With apologies for cross-postings.

The first seminar in the Centre for e-Research Seminar Series for 2012, Digital Transformations of Research and Styles of Knowing by Ralph Shroeder and Eric Meyer, is on Thursday 17th January in the Anatomy Theatre and Museum, King's College London. For more information and to register, please go to http://www.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/groups/cerch/events/seminars/index.aspx

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digital Transformations of Research and Styles of Knowing

Ralph Schroeder, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute

Eric T. Meyer, Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute

Tuesday 17 January, 6.15pm, Anatomy Museum. Followed by drinks In recent years, large-scale research programmes have been implemented across the globe with labels like e-Science, e-Infrastructure and cyberinfrastructure (Meyer and Schroeder 2009). It has been argued that these various digital transformations have fundamentally changed how research is done. In this paper, we challenge this argument, and suggest instead that there are more specific changes in particular areas of research that have taken place. To delimit the scope of what can be considered a digital transformation of research or ‘e-Research’ (since these could potentially encompass a vast range of phenomena), we define these as the distributed and collaborative use of digital tools and data in the production of scientific knowledge. One feature that e-Research efforts share is that they consist of online research technologies with a digital component, though what this component consists of varies among particular e-Research projects (for example, data in a digital format, the use of computing power to perform processing, or the creation of complex visualizations with computer graphics). We argue, however, that this variety in technologies is not infinite, but that there are a limited number of these components which can be identified.

Please register to attend at: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2658460527

About the speakers

Dr Eric T. Meyer is a Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute. His research in the area of social informatics focuses on understanding how digital technologies enable changes in the way people work, relate and interact. A particular focus has been studying how the practices of research are changing as digital tools and data become central in the sciences, social sciences, and arts & humanities. He is broadly interested in a fundamental question regarding how technology and practice are related: what evidence is there that technology has enabled people and organizations to do entirely new things? More information is available at: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/?id=120

Ralph Schroeder is Professor at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. He is director of research at the Institute and director of its Master's degree in 'Social Science of the Internet'. His books include 'Rethinking Science, Technology and Social Change' (Stanford University Press 2007) and 'Being there Together: Social Interaction in Virtual Environments' (Oxford University Press 2010). Before coming to Oxford, he was Professor at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden. His current research is focused on the digital transformations of research