Nick, Thanks for your comment. I've also received some very useful comments off-list I should apologise to Marj Kibby and Denise N. Rall for jumping on this thread, which was initially unrelated to e-research / e-science / cyberinfrastructure etc. However, the distinction between research and scholarship suggested by Marj was helpful for me in my attempt to figure out exactly what e-research is, or has become. My working definition of e-research is that it involves advanced ICTs that: (a) enable collaborative research (people in different locations working together using using the same data/methods); (b) enable (via web services and/or grid technologies) access to distributed research resources (models, data, compute power); (c) have been designed specifically for answering a particular research question i.e. the research could not be done otherwise. I regard myself as a practitioner of e-research. My interest is in doing e-research - I'm not someone who studies the practice of research. So my definition of e-research is at odds with that used elsewhere, for example in Nick's chapter. While my definition might be constraining, the problem with a more inclusive definition of e-research is that the term then loses its meaning. It loses its ability to inspire certain people to work in certain areas (I wouldn't have got involved in e-research back in 2004 if I thought it was primarily about constructing/maintaining/providing access to digital collections). It loses it's ability to inspire funding agencies to provide money. My understanding is that the early big money for e-Science came about because scientists were able to convince the funding agencies that the investment would lead to new discoveries, not simply improved scholarly services. In short, language and terminology are important in assisting the allocation of resources (here, I'm talking about money and people) to areas where they will be most productive, and I think the term e-research is losing or perhaps has already lost it's connection to cutting-edge research. However, it is possibly now doing a fine job in assisting the allocation of resources into scholarly services. Nick says below: "Instead, I suggest 'scholarship' as the overall label for knowledge production and this includes 'research' as one of the enterprises for such production." That is reasonable, but then why is e-research being used as the encompassing term? Shouldn't digital scholarship be the encompassing term, with e-research referring to a specific class of activities i.e. where specific research questions are being posed and advanced ICTs used to find answers to those questions? I do not seek to legislate definitions for others and wouldn't succeed even if I wanted to. I'm just trying to figure out whether it is appropriate and wise from a career perspective for me to continue to label my work as e-Research. I have seen the term "computational social science" (e.g. Lazer et al 2009 in Science - http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/323/5915/721) used to describe the sort of work I do. I also use the term "online research" to describe what I do, although some people see "online research" and "e-research" as synonyms, something that again, I don't agree with. For me, online research refers to using the Internet to collect primary research data, either obtrusively (e.g. online surveys, online focus groups) or unobtrusively (e.g. digital traces of behaviour in online environments). Online research doesn't have to be conducted using e-research tools (where e-research is defined as I have above). I want to finish with something Roberta Balstad said in her keynote address titled "E-Social Science - For What?" at the Third International Conference on E-Social Science, October 8, 2007, Ann Arbor, Michigan. I can't recall the exact words (and I haven't been able to locate a transcript) but it was something to the effect of: if the only contribution of cyberinfrastructure to social science is enabling researchers to do research "better, bigger, and faster" [my interpretation: improved scholarly services] then it will fail to have a significant impact on the field. Rob Jankowski wrote:
Robert:
I personally consider the distinction you suggest, proposed by Marj Kibby, as unnecessarily constraining and I would not use it. Instead, I suggest 'scholarship' as the overall label for knowledge production and this includes 'research' as one of the enterprises for such production. This and other issues are elaborated in my introductory chapter to the following book to be released 23 June: 'e-Research: Transformation in Scholarly Practice'. For details, see: http://www.routledge.com/books/E-Research-isbn9780415990288
An early draft of the introductory chapter is (still) on SlideShare and can be found at: http://www.slideshare.net/nickjan/jankowski-chapter-1-e-research-introductio...
Best,
Nick Jankowski
I found the following definitions of research and scholarship to be quite interesting and possibly useful in my efforts to distinguish e-Research from digital scholarship.
It seems to me that a lot of activities in the humanities, arts and social sciences that are described (and funded) as e-Research are actually digital scholarship since they involve setting up/maintaining/providing access to digital collections of research resources (e.g. social science datasets, images, video, audio), rather than contributing to new knowledge.
Does anyone else agree with or object to the definitions of research/scholarship below, and my attempt to use them to distinguish e-Research from digital scholarship? Any relevant scholarly references would be much appreciated.
Rob
------------------------------------- Dr Robert Ackland Fellow and Masters Coordinator, Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, The Australian National University
e-mail: robert.ackland@anu.edu.au project: http://voson.anu.edu.au teaching: http://adsri.anu.edu.au/study/ssi.php --------------------------------------
Marj Kibby wrote:
Our promotions criteria differentiate research and scholarship - research is seen as contributing new knowledge to the field, scholarship as staying abreast of developments in the field published by others.
Marj
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