Remote Collaboration Over Video Data: Towards Real-Time e-Social Science

The design of distributed systems to support collaboration among groups of scientists raises new networking challenges that grid middleware developers are addressing. This field of development work, ‘e-Science’, is increasingly recognising the critical need of understanding the ordinary day-to-day work of doing research to inform design. We have investigated one particular area of collaborative social scientific work – the analysis of video data. Based on interviews and observational studies, we discuss current practices of social scientific work with digital video in three areas: Preparation for collaboration; Control of data and application; and Annotation configurations and techniques. For each, we describe how these requirements feature in our design of a distributed video analysis system as part of the MiMeG project: our security policy and distribution; the design of the control system; and providing freeform annotation over data. Finally, we review our design in light of initial use of the software between project partners; and discuss how we might transform the spatial configuration of the system to support annotation behaviour.     

Critical Accountability: Dilemmas for Interventionist Studies of e-Science

E-science initiatives are technology-enabled interventions in current research practices. These interventions are justified by the hope that e-science infrastructures and tools will foster new venues for researchers and scholars. This triggers a complex interaction between hope, hype, and accountability. In this article, we discuss a new initiative at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)—the Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences (VKS)—in which we are directly involved. The VKS combines the goals of reflexive analysis with design of scholarly practices in a variety of fields. The article discusses this nexus and the tensions involved, as exemplary of the types of challenges that researchers will experience in e-social science as it develops.     

Social Science Approaches to e-Science: Framing an Agenda

The use of advanced high performance computing tools across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities has rapidly expanded in recent years. Several programs have been initiated under the umbrella of e-science with large-scale funding and a wide range of projects. The vision underlying these programs is that new tools will greatly enhance research and enable new forms of global collaboration. This article maps out the different social science approaches to e-science and provides illustrations of how they have been deployed. The aim is to highlight the diversity of these approaches, show complementarities among them, and point to how they may shape the e-science enterprise in years to come.     

Tools to think with? Towards understanding the use of computer-based support tools in policy relevant research

As environmental science has broadened to address policy concerns, there has been an effort to transfer the perceived benefits of formal modelling to these new areas through the creation of computer-based support tools. However, a number of poorly addressed issues pose barriers to the uptake of such tools. These issues are discussed to argue that the current support tool research agenda is too focussed on hard, technical concerns and that greater emphasis needs to be given to soft, contextual aspects of design and use. To counter these deficiencies we propose a framework for research based upon the concepts of innovation and receptivity. Three different sources of innovation relevant to support tools and end-user receptivity are identified. We contend that new technologies and new techniques for manipulating them have to be translated into the pre-existing knowledge and working practices of user communities before they can be effectively employed. To illustrate the proposed framework, the paper explores the impact of one innovation source on receptivity within the context of a research project developing and applying support tool technology. The need to better understand the dimensions of innovation and how they relate to the processes that determine user receptivity to support tools is emphasised.     

浅析科学技术对艺术设计的影响

在一般人眼里,科学技术与艺术设计似乎是两个截然不同,分别独立存在的领域。然而事实并非如此,科学技术与艺术设计是相互渗透相互作用的。本文着重阐述了科学技术对艺术设计的影响和作用。第一部分结合实例论证科学技术对艺术设计的重要作用;第二部分立足当代,研究社会的科学技术发展以及社会进步,并详细阐述了此环境下的艺术设计的发展阶段——非物质设计;第三部分,放眼未来,阐明设计的必然趋势—科学与艺术的整合。     

Auswirkungen kulturspezifischer Verhaltensmuster auf das Sozialkapital in multinationalen IT-Projektteams

This paper contributes to a better understanding and to mitigate negative consequences of cultural diversity in multinational IT project teams. Our research explores how culture-specific behaviors impact social capital among team members and how firms can manage the strains. In the existing IS culture literature, culture-specific behaviors are ?C if at all ?C traced back to single culture dimensions. In contrast, the approach proposed in this article goes one step further suggesting that it is necessary to combine several culture dimensions to better understand a certain culture-specific behavior and consequently be able to better manage resulting relationship problems in multinational settings. Conducting exploratory case studies in six multinational IT projects, two exemplary cultural behavior patterns (face maintenance in India and post-communism in the Czech Republic) are identified, and management actions to avoid project performance problems are derived. The results contribute to a better understanding and management of the negative impact of culture-specific behaviors in IT project teams and corroborate that research based on culture dimensions, such as those conceptualized by Hofstede or House et al., is valuable for understanding multi-country IS projects. The findings in particular suggest that aggregating these dimensions to cultural behavior patterns improves their explanatory power and consequently the management??s capability to mitigate the negative consequences of cultural diversity.     

