Purposive variation in recordkeeping in the academic molecular biology laboratory

This thesis presents an investigation into the role played by laboratory records in the disciplinary discourse of academic molecular biology laboratories. The motivation behind this study stems from two areas of concern. Firstly, the laboratory record has received comparatively little attention as a linguistic genre in spite of its central role in the daily work of laboratory scientists. Secondly, laboratory records have become a focus for technologically driven change through the advent of computing systems that aim to support a transition away from the traditional paper-based approach towards electronic recordkeeping. Electronic recordkeeping raises the potential for increased sharing of laboratory records across laboratory communities. However, the uptake of electronic laboratory notebooks has been, and remains, markedly low in academic laboratories. The investigation employs a multi-perspective research framework combining ethnography, genre analysis, and reading protocol analysis in order to evaluate both the organizational practices and linguistic practices at work in laboratory recordkeeping, and to examine these practices from the viewpoints of both producers and consumers of laboratory records. Particular emphasis is placed on assessing variation in the practices used by different scientists when keeping laboratory records, and on assessing the types of articulation work used to achieve mutual intelligibility across laboratory members. The findings of this investigation indicate that the dominant viewpoint held by laboratory staff other than principal investigators conceptualized laboratory records as a personal resource rather than a community archive. Readers other than the original author relied almost exclusively on the recontextualization of selected information from laboratory records into ‘public genres’ such as laboratory talks, research articles, and progress reports as the preferred means of accessing the information held in the records. The consistent use of summarized forms of recording experimental data rendered most laboratory records as both unreliable and of limited usability in the records management sense that they did not form full and accurate descriptions that could support future organizational activities. These findings offer a counterpoint to other studies, notably a number of studies undertaken as part of technology developments for electronic recordkeeping, that report sharing of laboratory records or assume a ‘cyberbolic’ view of laboratory records as a shared resource

Emerging trends proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Theorem Proving in Higher Order Logics: TPHOLs 2004

technical reportThis volume constitutes the proceedings of the Emerging Trends track of the 17th International Conference on Theorem Proving in Higher Order Logics (TPHOLs 2004) held September 14-17, 2004 in Park City, Utah, USA. The TPHOLs conference covers all aspects of theorem proving in higher order logics as well as related topics in theorem proving and verification. There were 42 papers submitted to TPHOLs 2004 in the full research cate- gory, each of which was refereed by at least 3 reviewers selected by the program committee. Of these submissions, 21 were accepted for presentation at the con- ference and publication in volume 3223 of Springer?s Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. In keeping with longstanding tradition, TPHOLs 2004 also offered a venue for the presentation of work in progress, where researchers invite discussion by means of a brief introductory talk and then discuss their work at a poster session. The work-in-progress papers are held in this volume, which is published as a 2004 technical report of the School of Computing at the University of Utah

Abstract identifiers, intertextual reference and a computational basis for recordkeeping

This paper presents three proposals concerning the structure and maintenance of formal, inter–referential, digitally stored texts: (1) include abstract atomic identifiers in texts, (2) identify these identifiers with references to text objects, and (3) keep among the texts records of computationally substantiated claims about those texts. We use "formal" in a narrow sense approximating computer–checkable; we are informed by informal symbolic practices used in mathematical text and program source text, which we hope to enhance and exploit explicitly. The basic management problem is how to alter texts rather freely without ruining the bases for claims depending upon them; this becomes an issue of accounting for various dependencies between texts

Addressing Information Asymmetry In The Social Contract: An Archival-diplomatic Approach To Open Government Data Curation

This thesis shows that the concepts and practices developed in the field of record-keeping can be applied to the curation of open government data to strengthen the trustworthiness of that data. It begins by situating open government data in the context of the social contract, which operates through the exchange of information. The thesis develops the notions of the ‘record-as-command’ and ‘data-as-command’ to explain the dialogical but asymmetrical information relationship between the individual and the state, which is modelled as a principal-agent problem. Using concepts from information economics, the study argues that open government data is the latest monitoring mechanism in a long history of government secrecy and openness. This establishes the significance of the curation of open government data beyond technical questions. The thesis then considers how trustworthiness has figured in thinking about record-keeping, identifying three core record-keeping controls; 1) metadata used to document 2) custodianship in 3) auditable systems. To show how these three broad controls have been put into practice, the study examines two examples of record-keeping guidance, one for paper records and one for hybrid records, which demonstrates the application of the three core controls across time and media. The study then looks for the presence or absence of these controls in government datasets published in Kenya and Australia. These analyses trace the datasets back to their source(s), at each step looking for evidence of custodial and curatorial interventions documented in metadata managed in auditable systems. The study’s contribution to open government data work is its demonstration of the value of record-keeping controls in the curation of data. Additionally, the study contributes new insights to information in the principal-agent problem of the social contract, contributes to archival theory and finds a need to foster critical data literacy in the body politic if open government data is to be read and used to correct information asymmetry

Forging Our Cultural Commonwealth: The Importance of Digital Curation in the Digital Humanities

New forms of digital data and tools or methods, for instance those that cross academic disciplines and domains, those that feature teams of scholars instead of single scholars, and those that involve individuals from outside the academy, can enable new forms of scholarship and teaching in the digital humanities. Such scholarship can promote reuse of digital data, provoke new research questions, and cultivate new audiences. Digital curation, the process of managing a trusted body of information for current and future use, can help maximize the value of research in the digital humanities. This exploratory qualitative study centered on the salience of digital curation to the digital humanities. A case study predicated upon semi-structured interviews, it explored the creation, use, storage, and planned reuse of data by 45 interviewees involved with nineteen Office of Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant (SUG) projects. Similarly, the study sought to determine what digital curation skills had been employed in these projects and what digital curation skills project personnel felt were most important in doing such work. Interviewees grappled with challenges surrounding data, collaboration and communication, planning and project management, awareness and outreach, resources, and technology. This study sought to understand the existing practices and needs of those engaged in digital humanities work and how closely these practices and needs align with the digital curation literature. It established a baseline for future research in this area and suggested key skills for digital curation work in the digital humanities. Finally, it provided a learning model for guiding such education.Doctor of Philosoph

AIUCD2019 - Book of Abstracts

L’ottava edizione del Convegno nazionale dell’Associazione per l’Informatica Umanistica e la Cultura Digitale, collocandosi nel solco delle precedenti edizioni, si pone l’obiettivo di costituire un punto di incontro tra studiosi delle diverse discipline che - a vario titolo - fanno capo alle cosiddette Digital Humanities: umanisti digitali, informatici, linguisti, storici, archeologi, musicologi, filologici e non solo. Il tema principale di questa ottava edizione è la “Didattica e ricerca al tempo delle Digital Humanities”. Si tratta di un ambito vasto che accomuna pratiche e settori di studio interdisciplinari e multidisciplinari e che riguarda i mutamenti della didattica e della ricerca nell'era digitale

AIUCD2019 - Book of Abstracts

L’ottava edizione del Convegno nazionale dell’Associazione per l’Informatica Umanistica e la Cultura Digitale, collocandosi nel solco delle precedenti edizioni, si pone l’obiettivo di costituire un punto di incontro tra studiosi delle diverse discipline che - a vario titolo - fanno capo alle cosiddette Digital Humanities: umanisti digitali, informatici, linguisti, storici, archeologi, musicologi, filologici e non solo. Il tema principale di questa ottava edizione è la “Didattica e ricerca al tempo delle Digital Humanities”. Si tratta di un ambito vasto che accomuna pratiche e settori di studio interdisciplinari e multidisciplinari e che riguarda i mutamenti della didattica e della ricerca nell'era digitale