i3 conference keynote, aberdeen

Eric T. Meyer

Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

I3 Conference: information: interactions and impact

20 June 2011, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK

Engaging with Information: Knowledge in the Digital Age

Technology and Society

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tommyc/163772266/

Social Informatics

5

Some Social Informatics Ideas:

1. Computerization Movements

2. Social Actors (vs. users)

3. STIN: Socio-Technical Interaction Networks (as research strategy)

Browsing and Searching

Libraries

Journals

Peers

79%66%

Google

Google Scholar

59%

55%

62%

83%

48%

76%

95%

Visit the library

Browse library materials online

Search library materials online

Citation chaining

Browse printed journals

Browse online journals

Consult peers and experts

Complexity Continuum

Source: S. Wuchty et al., (2007). The Increasing Dominance of Teams in Production of Knowledge. Science 316, 1036 -1039.

The Growth Of Teams

e-Research is defined as:

research using

digital tools and data

for the distributed and collaborative

production of knowledge

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

Hanny’s Voorwerp

Source: NASA, ESA, W. Keel (University of Alabama), and the Galaxy Zoo Team. http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2011/01/image/a/

Annotation Size

(no. of words)

Entries (topical

+ alphabetical+ page-by-page) Contributors

Book Form Annotation: Weisenburger’s

Gravity’s Rainbow162000 904 1 (22)

Wiki: Against the Day 455057

120 + 1358 + 4067

235

Comparison of book and wiki annotation efforts

Source: Schroeder, R., & Besten, M. D. (2008). Literary Sleuths Online: e-Research collaboration on the Pynchon Wiki. Information, Communication & Society, 11(2), 167 - 187.

Weisenburger vs. the Wiki on Pynchon

Why is science and research growing more collaborative?

Is technology driving it?

Or are there big scientific questions that cannot be answered otherwise?

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.

16

Photo-identification

Humpback whales

17

Switching From Film To Digital Cameras

19

Matching techniques on screen

20

Matching techniques on paper

21

Photo-id process: film

Field photos

External lab film developi

ng

Time = relative size of arrow (thick=longer time)

Printing or sleeving

Labeling Organizing

Identification

Analysis

LEGEND

In field

At lab

External to project

Shot logs

22

Photo-id process: digital

Field photos

Download, backup, initial

organizing

Printing (in some cases)

Labeling and

organizing

Data entry

Identification

Analysis

Time = relative size of arrow (thick=longer time)

LEGEND

In field

At lab

External to project

Summary logs

23

Idiosyncratic systems

24

Organizing digital photos

25

Organizing digital photos

26

Photo-ID process: Changes

Field photos

Download, backup, initial

organizing

Printing (in some cases)

Labeling and

organizing

Data entry

Identification

Analysis

Time = relative size of arrow (thick=longer time)

LEGEND

In field

At lab

External to project

Summary logs

• Quick feedback• Less loss of data• More time at end

of long days• Storage issues

• More photographs

• More complex info systems

• Database designers

• IT staff• Skilled users

• More animals• Larger catalogs• Better health

• Instant feedback• Efficiency• Better coverage• Less selective

shooting styles

• Less detail• Less tedium

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Who does the work?

Field photos

Printing or sleeving

Labeling Organizing

Field photos

Download, backup, initial

organizing

Labeling and

organizing

Data entry

Often volunteer labor

Permanent employees

Shot logs

Summary logs

Film

Digital

GAIN:

Genetic Association

Information Network

Ca. 2006-2007

Data needed to answer key questions in psychiatric genetics case study

Years Type of study Samples DNA Sequencing Scope of collaboration

1985-1997 Family association / linkage

300 Hundreds of loci / candidate genes

4 sites in USA

1997-2007 Family association / linkage

1,500 10,000 SNPs 13 sites in USA

2007-2009 Genome-wide association

5,000 1,200,000 SNPs Multiple multi-institution

collaborations in USA2010-? Whole genome 30,000 Millions of SNPs World-wide

collaborationFuture Whole genome

sequencing? Entire genome

sequenceWorld-wide

collaboration

http://www.rin.ac.uk/humanities-case-studies

Bulger, M., Meyer, E.T., de la Flor, G., Terras, M., Wyatt, S., Jirotka, M., Eccles, K., Madsen, C.