Professional development to enhance teachers' practices in using information and communication technologies (ICTs) as cognitive tools: Lessons learned from a design-based research study

Technology integration in K-12 classrooms is usually overly teacher-centered and has insufficient impact on students' learning, especially in enhancing students' higher-order cognitive skills. The purpose of this project is to facilitate science teachers' use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as cognitive tools to shift their practices from traditional teacher-centered methods to constructivist, student-centered ones. This paper describes the outcomes and lessons learned from an application of design-based research (DBR) in the implementation and refinement of a teacher professional development (PD) program that is a key component of the overall project. This DBR study involved 25 middle-school science teachers from 24 schools whose implementation of cognitive tools with their students in science classrooms and virtually through a social networking site were observed over four years. A mixed-methodology was utilized to examine the impact of the cognitive tools intervention on teachers' classroom practices and students' development of new literacy skills. Identifying reusable design principles related to technology integration was another focus of the DBR study. The results revealed teachers' positive changes in their classroom practices by gradually allowing students to take control over the use of technology, and positive impact on students' ICT skills and science learning. Design principles for future professional development programs aimed at preparing teachers to adopt a cognitive tools approach are described.     

Understanding Science Through the Computational Lens

This article explores the changing nature of the interaction between computer science and the natural and social sciences.After briefly tracing the history of scientific computation,the article presents the concept of computational lens,a metaphor for a new relationship that is emerging between the world of computation and the world of the sciences.Our main thesis is that,in many scientific fields,the processes being studied can be viewed as computational in nature,in the sense that the processes perform dynamic transformations on information represented as digital data.Viewing natural or engineered systems through the lens of their computational requirements or capabilities provides new insights and ways of thinking.A number of examples are discussed in support of this thesis.The examples are from various fields,including quantum computing,statistical physics,the World Wide Web and the Internet,mathematics,and computational molecular biology.     

结合公民科学的 Kingdonia 协同工作平台的构建与应用

标本数字化和野外数据采集与整合是现今标本馆的两个重点工作,传统标本馆在应对这些问题时常常会遇到人力资源不足、数据质量不佳、重复工作较多、工作效率不高等众多问题。针对这些问题,昆明植物研究所标本馆 (KUN) 提出了以公民科学为核心的 Kingdonia 计划,并在该计划之下开发了一套以 Kingdonia 数据中心为基础的生物多样性协同与共享应用。这些应用在志愿者和公众的参与下,重塑了标本馆的工作流,并成功解决了上述传统标本馆所面临的一系列问题。此外,作为该计划的延伸,Biotracks 在自然观察、自然记录等方面也表现出了良好的发展潜力。     

Science of Scientific Team Science: A survey

Scientific teamwork collaboration is an integral element of the scientific process that often leads to significant findings. Systematic analysis of scientific teamwork collaboration continues to influence both the advance in science and knowledge production. This paper presents an overview of Science of Scientific Team Science (SSTS). SSTS explores the behaviors and attributes of teamwork and team-based collaboration specific to scientific teams from the perspective of quantitative analysis, which refers to a branch of science that analyzes and discovers scientific collaboration patterns inter- or extra-team. Aiming at assisting scientific team formation, improving collaboration environment, evaluating team performance, and fostering collaborative behaviors, this survey presents an overview in SSTS. Theoretical background of SSTS at different team development stages has been discussed. In addition, three classifications of SSTS, including interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research approaches have been investigated. Their associated similarities and differences, challenges and benefits, are also examined. This paper also summarizes web-based tools that enhance one’s understanding and opinion of SSTS. Key technologies and open issues are then discussed. The association among scientific collaboration, scientific teamwork, SSTS, and cross-disciplinary research gives rise to critical implications for scholars who wish to employ and invest in those issues.     

LIBRARIES,SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND DISTANCE LEARNERS: BLOG IT,TAG IT,SHARE IT!

