e-Research infrastructures and open science: Towards a new system of knowledge production?

Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation

Volumn 25, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 1-17

  Schroeder, Ralph ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

E research; Infrastructure; Internet and research; Open science; Research policy; Social implications of technology

Indexed keywords

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY; INTERNET; RESEARCH;

EID: 33847347208     PISSN: 08109028     EISSN: 14701030     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/08109020601172860     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. The author would like to thank Matthijs den Besten, Bill Dutton, Grace de la Flor and Wolf Richter for helpful comments on this paper. The research is funded by ESRC grant RES-149- 25-1022 for the Oxford e-Social Science (OeSS) project: Ethical, Legal and Institutional Dynamics of Grid-enabled e-Sciences (http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/microsites/ oess/).
2. It is important to distinguish between access and use since use can entail contributing to the development of the shared resource, rather than just accessing it. A different way to make this distinction is to talk about the input to and output from research.
3. R. Schroeder and J. Fry, 'Social science approaches to e-science', Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007 (forthcoming).
4. D. Atkins et al., Revolutionizing Science and Engineering through Cyberinfrastructure, Report of the National Science Foundation Blue-Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure, Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA, 2003.
5. Ibid, p. 4.
6. Ibid, p. 38.
7. Ibid, p. 53.
8. For example, Ibid, p. 57.
9. F. Berman and H. Brady, Final Report: NSF SBE CISE Workshop on Cyberinfrastructure and the Social Sciences, 2005. Available at: www.sdsc.edu/sbe/, accessed 28 September 2006.
10. Ibid, p. 19.
11. American Council of Learned Societies, The Draft Report of the American Council of Learned Societies' Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for Humanities and Social Sciences, 2005, pp. 47-8. Available at: http://www.acls.org/cyberinfrastructure/acls-ci-public.pdf#search=% 22Cyberinfrastructure %20arts%20and%20humanities%22, accessed 28 September 2006.
12. M. Lennars et al., e-Infrastructures Road Map, e-IRGSP, The Hague, 2005, p. 26. Available at: http://e-irg.eu/roadmap/, accessed 28 September 2006.
13. Ibid, p. 27.
14. Ibid, p. 52.
15. The openness of individual e-research projects is part of an ongoing research project by David, den Besten, Fry and Schroeder: See P. David, M. den Besten and R. Schroeder, 'How open is e-science?', Proceedings of IEEE e-Science, Amsterdam, December 2006.
16. P. David, 'Understanding the emergence of "open science" institutions: Functionalist economics in historical context', Industrial and Corporate Change, 13, 4, 2004, pp. 571-89.
17. R. Merton, 'The normative structure of science', in The Sociology of Science, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1973 [1942], pp. 267-78.
18. R. Merton, 'The normative structure of science', in The Sociology of Science, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1973 [1942], pp. 273.
19. D. Hess, Science Studies. An Advanced Introduction, New York University Press, New York, 1997, p. 57.
20. See David et al., op. cit.
21. S. Fuchs, 'What makes sciences scientific?', in J. Turner (ed.), Handbook of Sociological Theory, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 2002, pp. 21-35
22. T. Becher and P. Trowler, Academic Tribes and Territories: Intellectual Inquiry and the Culture of Disciplines, 2nd edition, Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 2001.
23. Merton's other two norms, disinterestedness and organized scepticism, are also relevant and all four are interrelated, but these two are perhaps less directly relevant to e-infrastructures.
24. S. Weber, The Success of Open Source, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004.
25. One lesson from open source for open e-research and e-infrastructure is that it is necessary to protect research and tools in order to release them for free access and use. For open source, ths is done by means of licensing, either to prevent commercial use or to ensure that even commercial use stays 'open'. For academic research, one way to safeguard 'ownership' is by means of copyright, and developing various forms of licensing modelled on open source as a means of disseminating research (not only publications, but also data and tools). This is a key element in ensuring the 'open science' character of e-research; see J. Willinsky, 'The unacknowledged convergence of open source, open access, and open science', First Monday, 10, 8, 2005, available online;
