i3 conference keynote, aberdeen
DESCRIPTION
Keynote talk from i3 conference in Aberdeen.TRANSCRIPT
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 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
27
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.