This paper describes a recent project funded by the University of London to explore how social software or Web 2.0 technologies can enhance the use of libraries by distance learners. LASSIE (Libraries And Social Software In Education) involves a team of librarians, learning technologists and archivists. The project first conducted an extensive literature review, which is available online. The literature review provides an overview of key social software and explores the current implementation of these tools by libraries. It also considers the key issues in supporting distance learners’ use of libraries and whether social software might provide solutions. The literature review was followed by several case studies to explore specific types of social software in practice. These included the use of social bookmarking for sharing resources, social software and online reading lists, blogging in the library community, the use of social networking sites and podcasting for information literacy support. LASSIE will be completed in December 2007 and a final report with results from the case studies and an updated literature review will be made available from the project website. One of the successes of the project has been to establish a project blog, which provides the project team with an opportunity to reflect on progress, but also to gather opinions from others in the field.     

近十年（2008-2017 年）大数据下CDIO 理念与计算机学科融合研究动态

CDIO的核心理念是“做中学”和“项目化教学”,基于CDIO的工程理念展开对计算机专业人才的培养和学科发展的研究越来越受到教育者和研究者的关注。因此,本文基于知网的可视化分析能力通过关键词索引探究近十年来在CDIO理念引导下的计算机学科专业研究趋势与发展方向。     

“Blogging” As an Educational Enhancement Tool for Improved Student Performance: A Pilot Study in Undergraduate Nursing Education

Improving learning and synthesis of new knowledge is often a challenge for nursing faculty in the twenty-first century. Faculty are urged to use new technologies and to embrace methodologies that include more interactions by the student. Today's students are less adept in written and oral communication and, consequently, more hesitant to speak out or write independently for fear of ridicule by others. These same students, by virtue of their adaptation and immersion in technological advances, need support in using these same mechanisms to improve their communication skills. Interpersonal communication across many levels is very important in nursing. This article summarizes a study of nursing students at North Carolina Central University in the spring of 2011 and their use of social networking to communicate about nursing education and medical errors. This qualitative pilot study used new social media known as web logs (blogs) to enable students to become more secure communicating with one another. The tool was a Google-based blog. The nursing students' interaction styles were evaluated based on topics and inter-connections. Visualizations of the social network communications as maps are provided with the article to illustrate data analysis results.

As a pilot study the research may be used for system design requirements for a medical educational environment that promotes sharing information and collecting data related to quality care and learning. Potential social media tools for future consideration include Facebook, Twitter, blogs, electronic journals, forums (or chat rooms), and wikis (group-authored encyclopedia/information sites) as found on the web, on smart phones and in online education tools. This research project was based on an earlier study of nursing students using blogs and sharing medical error information in confidence. The researchers on the 2011 project have found that analyzing, for example, how students support each other during school, learn about drug calculations and NCLEX examination preparations, by means of social networking could lead to ways to reduce errors as students develop communication habits, share knowledge, and pay more attention to tasks.     

Take Me Back: Validating the Wayback Machine

Although fields such as e-commerce, information systems, and computer-mediated communication (CMC) acknowledge the importance of validity, validating research tools or measures in these domains seems the exception rather than the rule. This article extends the concept of validation to one of an emerging genre of web-based tools that provide new measures, the Wayback Machine (WM). Drawing in part on social science tests of validity, the study progresses from testing for and demonstrating the weakest form of validity, face validity, to the more demanding tests for content, predictive, and convergent validity. Finally, the study tests and shows nomological validity, using the diffusion of innovations theory. In line with prior diffusion research, the results of tests for predictive and nomological validity showed significant relationships with organizational characteristics and two WM measures: website age and number of updates. The results help validate these measures and demonstrate the utility of the WM for studying evolving website use.     

Thinking Creatively About Creativity: What Can We Learn From Recent Developments in the Philosophy of Science?

Some time ago the Hungarian scholar Istvan Magyari-Beck (1994) published a challenging article in this journal indicating weaknesses in creativity research which sparked off responses from the American scholars Teresa Amabile (1994) and Scott Isaksen (1995). While Magyari-Beck applied familiar themes from the history of science, this article borrows extensively from the latest thinking in the philosophy of science, thus continuing the debate started by Magyari-Beck at the ontological and epistemological plane. The contribution of this article lies in the fact that it uncovers some basic assumptions researchers hold about the nature of the (social) world and ways they can obtain knowledge about that world. As such it challenges orthodox ideas about “good” research and theory building.     

