The document summarizes the Oxford e-Social Science Project (OeSS), which aimed to identify challenges and solutions related to emerging digital research infrastructure and practices. The project occurred in two phases from 2005-2012, studying issues like privacy, ethics, and how researchers access data and collaborate in networked environments. It highlights both opportunities and challenges of networked institutions and individual researchers, and calls for a focus on implications for research quality rather than just technical innovation.
Computer 10: Lesson 10 - Online Crimes and Hazards
Oess NCRM Festival
1. Oxford e-Social Science Project
- OeSS -
Giving Academics a Lead in Big Data and
Collaborative Networking Initiatives
Bill Dutton
Presentation for a session, entitled ‘The Digital Social Research Programme:
Showcasing Advances in e-Social Science’, at the NCRM Methods Festival, 2 July 2012.
2. Oxford e-Social Science Project
(OeSS)
Phase I: Indentifying the Problems, 2005-08
Phase II: Identifying Possible Solutions, 2008-12
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W. Dutton, M. Jirotka, R. Schroeder, S. Woolgar
A. Carusi, G. Eden, K. Eccles, E. Meyer, C. Millard, L. Power, T. Webmoor
Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford e-Research Centre, Saïd Business School
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Phase I: Oxford e-Social Science (OeSS) Project: Ethical, Legal and Institutional Dynamics of Grid-
Enabled e-Sciences (1 October 2005 until 30 November 2008, Award Number RES-149-25-1022)
Phase II: The Oxford e-Social Science Project: Ethical, Legal and Institutional Responses to
Emerging e-Research Infrastructure Policies and Practices (1 December 2008 until 30 March 2012,
ESRC Award Number RES-149-25-1082)
3. Empirical Social Science Approaches
Spanning types of data and tools
Case studies
Spanning disciplines:
(Social) sciences and humanities
Privacy and data protection
Issue-based studies Institutional Infrastructures
E-Research ethics, and …
Online survey of e-Research:
Bottom-up practices, proximity and cohorts
Survey research
Scientometrics and webmetrics:
Global visibility and output
Longitudinal ethnographies Contexts of research innovation
4. Reconfiguring Access in Everyday Life and Work
• How you get information
Information • What you know
• How you communicate
People • Who you know
• How you obtain services
Services • From whom, from where
• How you do what you do
Technology • What know-how you
require
5. Reconfiguring Access in Research
• How you collaborate
Collaboration • With whom you collaborate
• How you observe objects
Observation • What you observe/experience
• How you obtain info, data
Data, Information • What you collect
• How you conduct
Analysis • Where you obtain computation
• When & how you disseminate
Distribution • What you distribute to whom
7. Researchers
First Port of
Call
Collaborative
Network Search v Sites
Organizations
Empowering
NetworkedIndivi
duals;
Democratizing
Research
Trust Social Cues
Centrality
Significance
Students
8. Networked Institutions & Researchers
Networked • Institutional Repositories and Clouds
Research • Online Access to Journals
• Digitizing Library Holdings
Institutions
• Searching for and Accessing Distributed Resources
Networked • Subject Matter Repositories
• Blogging Lab Notes
Researchers • Moving Beyond Institutions for Video, Group Editing, …
Collaborative • Citizen Science
Network • Local Resources Shared Globally
• Distributed Collaboration
Organizations
9. Arena: Networked Institutions Networked Individuals
News Online journalism, BBC Netizens, Citizen
Online, Live Micro-Blogging Journalists, Bloggers,
Whistleblowers, Leaks,
Churnalism.org, Hacking
Blacklash
Research Institutional Repositories, Search, Subject Matter
Institutional Clouds, Online Repositories, Cloud
Access to Libraries, Services, Citizen Scientists,
Digitization of Holdings, Blogging (Lab Notes),
Journals Online Online Tools (Surveys,
Content Analysis)
Education Online Learning, Multimedia Backchannels, Informal
Classrooms Learning, Rate My Teacher
Health and Medical NHS Direct, e-mailing Going to the Internet for
safety alerts health information,
Networks of Patients,
10. Key Challenges
1. Refocusing on (data) resources for ‘Networked Researchers’ - as
well as ‘Institutions’ - that are democratizing research
2. Focus more on implications for research (quality, value) versus
diffusion of technical innovations
3. Conveying significance of digital social research across the
disciplines versus technical innovation for social science (social
scientists should study digital research as well as computer
science support of social sciences), e.g., insights of relevance to
big data initiatives
4. Ethical, legal, institutional and other social factors need to be
more central – less technology-centric
5. Post-Novelty (big data, visualization, …) methodological concerns
will rise in significance
6. Creating and supporting new digital curricula, digital literacy
11. Related Publications:
Dutton, W. H., and Jeffreys, P. (2010) (eds), World Wide Research:
Reshaping the Sciences and Humanities. Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press.
Dutton, W. H. (2011), ‘The Politics of Next Generation Research:
Democratizing Research-Centred Computational Networks’, Journal
of Information Technology, 26, 109–119.
Dutton, W. H., Jirotka, M., Meyer, E. T., Schroeder, R., Simpson, C. R.
(2012), ‘Key Issues for Digital Research: A Social Science Perspective
on Policy and Practice’, Forum Discussion Paper on SSRN at
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2071160
Dutton, W. H. (forthcoming), ‘Social Shaping of Digital Research’,
International Journal of Social Research Methodology, forthcoming.
See OeSS Project Web Site at: http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/oess/