The Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences

1. The Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences Paul Wouters

2. From Info to Question? • new research questions • reformulating old questions • new ways of combining data • new types of data • new ways of communicating • new forms of collaboration

3. Central idea VKS • Changes in information and communication create new possibilities • But how can these be used by researchers in hum/soc sc? • Engage with and reflect on e-research

4. Key elements of e-research • sharing computer resources • access to distributed, hybrid, and massive databases • digital platforms for communication and collaboration

5. More detailed knowledge of natural and social processes Acceleration of knowledge creation More inter-disciplinarity Higher productivity Improved access to and use of knowledge Imposing one-sided model of research to all fields (explicitly or implicitly) Less inter-disciplinarity Unrealistic promises (see history AI/ICT) may backfire Increasing capital intensity, higher research costs Decreased variation of epistemological cultures Promise versus risk Promises of e-science: Risks of e-science:

6. design and conceptualisation new questions & practices experiment/play travel across disciplines grasp dynamics knowledge creation demonstration and exploration bring researchers together pool resources, methodologies and techniques interrogate both old and new Mission Method

7. What the VKS is not • changing the humanities and social sciences to fit a particular e-model • creating ICTs for researchers • responding to scholarly needs • knowledge is central, not technology nor the user

8. analytic center virtual ethnography web archiving simulation DATA COLLABORATIONS INSTITUTIONS construction platform

9. Example: Web Archivist project • what is the basic unit? • stability of the Web problematic • selection problem • archiving the Web new theoretical and practical challenge • need for annotation and preservation • Web Archivist: Foot and Schneider

10. New sites are continually discovered by searching previously collected materials and the Web. Links between pages are more relevant to defining Web spheres than the “boundaries” of a site. Web Sphere A collection of dynamically defined resources spanning multiple Web sites bounded temporally and by relevance to a central theme, event or concept.

11. Web Sphere Analysis • Social/political/cultural relations between Web producers and users as mediated by Web sites, texts & links • Co-production of features, pages, sites and through links • Studied through observation & annotation of live & archived Web objects & interviews/surveys of Web producers/users

12. Retrospectively Analyzable Web Sphere • Enables developmental analyses over time • Requires an archive with annotation of (approximate reproductions of) pages from any point in time • Context: Must include pages representing entry and exit points (links) • Periodicity: Collected in time-aware database (not just a snapshot or snapshots)

13. T1 T2 Link across base URLs T3 T4 Starting with the same base URL Link across similar URLs Collecting multiple impressions of the “same” site over time Time

14. Preserving bits, content, experience • …bits – “retain the exact bit sequence of the original.” • …content – “retain the content (e.g., the words in a text or the appearance of an image) but not the full interactive nature of a Web site.” • …experience – “retain the entire experience of interacting.” Source:Arms et al, 2001: Collecting and Preserving the Web: The Minerva Prototypehttp://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews5-2.html#feature1

15. Reflexive instrumentality • interrogate e-research by study/play • interrogate that play itself • interrogate this interrogation • shape e-research by deconstruction and reconstruction