Social networks as health feedback displays

Social networks have thus far served primarily as analytic tools for social scientists. By leveraging pervasive computing, this new research transforms social-network models into behavioral feedback displays. These ambient displays, which reflect data on remote and face-to-face interaction gathered by wireless sensor networks, were intended to raise awareness of social connectedness as a dynamic and controllable aspect of well being. An interdisciplinary health technology research group at Intel recently developed and tested prototypes in the homes of older adults and their caregivers. This article reviews the psychological rationale for the project and highlights some reactions of participants to the displays.     

Utilizing big data analytics for information systems research: challenges,promises and guidelines

This essay discusses the use of big data analytics (BDA) as a strategy of enquiry for advancing information systems (IS) research. In broad terms, we understand BDA as the statistical modelling of large, diverse, and dynamic data sets of user-generated content and digital traces. BDA, as a new paradigm for utilising big data sources and advanced analytics, has already found its way into some social science disciplines. Sociology and economics are two examples that have successfully harnessed BDA for scientific enquiry. Often, BDA draws on methodologies and tools that are unfamiliar for some IS researchers (e.g., predictive modelling, natural language processing). Following the phases of a typical research process, this article is set out to dissect BDA’s challenges and promises for IS research, and illustrates them by means of an exemplary study about predicting the helpfulness of 1.3 million online customer reviews. In order to assist IS researchers in planning, executing, and interpreting their own studies, and evaluating the studies of others, we propose an initial set of guidelines for conducting rigorous BDA studies in IS.     

Towards a Politicized Notion of Citizenship for Science Education: Engaging the Social Through Dissensus

Abstract:

This theoretical article draws from the political thought of Jacques Rancière to trouble some taken-for-granted conceptions of citizenship education. Rancière's notion of politics and dissensus (as opposed to consensus) can lay the groundwork for a version of citizenship that challenges what is deemed sensible, visible, who is counted in communities and on what grounds. This version of citizenship, based on politics and dissensus, disrupts the taken-for-granted social order and seeks to establish equality for those who are what Rancière calls “the part of no part.” In science, math, and technology education this means rethinking how we approach social and political issues and civic identities, where consensus seeking and nonactivist choices for students prevail. I conclude the article by outlining examples of science education research that work to “redraw the lines” of the social (the social being the stakes of the political); in particular, the Idle No More movement, which is at the forefront of both scientific and political activism in the geographic space known as Canada.     

Unweaving time and food chains: Two classroom exercises in scientific and emotional literacy

Abstract

This article concerns affective dimensions in school science. Using data from two case studies (one set in a British’ university and the other in a Canadian junior high school), the article explores ways in which science has the potential to stimulate and challenge emotions. The developing discussions highlight (1) the importance of affect in learning science, (2) how emotions might feature more centrally in science classrooms, and (3) how definitions of scientific literacy might more explicitly embrace affect.     

Maintaining Case-Based Reasoners: Dimensions and Directions

Experience with the growing number of large-scale and long-term case-based reasoning (CBR) applications has led to increasing recognition of the importance of maintaining existing CBR systems. Recent research has focused on case-base maintenance (CBM), addressing such issues as maintaining consistency, preserving competence, and controlling case-base growth. A set of dimensions for case-base maintenance, proposed by Leake and Wilson, provides a framework for understanding and expanding CBM research. However, it also has been recognized that other knowledge containers can be equally important maintenance targets. Multiple researchers have addressed pieces of this more general maintenance problem, considering such issues as how to refine similarity criteria and adaptation knowledge. As with case-base maintenance, a framework of dimensions for characterizing more general maintenance activity, within and across knowledge containers, is desirable to unify and understand the state of the art, as well as to suggest new avenues of exploration by identifying points along the dimensions that have not yet been studied. This article presents such a framework by (1) refining and updating the earlier framework of dimensions for case-base maintenance, (2) applying the refined dimensions to the entire range of knowledge containers, and (3) extending the theory to include coordinated cross-container maintenance. The result is a framework for understanding the general problem of case-based reasoner maintenance (CBRM). Taking the new framework as a starting point, the article explores key issues for future CBRM research.