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Making Web2.0
Researchable
Web2.0 and Scholarly Communication
James Stewart
innovation and use
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Scholarly Communication
 Conducting
research, developing ideas and
informal communications.
 Preparing, shaping
and communicating what
will become formal research results.
 The
dissemination of formal products.
 Managing
personal careers, and research
teams and research programmes
 Teaching
and communicating scholarly ideas
to broader communities.(based on Thorin
(2003) )
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What is Web2.0?
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Characterised by example
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Technical and content forms
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E.g. blog, wiki, social networking tool, social bookmarking, peer
to peer filesharing, etc
Particular Branded Service or Resource
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Facebook
Skype
OpenWetWare
Sharepoint
Wikipedia
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Web2.0
Way of describing certain postdot.com bust businesses
Technological definition: “Web 2.0 encompasses a variety of
different meanings that include an increased emphasis on usergenerated content, data and content sharing and collaborative
effort, together with the use of various kinds of social software,
new ways of interacting with web-based applications, and the
use of the web as a platform for generating, re-purposing and
consuming content.’ (Anderson 2007)
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The way technology is being driven by individuals
and communities seeking to manage the explosion
of information, and the move to ‘networked society’
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“Qualities of Web2.0”
“Openness”
“Usability”
“Light structures”
“User creation and contribution”
“Massive data”
“Power of the ‘crowd’”
“Network effects”
Problem: None unique to Web2.0
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How to describe a Web2.0 …
 Tool
 System
 Service
 Community
 Organisation
 Collection
 etc
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Approaches to Web2.0
Technology
Business
model
Organisational approach
Individual and social practices – for
information use and interactions
Structure of knowledge
Expectations
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Academic archaeology
 Many
of communicative and information
practices characteristic of Web2.0 are
characteristic of scholarly communication.
 However, some
 Many
 Many
of these forms are rather ossified!
earlier internet tools used in Web2.0 way
more well established trajectories of sociotechnical change. What does Web2.0 add?
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e.g. Collaboratories
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Shared instruments
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Community Data Systems
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Issues of:
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Tacit knowledge
Open Community
Contribution Systems
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Independence of scholars
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Virtual Community of Practice
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Information Standards
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Virtual Learning Community
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Distributed Research Centre
Institutional and national
barriers
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Community Infrastructure
project
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Sustainability
Bos et al. (2007)
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Working model
 services
for discovering and maintaining
relationships
 services
for sharing research objects and
components
 services
for sharing, annotating and
commentating on publications and
presentations
 services
for documenting and sharing
experiences.
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How do you use ‘Web2.0’?
 How
might you define it?
 Is
it useful or distracting?
 Is
the idea of qualities useable?
 Does
Internet =Web2.0 now?
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Framework: Social Shaping of
Technology
 Technologies
emerge from complex processes of
invention, implementation, failure and success
 Many different social and technical players and
objects effect outcome
 Sources of innovation included user communities
as well as producer groups
 Non-linear process involving changes in
practices, knowledge, structures and
relationships
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Framework: Social Learning in
Innovation
 Changing
relationships between players in
innovation as they interact and learn in the
processes of invention and implementation.
 Importance of visions and theory in
promoting and aligning expectations
 Importance of intermediaries in bringing
together innovations from different
communities
 Emergence of new intermediaries
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Factors shaping Web2.0 in SC
 Ownership
and control of scholarly
products, both by scholars and institutions
such as universities and publishers
 Institutional, individual
shaping collaboration
and cultural factors
 Technical
implantation of support for
Standardisation, IPR and security
 Epistemological
issues arising in creating
and implementing computer-based
communication tools.
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Principal issues governing the
Dynamics of socio-technical
change
 Disciplinary
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differences
Scholarly knowledge production
 Structure, economics, maturity
 Institutional
and culture.
differences
 Non-academic
influences – individual and broader
social appropriation of Web2.0 practices and ideas
 Many
different innovation pathways
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Academic Approaches
 Science
Studies
 Sociology
of Knowledge
 Information
Science/ Library Studies
 Organisational
 Technology
 Innovation
 Economics
Science (IT implementation)
Studies
Studies
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Visions and Empirical change
 Open
Access
 Open Science
 Library ‘2.0’
 Collaboratories
 Data-driven
and CSCW
scholarship
 Globalisation
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Disciplinary Differences
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Empirically
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Use of different types of formal outputs
Speed of knowledge production
Disciplinary cultures
Collective working and competitiveness
Uses of online systems such as preprint servers
Theoretically
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Cultures of knowledge production
Type of knowledge produced
Types of primary materials/sources
Maturity of discipline – esp. development of knowledge
standards
Interdependence of scholars
Interdsciplinarity
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Disciplinary Differences
Musicology
Music
High Energy Physics
Theoretical Physics
Economics
Cultural studies
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Institutional differences
 Institution
Status
 Access to publish high ranking journals
 Institutional
 Other
 Local
resources and management
activities: teaching, commericalisation
network effects – critical mass
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Individuals and groups
 Experience
with use of existing technologies
 Experience
with technical change
 Age
and Career stage
 Reward
structures and motivations
 Gender
 Ability
to influence technological change
 Community
and institutional support
 Collaborations
and work practices
 “innovativeness”
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Preliminary questions and issues
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Does the ‘openness’ and ‘emergence’ of information and
knowledge standards favour emerging and interdisciplinary
research, or is Web2.0 primarily taken up in areas with well
established, but older IT infrastructures
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Does Age, as a proxy for career stage play a role in adoption
of Web2.0, and it is biased to youth and early career, or older
and more established researchers
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Gender is traditionally a factor in technology adoption, and
is clearly an factor in disciplinary participation. Are there any
unusual patterns in ‘Web2.0’ adoption
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…
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RIN Web2.0 Study
Objectives
 Who
is using what, where?
 What
 The
is shaping that use?
implications for Scholarly
Communications.
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RIN Web2.0 Study
Methods
 Quantitative
and representative survey of UK
scholarly community to discover basic use and
awareness
 50
in dept interviews on scholarly communications
and Web2.0
5
case studies of promoters, developers and users
of specific ‘web2.0’ services
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Issues
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Many different sorts of scholarly communication
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e.g. information searching, publishing formal outputs, coordinating
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Web2.0 such a vague term, and not well known
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Use of much Web2.0 maybe very limited
BUT
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Web2.0 not a step change
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Ask about personal changes in pratices and institutional change
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The experiences and efforts of innovation intermediaries to
stimulate change
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What do you want to know?