[Air-L] AoIR in Second Life - Scholar vs. researcher

Sat May 30 19:27:13 PDT 2009

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-introduction-final-single-spaced-small-font-3-december2008
> 
> 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 at 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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> 
> 