26. D. Burk, 'Intellectual property in the context of e-science', Minnesota Legal Studies Research Paper No.06-47, 2006. Available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=929479.
27. For the distinctions between different types of licenses see Weber, op. cit. and Wikipedia for an accessible overview, http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Open_source. This section will focus on more general issues and not only licensing.
28. See E. Deibel, 'Common genomes: Open source in biotechnology and the return of common property', Tailoring Biotechnologies, 2, 2, 2006, pp. 49-84.
29. But Willinsky provides an inventory; see J. Willinsky, The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2006.
30. Willinsky, 2005, op. cit., p. 7.
31. Ibid, p. 10.
32. The umbrella term 'intellectual property' conflates several phenomena that are separate from a legal perspective: Copyright, patents, and database protection (trademarks and trade secrets, two additional areas of IP, are less relevant in this context). There is no space to analyze the implications of these differences, especially as the distinction between them, especially in the digital realm, is currently in flux. But it can be mentioned briefly that the implications of these distinctions will be different if one takes a legal and economic perspective (to what extent, for example, does the expression as against the use of ideas, which is roughly the distinction between what is covered by copyright and patents, foster economic innovation); or if, as here, one takes a user perspective (to what extent are content and tools free of charge, accessible and usable, and do not lock the user in to a particular tool or resource or incompatible ones).
33. See for example Y. Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2006, pp. 380-2.
34. S. Sell, Private Power, Public Law. The Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003.
35. P. David and B. Hall, 'Property and the pursuit of knowledge: IPR issues affecting scientific research', Research Policy, 35, 2006, pp. 767-71
36. see also Burk, op. cit.
37. R. Collins, 'Ethical controversies of science and society: A relation between two spheres of social conflict', in T. Brante, S. Fuller and W. Lynch (eds), Controversial Science: From Content to Contention, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1993, pp. 301-17.
38. P. Haas, 'Introduction: Epistemic communities and international policy coordination', International Organization, 46, 1, 1992, pp. 1-35, quote on p. 3.
39. M. Keck and K. Sekkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1998.
40. A.-M. Slaughter, A New World Order, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2004.
41. Collins, 1993, op. cit.
42. See M. Bauer and G. Gaskell, 'The biotechnology movement', in M. Bauer and G. Gaskell (eds), Biotechnology: The Making of a Global Controversy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002, pp. 379-404. Bauer and Gaskell's functionalist model is in fact more 16 R. Schroeder complicated as it deals with an area (biotechnology) where there has been considerable controversy and thus also includes the media and commercial interests. e-Research is more contained within the research community and among NGOs and advocacy groups.
43. For the role of the state in the globalization of science, see G. Drori, J. Meyer, F. Ramirez and E. Schofer, Science in the Modern World Polity: Institutionalization and Globalization, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2003.
44. The global nature of e-research is discussed by R. Schroeder, 'e-Sciences: Infrastructures that reshape the global contours of knowledge', paper presented at the Second International Conference on e-Social Science, Manchester, 28-30 June 2006. Available at: http://www.ncess.ac.uk/events/conference/2006/papers/, accessed 28 September 2006. On the continuing strength of the state and its role as a target of social movements.
45. M. Mann, 'Has globalization ended the rise and rise of the nationstate?', in T. V. Paul and J. A. Hall (eds), International Order and the Future of World Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, pp. 237-51.
46. T. Hughes, 'The evolution of large technological systems', in W. Bijker, T. Hughes and T. Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987, pp. 51-82.
47. T. Hughes, 'Technological momentum', in L. Marx and M. R. Smith (eds), Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1994, pp. 101-13.
48. Van der Vleuten discusses the relation between them: E. Van der Vleuten, 'Infrastructures and societal change. A view from the large technical systems field', Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 16, 3, 2004, pp. 395-414. In what follows, 'infrastructure' will sometimes be used in the singular to indicate the whole ensemble of e-research tools, and sometimes in the plural when referring to the different components of which it is made.
