The document discusses e-research, including terminology, illustrations of e-research projects, and issues and challenges. It outlines a presentation on e-research given at a 2008 research meeting, covering topics like cyberinfrastructure, e-science, e-social science, and how e-research affects the research process and scholarly practices. Key areas discussed include archiving, visualization, and reporting findings in e-research.

1. e-Research: Issues & Challenges Slidecast as background to VKS Research Meeting 26 June 2008 Nicholas W. Jankowski Visiting Fellow Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities & Social Sciences www.virtualknowledgestudio.nl [email_address]

2. Outline Terminology Illustrations e-Research Project Issues & challenges Discussion 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

3. Terminology: Alternative formulations Cyberinfrastructure e-Infrastructure Big Science Cyberscience Internet research e-Science e-Social Science e-Research 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

4. Cyberinfrastructure Indiana University (March 2007), http://rc.uits.iu.edu/newsletter/archives/ “ Cyberinfrastructure consists of computing systems, data storage systems, advanced instruments and data repositories, visualization environments, and people, all linked together by software and high performance networks to improve research productivity and enable breakthroughs not otherwise possible. “ Compared to ubiquitous infrastructures in society: transport, electrical power, gas & water Note : concept in flux; see Edwards et al. (2007) 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

5. e-Science & Big Science CERN http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/pics/stand2004/cern.html Big: budgets, staffs, machines, laboratories 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

6. e-Science Definition National e-Science Centre, http://www.nesc.ac.uk/nesc/define.html “ In the future, e-Science will refer to the large scale science that will increasingly be carried out through distributed global collaborations enabled by the Internet. Typically, a feature of such collaborative scientific enterprises is that they will require access to very large data collections, very large scale computing resources and high performance visualisation back to the individual user scientists.” Features sciences &engineering: primary; humanities & social sciences: secondary grid computing: key component alliance with computer science; tool development top-down mandate; incorporated into science policy documents: sense of inevitability, technological determinism 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

7. e-Research Rationale Broad disciplinary relevance; social sciences and humanities Unhindered by proclivities of other terms Features Distant, international collaboration Data preservation & access Internet-based instruments Visualization (high-speed) networked computers 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

8. Illustrations : capita selecta e-Science e-Research: social sciences e-Research: humanities 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

9. e-Science : large-scale instrumentation & distant collaboration Birnholtz, J. P., & Horn, D. B. (2007). Shake, rattle and roles: Lessons from experimental earthquake engineering for incorporating remote users in large-scale e-science experiments. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , 12 (2), article 17. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue2/birnholtz.html 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

10. Social Sciences: Data Visualization Vizster: Visualizing Online Social Networks Http://jheer.org/vizster/ 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

11. Humanities: Data Preservation & access International Institute for Social History manuscript Communist Manifesto http://www.iisg.nl/collections/manifest/manifest.php 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

12. Humanities: Data Visualization The Qumran Visualization Project http://www.nelc.ucla.edu/qumran / 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

13. Recapitulation: ways of imagining e-Research ‘ Revolutionary’ change, transformation of scholarship (merely) new tools for scholarship Proposal: examine within components of research process 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

14. Research Process: conventional Problem statement Data collection Data analysis Reporting findings 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

15. Research Process: extended Problem statement Data collection Project Management Data analysis Reporting findings 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

16. Research Process: e-Research Project Management Activities : managing, facilitating, supporting, monitoring research process; crisis intervention Tools : communication software (e.g., video & audio conferencing, email, IM, web archiving software, questionnaire design software Data Collection Activities : data archiving, instrument construction, data collection, securing secondary data, data merging Tools : web archiving software, questionnaire design software Data Analysis Activities : data cleaning, coding, variable construction, statistical analysis, qualitative analysis Tools : statistical package for data analysis (e.g., SPSS, SAS); qualitative data analysis software (e.g., Atlas) Reporting findings Activities : collaborative composition, reference preparation, online publishing, Tools : Google Docs, EndNote, Adobe Creator, Web tools 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

17. e-Research Project: events Etmaal conference (Twente, Nov. 2004) NCeSS workshop (Manchester, June 2006) Journal theme issue: JCMC (January 2007) AoIR panel (Vancouver, October 2007) Goldsmiths panel (London, October 2007) Oxford conference (Oxford, October 2008) Routledge monograph (early 2009) Website of Project materials (2009 ….) 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

18. e-Research monograph Objective Provide panorama of early experiences Multi-disciplinary Theoretical diverse Emphasis on social sciences, with illustrations from e-Science and e-Humanities 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

