"Big Data" is on the covers of Science, Nature , the Economist , and Wired magazines, on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. But despite the media hyperbole, as ...Christine Borgman points out in this examination of data and scholarly research, having the right data is usually better than having more data; little data can be just as valuable as big data. In many cases, there are no data -- because relevant data don't exist, cannot be found, or are not available. Moreover, data sharing is difficult, incentives to do so are minimal, and data practices vary widely across disciplines. Borgman, an often-cited authority on scholarly communication, argues that data have no value or meaning in isolation; they exist within a knowledge infrastructure -- an ecology of people, practices, technologies, institutions, material objects, and relationships. After laying out the premises of her investigation -- six "provocations" meant to inspire discussion about the uses of data in scholarship -- Borgman offers case studies of data practices in the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities, and then considers the implications of her findings for scholarly practice and research policy. To manage and exploit data over the long term, Borgman argues, requires massive investment in knowledge infrastructures; at stake is the future of scholarship.
With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at an important moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in this thought-provoking book. The phenomenon ...he describes as social production is reshaping markets, while at the same time offering new opportunities to enhance individual freedom, cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice. But these results are by no means inevitable: a systematic campaign to protect the entrenched industrial information economy of the last century threatens the promise of today's emerging networked information environment.
In this comprehensive social theory of the Internet and the networked information economy, Benkler describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing-and shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and express themselves. He describes the range of legal and policy choices that confront us and maintains that there is much to be gained-or lost-by the decisions we make today.
Full Disclosure Fung, Archon; Graham, Mary; Weil, David
03/2007
eBook
Odprti dostop
Governments in recent decades have employed public disclosure strategies to reduce risks, improve public and private goods and services, and reduce injustice. In the United States, these targeted ...transparency policies include financial securities disclosures, nutritional labels, school report cards, automobile rollover rankings, and sexual offender registries. They constitute a light-handed approach to governance that empowers citizens. However, as Full Disclosure shows these policies are frequently ineffective or counterproductive. Based on a comparative analysis of eighteen major policies, the authors suggest that transparency policies often produce information that is incomplete, incomprehensible, or irrelevant to the consumers, investors, workers, and community residents who could benefit from them. Sometimes transparency fails because those who are threatened by it form political coalitions to limit or distort information. To be successful, transparency policies must place the needs of ordinary citizens at centre stage and produce information that informs their everyday choices.
Information users and usability constitute the main building blocks of today's electronic information world. This important new text is the first to give a holistic overview of all of the necessary ...issues relating to information users and the usability of information services in the digital world, including user-centred design, and the characteristics and behaviour of information users. This book helps readers understand why information users and the usability of information services are important and equips them to play a proper role in designing user-centred information systems and services and to properly exploit information services for the maximum benefit of users. It covers all of the major issues, the current situation and what the various research studies from around the world show. It includes chapters, covering: information users; human information behaviour; usability of information systems and services; usability: internet and web information services; usability: digital libraries and information services; barriers to information access and usability; the digital divide and social inclusion; the digital divide and usability of digital information services: the global perspectives; and, current issues and trends. It is an essential reading for researchers and practitioners interested in the design and evaluation of digital information systems and services, as well as for students on library, information, and digital library courses.
It has become increasingly accepted that important digital data must be retained and shared in order to preserve and promote knowledge, advance research in and across all disciplines of scholarly ...endeavor, and maximize the return on investment of public funds. To meet this challenge, colleges and universities are adding data services to existing infrastructures by drawing on the expertise of information professionals who are already involved in the acquisition, management, and preservation of data in their daily jobs. Data services include planning and implementing good data management practices, thereby increasing researchers’ ability to compete for grant funding and ensuring that data collections with continuing value are preserved for reuse. This volume provides a framework to guide information professionals in academic libraries, presses, and data centers through the process of managing research data from the planning stages through the life of a grant project and beyond. It illustrates principles of good practice with use-case examples and illuminates promising data service models through case studies of innovative, successful projects and collaborations. Contributors include: James L. Mullins, Purdue University; MacKenzie Smith, University of California at Davis; Sherry Lake, University of Virginia; Bernard Reilly, Center for Research Libraries; Jacob Carlson, Purdue University; Melissa Levine, University of Michigan; Jenn Riley, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Jan Brase, German National Library of Science and Technology; Seamus Ross, University of Toronto; Michele Kimpton, DuraSpace; Brian Schottlaender, University of California, San Diego; Suzie Allard, University of Tennessee; Angus Whyte, Digital Curation Centre; Scott Brandt, Purdue University; Brian Westra, University of Oregon; Geneva Henry, Rice University; Gail Steinhart, Cornell University; and Cliff Lynch, Coalition for Networked Information.
Information Systems Applications (incl.Internet); Business Information Systems; Computer Appl. in Administrative Data Processing; Management of Computing and Information Systems
High-level information fusion is the ability of a fusion system to capture awareness and complex relations, reason over past and future events, utilize direct sensing exploitations and tacit reports, ...and discern the usefulness and intention of results to meet system-level goals. This authoritative book serves a practical reference for developers, designers, and users of data fusion services that must relate the most recent theory to real-world applications. This unique volume provides alternative methods to represent and model various situations and describes design component implementations of fusion systems. Designers find expert guidance in applying current theories, selecting algorithms and software components, and measuring expected performance of high-level fusion systems.
"Research Data Management (RDM) has become a professional topic of great importance internationally following changes in scholarship and government policies about the sharing of research data. ...'Exploring Research Data Management' provides an accessible introduction and guide to RDM with engaging tasks for the reader to follow and develop their knowledge. Starting by exploring the world of research and the importance and complexity of data in the research process, the book considers how a multi-professional support service can be created then examines the decisions that need to be made in designing different types of research data service from local policy creation, training, through to creating a data depository."--Back cove
In the era of "big data," science is increasingly information driven, and the potential for computers to store, manage, and integrate massive amounts of data has given rise to such new disciplinary ...fields as biomedical informatics. Applied ontology offers a strategy for the organization of scientific information in computer-tractable form, drawing on concepts not only from computer and information science but also from linguistics, logic, and philosophy. This book provides an introduction to the field of applied ontology that is of particular relevance to biomedicine, covering theoretical components of ontologies, best practices for ontology design, and examples of biomedical ontologies in use.After defining an ontology as a representation of the types of entities in a given domain, the book distinguishes between different kinds of ontologies and taxonomies, and shows how applied ontology draws on more traditional ideas from metaphysics. It presents the core features of the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), now used by over one hundred ontology projects around the world, and offers examples of domain ontologies that utilize BFO. The book also describes Web Ontology Language (OWL), a common framework for Semantic Web technologies. Throughout, the book provides concrete recommendations for the design and construction of domain ontologies.