49. R. Collins, 'Why the social sciences won't become high-consensus, rapid-discovery science', Sociological Forum, 9, 2, 1994, pp. 155-77.
50. P. Galison and B. Hevly (eds), Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1992.
51. I. Hacking, Representing and Intervening, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983, p. 146.
52. The point is overstated here: The key to biotechnological advances has been based on standalone computers for processing data from high-throughput machines for analyzing genetic material. Nevertheless, being able to access results via networks - scientific communication in the broad sense described earlier - has in recent years arguably become equally important. For the contribution of computing to biotechnology, see T. Lenoir and E. Gianella, 'The emergence and diffusion of DNA microarray technology', Journal of Biomedical Discovery and Collaboration, 1, 11, 2006, available online; and for how tools (in this case, PCR techniques). have been 'open' in the sense that patents did not hinder the dissemination and use of these tools
53. J. Fore, I. Wiechers and R. Cook-Deegan, 'The effects of business practices, licensing, and intellectual property on development and dissemination of the polymerase chain reaction: Case study', Journal of Biomedical Discovery and Collaboration, 1, 7, 2006, available online.
54. R. Whitley, The Intellectual and Social Organization of the Sciences, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000.
55. Hughes, 1987, op. cit.
56. P. David and M. Spence, 'Towards a cyberinfrastructure for enhanced scientific collaboration', OII Research Report No. 4, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, 2006. Available at: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/microsites/oess/papers.cfm, accessed 28 September 2006.
57. Whitley, op. cit., pp. ix-xliv.
58. Collins, 1994, op. cit.
59. R. Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998, pp. 532-8.
60. The literature on these phenomena is extensive, but van der Vleuten (op. cit.) provides a good overview in relation to large technological systems and infrastructures.
61. This user-base points to an important distinction between a bottom-up approach to infrastructures by means of sharing computing resources (as with the Setiηome research e-Research Infrastructures and Open Science 17 project, http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/, whereby the spare computing capacity of Internetconnected PCs was harnessed for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) or usergenerated content (for example, Wikipedia, see Benkler, op. cit.) in a decentralized way; as against top-down approaches which are characteristic, for example, of national communication technology infrastructures (or electricity grids). Note, however, that both require more or less centralized coordination and control, rather than being at one or other extreme.
62. Whitley, op. cit.
63. For the different social science perspectives on e-Science, see Schroeder and Fry, op. cit.
64. Willinsky, 2006, op. cit.
65. In this respect, perhaps the most critical controversy, which may mean the difference between an e-infrastructure that will come to be multi-tiered rather than being part of a single network, is the current challenge to 'network' or 'net neutrality' (Benkler, op. cit., pp. 396-7): Whether the Internet will continue to operate on the 'end-to-end' principle whereby content is delivered regardless of its origin and destination, or if different parts come to operate according to other principles. This remains to be seen.
66. Part of the reason that the tensions are not simply for or against open e-infrastructures is that they operate on different levels or in different realms; the realm of legal regulation, of the technical standard-setting possibilities for open systems, of research funding bodies and advocacy movements, for example, will push and pull the system on these different levels; a though the point of large technological systems, of course, is that they will ultimately have to become aligned or gel into a stable whole.
67. This tension has been noticed for basic research: Why should one country support basic research only to see the exploitation of this research take place in another?
68. This is akin to the 'shadow of the future' in open source software of potential commercial reward in the longer term if there are many users (see Weber, op. cit.).
69. Benkler, op. cit.
70. David, op. cit.
71. Benkler, op. cit., pp. 301-10.
72. Weber, op. cit.
73. Though whether scientific e-research can be independent of political borders for countries like China, which is developing an e-research infrastructure and yet imposes restricted access on the Internet/Web, remains to be seen.