Dear Air'ers - Naturally I want to weigh in on this topic as it is the subject of my thesis. However I have now read hundred's of pages of material on these and related topics making it difficult to summarize or even, see a way forward - huh, this is what they call the 'writing up' part of the thesis - when things are clear as mud. However I must say that the answers won't come from reading a 'few online sources' depending on how far one is taking the discussion. There are perspectives from education, knowledgement management, and even the interdisciplinarians as organized researchers in IDS, or interdisciplinary studies, such as Jule Thompson Klein. Then there's other perspectives in knowledge productions such as offered by Gibbons et al. Another substantial perspective derives from Stephen Toulmin's sociology of knowledge. And, to my mind, the social epistemologists have an interesting take on disciplinary formulations. I have found those who look at disciplines as communities of practice to be fairly ordinary, while I really like the role of disciplines as epistemic culture as suggested by Knorr Cetina. My personal view of a discipline (currently, subject to change) represents a given disciplinary perspective more like a "Weltanschauung" than a particular set of rules or axioms, or frameworks or cultures, practices, or anything like that. Forthcoming interesting places to look will be Nancy Bayms (Ed.) Special issue on Internet Studies and Disciplines. While my paper (sadly) didn't make the cut, I have re-worked another paper under a new title: "Internet protocols and interdisciplinarity" This paper takes an operational view of the discourses around disciplines as similar to protocols that govern certain types of operations, such as internet protocols. It is not a sociology of knowledge approach but reviews the IDS frameworks of JT Klein et al. I will stick it up on my website (below) by the end of the week. Those who are interested can email me off-list for a .pdf. Cheers, Denise Denise N. Rall, PhD candidate, School of Environ. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & Internet Researcher Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Tuesdays or Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html