The World Wide Research Book is launched

Last Wednesday, at a lively event at the Oxford Internet Institute, the World Wide Research book was launched, with a number of fascinating and provocative presentations.

In his closing address, Dr James Martin (who founded the James Martin 21st Century School, now rebranded as the Oxford Martin School) urged people to read the book and commented that ‘it is seminal in its field’. It was Dr Martin’s investment in the School that enabled the e-Horizons Project to be created, from which the book emerged – and William Dutton, my co-editor, and I are grateful for his invaluable support. The launch agenda lists the speakers and panel members. There are some photo highlights and more information is available about the e-Horizons Project.

See my previous blog entries for further information about the book and the launch event.

World Wide Research Book Launch 22 September

Wednesday 22 September 2010 16:00 – 18:00

Location: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, 1 St Giles Oxford

If you would like to join us: Email your name and affiliation to events@oii.ox.ac.uk or telephone +44 (0)1865 287209

This event is an occasion to mark the publication by MIT Press of World Wide Research: Reshaping the Sciences and Humanities, edited by Bill Dutton and me. This new book explores how advances in ICTs are transforming the way scholarly research is conducted across all disciplines, offering a comprehensive and accessible view of the use of these new approaches to research and their ethical, legal and institutional implications. Where has work in this area made the greatest strides, and what areas are in the greatest need of further research?

16:00 Opening and Introduction

The Editors: Bill Dutton and Paul Jeffreys

16:10-50 Keynote

David De Roure, Professor of eResearch, Oxford e-Research Centre; National Strategic Director for Digital Social Research

16:50-17:30 Panel Discussion on Directions for the Field

• Graham Crow, Professor of Sociology, University of Southampton; Deputy Director of the UK’s National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM)
• Jim Davies, Professor of Software Engineering, Director, Software Engineering Programme, and Fellow, Kellogg College
• Eric T. Meyer, Research Fellow, OII
• Ralph Schroeder, Senior Research Fellow and Director of Research at the OII

17:30-17:55 Open Discussion on World Wide Research

17:55-18:00 Closing Remarks

Just published: 'World Wide Research: Reshaping the Sciences and Humanities'.

I am delighted to announce the publication of 'World Wide Research: Reshaping the Sciences and Humanities'. A collaboration, formed through the e-Horizons Project, with Professor William Dutton (Director of the Oxford Internet Institute). The book will be launched on Wednesday 22 September 2010 in Oxford.

Book details:

W.H.Dutton and P.Jeffreys (eds) World Wide Research: Reshaping the Sciences and Humanities. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press and Amazon.

Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access

A Digital Preservation and Access report has been launched at a conference at the Wellcome Collection Centre today. The report has been well received by many, including the British Library, and addresses three important questions relating to digital content:

• What do we preserve?
• Who is responsible for it?
• Who pays?
  

It follows a 2 year international study (with strong US focus, in particular NSF), with leading economists participating, to build an economic model for, and to make proposals relating to, digital preservation. It focused on 4 domain areas: scholarly discourse, research data, commercially owned cultural content, collectively used web content.

The full report is available.

JISC Conference 2010

In my view - the 2010 JISC Conference was the best so far.

A virtual goody bag of free digital resources was made available.

In a thought-provoking opening speech, Martin Bean said that the digital divide was no longer about haves and have nots in terms of access to IT and ownership of devices."In my mind now the digital divide is much more about those that actually understand how to use and apply technology in their lives and their work as a necessity, rather than simply getting access to the technology per se."

According to Bean the issue leads directly into the need to educate people for new types of work. He told delegates that learning in the workplace needs to become integral."The only way we dig our way out of this economic crisis and recession... is if we recognise that we have got to embed learning for life in the workplace."

Another major challenge is being able to transform information into meaningful knowledge, Bean argued."The day that Google became a verb, and teachers in primary and secondary schools starting looking at Wikipedia as a trusted source of information, we should all have started to think deeply about the notion of how we longer teach people of all ages where to find information and talked instead about how to make sense of that information."

He predicted that trust in content will be one of the big issues in the future. "Our libraries collectively… need to be spending as much time thinking about sense making of information as they do about simple retrieval of information".

The session I found most interesting was Research Data, Cost, benefits, Impact and Planning.

Interesting SharePoint in Higher Education document

An interesting report entitled: Investigation into the use of Microsoft SharePoint in Higher Education Institutions has been published as part of a project funded by Eduserv. It describes two types of SharePoint implementations: 'Organic' and 'Corporate'. It also considers drivers, critical success factors and SharePoint as a VLE.

Do take a look at the 2-page Executive Summary -
http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/static/5007/SPfinal.pdf - and please leave a comment on the Blog!

Workshop: Institutional Policy and Guidance for Research Data

The second EIDCSR Workshop took place on 29th of March at Rewley House in Oxford. Following policy development work undertaken at the University as part of the project, the event focused on issues around the development and implementation of institutional policy and guidance for research data:
* data management and sharing policy at different levels, such as research council, HEI institutions and research departments;
* in what ways research records and data management policy and guidance can be useful to researchers, and how to involve researchers in their development;
* how to encourage the implementation of institutional policy at a local or departmental level;
* how to encourage across the institution the sharing of best practice in research records and data management.

Details available at: http://eidcsr.oucs.ox.ac.uk/policy_workshop.xml

A particularly interesting contribution was the set of presentations from Melbourne University.