19. Overview of monograph E-RESEARCH: TRANSFORMATIONS IN SCHOLARLY PRACTICE Introduction 1 The context and claims of e-Research Nicholas W. Jankowski Conceptualizing e-Research 2 Towards a Sociology of e-Research: Shaping Practice and Advancing Knowledge Ralph Schroeder & Jenny Fry 3 e-Research as Intervention Anne Beaulieu & Paul Wouters 4 Many Challenges, Multiple Solutions: Facing the Barriers to Data Sharing and Reuse Ann Zimmerman, Nathan Bos, Judy Olson & Gary Olson 5 Developing the U.K. e-Social Science Research Program Peter Halfpenny, Yuwei Lin, Rob Procter & Alex Voss Management and collaboration 6 e-Research and Scholarly Community in the Humanities Paul Genoni, Helen Merrick & Michele Willson 7 Creating Shared Understanding in Research across Distances and Cultures Petra Sonderegger 8 Moving from Small Science to Big Science: Social and Organizational Impediments to Large Scale Data Sharing Eric T. Meyer Special Issues 9 Naming, Documenting and Contributing to e-Science Samuelle Carlson & Ben Anderson 10 e-Social Science Visualizations Mike Thelwall 11 A Picture is Worth a Thousand Questions: Visualization Techniques for Discovery in Computer-Mediated Interaction Howard T. Welser, Thomas Lento, Marc Smith ,Eric Gleave & Itia Himelboim 12 Web Archiving as e-Research Steven M. Schneider, Kirsten A. Foot & Paul Wouters 13 Intelectual Property in the Context of e-Science Dan L. Burk 14 Open Access to e-Research Rob Lucas & John Willinsky Case studies 15 Situated Innovations in e-Social Science Bridgette Wessels & Max Craglia 16 Wikipedia as Distributed Knowledge Laboratory: The Case of Neoloberalism Clifford Tatum & Michelle LaFrance 17 The Rise of e-Science in Asia: Dreams and Realities for Social Science Research. Case Studies of Singapore and South Korea Carol Soon & Han Woo Park

20. Issues & Challenges Archiving Difficulty in archiving dynamic websites Limitations with off-the-shelf archiving tools Restrictions on access to documents Visualization By itself visualization of data ‘says’ little; interpretation requires second data source Reporting Tension between status attributed to traditional book publishing and multimedia opportunities via online venues 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

21. Discussion What is the relevancy of e-Research to ‘ordinary’ humanities and social science scholars? In what manner and to what extent are features of e-Research adopted / adapted in the social sciences and humanities across disciplines, scholarly cultures and political climates? What areas / concerns merit investigation and facilitation? 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

22. Selected Resources ACLS. (Dec. 2006). Our Cultural Commonwealth . Report of the American Council of Learned Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences. http://www.acls.org/cyberinfrastructure/ Akins Report. (Jan. 2003). Revolutionizing Science and Engineering Through Cyberinfrastructure. Report of the National Science Foundation Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure. http://www.nsf.gov/od/oci/reports/toc.jsp Baym, N. (Ed.) (2005). Is "Internet Research" a Virtual Field, a Proto-Discipline, or Something Else? Theme issue , The Information Society , 21(4): http://www.indiana.edu/~tisj/21/ Bruns, A. (May 2007). Methodologies for Mapping the Political Blogosphere: An Exploration Using the IssueCrawler Research Tool. First Monday, 12(5). http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_5/bruns/index.html Edwards, P.N., Jackson, S.J., Bowker, G.C., & Knobel, C.P. Understanding Infrastructure: Dynamics, Tensions, and Design . (Jan. 2007). Report of a Workshop on “History & Theory of Infrastructure: Lessons for New Scientific Cyberinfrastructures”. http://www.si.umich.edu/InfrastructureWorkshop/documents/UnderstandingInfrastructure2007.pdf Hine, C. (2006). New Infrastructures for Knowledge Production: Understanding E-Science. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing. Jackson, S.J., Edwards, P.N., Bowker, G.C., & Knobel, C.P. (June 2007). Understanding Infrastructure: History, Heuristics, and Cyberinfrastructure Policy. First Monday, 12(6), http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_6/jackson/index.html Jankowski, N. W. (Ed.) (2007). Theme issue on e-Science, JCMC, 12(2), http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue2/ National Science Foundation Cyberinfrastructure Council (March 2007). Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery. http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf0728/nsf0728.pdf Schroeder, R. (March 2007). e-Research Infrastructures and Open Science: Towards a New System of Knowledge Production? Prometheus , 25(1): 1-17. http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/08109028.asp 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting

23. Thank You! Nicholas W. Jankowski Visiting Fellow Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities & Social Sciences www.virtualknowledgestudio.nl [email_address] 26 June 2008 VKS Research Meeting