Science 2.0Fridolin Wild

KMi, The Open Universityf.wild@open.ac.uk

Outline

• Preliminaries• Science 2.0 Support Environments• Featured Duplo Bricks– Science Proxies– Flashmeeting

• Conclusion

Before we begin…

Information could be the quality of a certain signal.Science could be about systematically giving birth to information in order to create knowledge

Information could be a logical abstractor.Knowledge could be the delta at the receiver (a paper, a human, a library).

Science, Information, Knowledge

(96dpi)

Tools that bring together people and content artefacts in activities that support in constructing and processing information and knowledge.

... are probably around us ever since the ‚homo habilis‘ started to use more

sophisticated stone tools at the beginning of the Pleistocene

some two million years ago. Science SupportEnvironments

Early qualitative research: capturing hunting experiences on the cave walls.

Inherently Networks

Actors (people, artefacts, and tools) in various locations with heterogeneous affiliations, purposes, styles, objectives, etc.

Network effects make the network exponentially more valuable with growing size

To develop a shared understanding is part of the research work because language underspecifies meaning: future ‘cloud’ research will build on it

And at the same time: linguistic relativity (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis): language culture restricts our thinking

Environments = Research Outcome

Science support environmentsare part of the research outcomes!

not a precondition (like data)! Setting up and maintaining a science

support environment is part of the knowledge work: future experiences will be made through it

knowing tools, people, artefacts, and activities ... enables!

Designing for Emergence is

more powerful than programming by

instruction

Why? Occam’s Razor!

Emergence

Emergent behaviour: observable dynamics

show unanticipated activity

Surprising: the participating systems have not been instructed to do so specifically (may even not have intended it)

Science 2.0 Support Environments

The ‘Frankensteining’ of software artefacts and data

Shift locus of control to the end-user

Opportunistic Design (Hartmann et al., 2008; Ncube et al., 2008)

‘Excel Scripting for the Web’

Various Strategies (cf. Gamble & Gamble, 2008)

Mash-Ups

Mash-Up Architecture

(iX 10/2008, Enterprise Mashups, p. 99)

A Platform: MUPPLE.org

using distance.ktu.lt/scuttle

using stellarnet.eu/d/7/1

using www.objectspot.org

{ using http://… }share bookmarks

find papers

summarize papers

{ do s.th. } { for an output }

RSS feed

?Recommendations: tools, activities, …

Recommendations :patterns

Analytics: Tracking:interactions & usage

Scrutable:shift control to user

More Duplo: Science Proxies

Tale of two doors(Erickson, 2007)

Tale of two doors

Visibility produces awareness

Awareness triggers social norms

Mutual visibility triggers accountability

Which reinforces social norms

(Erickson, 2007)

Proxies

A social proxy is a minimalist graphical representation that makes people and their activities more visible (Erickson, 2007)

A science proxy is a minimalist graphical representation that makes researchers and their research activities more visible

ComposerProxy | TopicProxy | FieldProxy

Relationships in Composition

au2au

Interoperable building blocks: allow for re-use

TopicProxies | FieldProxyComposerProxy |

Topics2000

Topics2008

New Terms in 2008

The mathemagics behindMeaning Interaction Analysis

FieldProxyComposerProxy | TopicProxy |

FieldProxy

Bringing together what belongs together

Spot unwanted fragmentatione.g. two authors work on the

same topic, but with different collaborator groups and with different literature

Intervention Instrument: automatically recommend

to hold a flashmeeting

Wild, Ochoa, Heinze, Crespo, Quick (2009, to appear)

Creating cohesion

Communities are often not very dense, i.e. not resilient

With key persons withdrawing, the network can fragment

Recommend to build additional links, cutting out the middleman

Wild, Ochoa, Heinze, Crespo, Quick (2009, to appear)

Live Exploring nyx.cti.espol.edu.ec/ectel/

More Duplo: Flashmeeting

flashmeeting.com

Conclusion

Up, up, towards a Science 2.0

Science 2.0 is social and so are the support environments.Environments are outcomes of research activity.Mash-ups, proxies, and flashmeeting are ‘duplos’ that foster emergence.

Recent advances in technology and practice provide fascinating new means for open, networked, and self-organised co-construction of knowledge.

Beware, the end is near.

Science 2.0 framework

AgreementProxy