomic analyses study millions of books at once.

J Michel et al. Science 2011;331:176-182

Published by AAAS

Source: Moretti, F. (2011). Network Theory, Plot Analysis. New Left Review 68, p. 81

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

Source: Meyer & Schroeder (2009). The World Wide Web of Research and Access to Knowledge. Journal of Knowledge Management Research and Practice 7 (3):218-233.

iTunes UGoogle CitationsMicrosoft Academic SearchTwitterYouTube…

What difference does it make?

– A physical core network of digital tools and data (computational manipulability)

– A research community focuses its efforts– The expandable (‘clouds’) capacity of research

instruments + new organizational modes = ongoing diffusion of e-Research across domains

– Limits of this spread = limits of attention on new fronts towards which there are orientations: ‘advances’ versus existing directions

Changing Research Practices• Communication: searchability/findability, and

(pressure for) increased reflexivity• Role of Knowledge in society: boundaries vis-a-vis

public and between research communities becomes more porous

• Knowledge: driven towards computational manipulability and aggregatability

• The confluence of these three: Research becomes an increasingly autonomized apparatus in society and a complexified socio-technical one

Implications• Implications for Science Communication:

– Reflexivity changes practices, and the role of knowledge vis-à-vis public

• Implications for STS, information science and other fields: – synthesis beyond existing (sub) disciplinary boundaries is

needed• Implications for policy and practice:

– awareness of positive and negative aspects of autonomization (or intermediation and disintermediation of knowledge)

– changing boundaries within knowledge, and between knowledge and society

Oxford e-Social Science Project

OxfordInternetInstitute

Oxforde-Research

Centre

Institute for Science, Innovation

and Society at

Saïd Business School

http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/microsites/oess/