21,328 research outputs found
Case study: embedding 'A vision of Britain through time' as a resource for academic research and learning
As part of the 'JISC e-Content and Digitisation Programmes: Impact and Embedding of Digitised Resources,' this case study explores the impacts of the A Vision of Britain Through Time website (http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/) on academic research and learning. It is complemented by 'Impact Report on âA Vision of Britain through Timeâ 2004-10: Investigating the current use and impact of a popular digital resource for local history research.
Wikipedia and the politics of mass collaboration
Working together to produce socio-technological objects, based on emergent platforms
of economic production, is of great importance in the task of political transformation and the
creation of new subjectivities. Increasingly, âcollaborationâ has become a veritable buzzword
used to describe the human associations that create such new media objects. In the language
of âWeb 2.0â, âparticipatory cultureâ, âuser-generated contentâ, âpeer productionâ and
the âproduserâ, first and foremost we are all collaborators. In this paper I investigate recent
literature that stresses the collaborative nature of Web 2.0, and in particular, works that
address the nascent processes of peer production. I contend that this material positions such
projects as what Chantal Mouffe has described as the âpost-politicalâ; a fictitious space far
divorced from the clamour of the everyday. I analyse one Wikipedia entry to demonstrate the
distance between this post-political discourse of collaboration and the realities it describes,
and finish by arguing for a more politicised notion of collaboration
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A century of methodological individualism part 1: Schumpeter and Menger
2009 marks the centenary of methodological individualism (MI). The phrase was first used in English in a 1909 QJE paper by Joseph Schumpeter. Yet after 100 years there is considerable confusion as to what the phrase means. MI is often invoked as a fundamental description of the methodology both of neoclassical and Austrian economics, as well as other approaches, from New Keynesianism to analytical Marxism. However, the methodologies of those to whom the theoretical practice of MI is ascribed differ profoundly on the status of the individual economic agent, some adopting a holistic and some a reductionist standpoint. The purpose of the research of which this paper is part is to uncover and evaluate some of the meanings of the phrase methodological individualism (MI). This first paper considers the contributions of Joseph Schumpeter, who was the first to use the term, and of Carl Menger, considered by many to be the founder of MI. The approach adopted is to apply the intellectual apparatus developed in Denis (2004) to the arguments of these writers. This constitutes a test of that apparatus: is it able to clarify the standpoints to which it is applied? The conclusion reached is that both Schumpeter and Menger adopt a reductionist ontology in the sense of Denis (2004)
Building a Disciplinary, World-Wide Data Infrastructure
Sharing scientific data, with the objective of making it fully discoverable,
accessible, assessable, intelligible, usable, and interoperable, requires work
at the disciplinary level to define in particular how the data should be
formatted and described. Each discipline has its own organization and history
as a starting point, and this paper explores the way a range of disciplines,
namely materials science, crystallography, astronomy, earth sciences,
humanities and linguistics get organized at the international level to tackle
this question. In each case, the disciplinary culture with respect to data
sharing, science drivers, organization and lessons learnt are briefly
described, as well as the elements of the specific data infrastructure which
are or could be shared with others. Commonalities and differences are assessed.
Common key elements for success are identified: data sharing should be science
driven; defining the disciplinary part of the interdisciplinary standards is
mandatory but challenging; sharing of applications should accompany data
sharing. Incentives such as journal and funding agency requirements are also
similar. For all, it also appears that social aspects are more challenging than
technological ones. Governance is more diverse, and linked to the discipline
organization. CODATA, the RDA and the WDS can facilitate the establishment of
disciplinary interoperability frameworks. Being problem-driven is also a key
factor of success for building bridges to enable interdisciplinary research.Comment: Proceedings of the session "Building a disciplinary, world-wide data
infrastructure" of SciDataCon 2016, held in Denver, CO, USA, 12-14 September
2016, to be published in ICSU CODATA Data Science Journal in 201
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