The Case Studies

Reconfiguring Resources

“ Old Bailey Online hasn’t replaced anything for me or displaced anything for me, but it is part of this general transformation of how I do what I do.

“The amount of time I now spend doing the very mechanical, laborious, time-consuming work is much smaller. You can now do things in 5 seconds which it took you 3 months to do a few years ago.

Transformations in Use

It’s a huge change. You can do things much more quickly, read much more widely, find connections…it’s very, very important. “

With something like the Burney Collection, 5 years ago for writing an article I would need to review the newspapers, I would have gone into the British Library and done it on microfilm.

20 years ago, I would have gone into the British Library and done it with the actual paper in front of me. Now I sit at home and I do a keyword search.

“

I get pretty much everything I need by way of primary sources now from the web. For primary sources, I’ve now got more material than I will need probably for the rest of my lifetime.

“

Enhanced vision

Cambridge polyphonic manuscript, 13th C.Source: The Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM)

Florence polyphonic manuscript, 13th C.Source: Teca Digitale Ricerca (TECA)

Graduale Triplex, 6/7th C.

S: That'a just a – it's not a noteH: I think it's part of the decoration isn't it? I mean the colours would have been really vivid wouldn't they - blues and greens, yellowsS: It's quite deterioratedH: I'm guessing this is a sort of slice in the – through the parchment isn't it?S: YeahH: It's showing white thereS: Goodness only knows how it got thereH: These are binding fragments. They've been man-handled into the binding of another book and presumably a binder's knife has sliced through the pages. It's lucky in a way it’s only sliced through the

parchment

note or decoration?

colours

binder's knife

Reconstructing the materiality of digital objects

Asking new questions?“

I’m not sure all of this raises the quality of anybody’s work. I think it would be quite daft to pretend that all of this makes us better scholars, or makes our books or papers of higher quality. I don’t know if that is true by any means, but it certainly makes it easier and I suppose makes the quantity of stuff that you can produce greater.

“

What might take you several months if not years of research, you could do in hours, days, a week. So I think that means that it makes the nature of your research different because it allows you quantitative information much more quickly, which then allows you to maybe think about how you might use that information differently, because you’ve got so much more time.

“

My greatest frustration in life is that we can now answer all the questions we had in 1980 faster, much, much faster. And we can get around to publishing them much, much more quickly. But what we haven’t yet done is develop the new questions and the new paradigms that should be possible, and that we as imaginative scholars should be able to imagine.

“

It also puts a much higher premium on creative use of the resources. There’s no reason not to be creative. There’s no excuse not to get it just right. And so it’s like how word processing changed the way we write. When you don’t have to physically retype each page, you make a lot more changes, and so there’s no excuse not to have better writing

“

Complexity Continuum

Complexity Continuum

Complexity Continuum

TITLE

Information practices in the physical sciences

Project partners

Digitisation and Impact

University of Oxford Podcasts

Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online

British History Online

Siobhan Davies RePlay

http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/tidsr/

Web archives

Researcher Engagement with Web Archives: State of the Art

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1714997 Dougherty, M., Meyer, E.T., Madsen, C., van den Heuvel, C., Thomas, A., Wyatt, S. (2010). London: JISC.

Researcher Engagement with Web Archives: Challenges and Opportunities for Investment

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1715000 Thomas, A., Meyer, E.T., Dougherty, M., van den Heuvel, C., Madsen, C., Wyatt, S. (2010). London: JISC.

Web Archives: The Future(s)

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1830025 Meyer, E.T., Thomas, A., Schroeder, R. (2011). London: IIPC.

So what?

Digital as a dirty word

I do feel pressure to work more with originals than with the digital images, but for the most part I do feel like I get more out of using these images on my computer. But there’s a certain pressure that that’s not what top scholars do because that’s not what top scholars did 25 years ago

“

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: Schroeder, R., Meyer, E.T. (2009). Gauging the Impact of e-Research in the Social Sciences. Paper presented at the 104th American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 8-11, San Francisco, California.

Eric T. Meyereric.meyer@oii.ox.ac.uk

http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/?id=120

With funding from: