Retrieved from a post of Nicolas Balacheff on the SOA scientific portal on September the 25th, 2009
Since the beginning of its history, Scientific research has been a social activity with a large place given to communication, debates and collaborations. There are many evidences of this social dimension of the scientific activity, including famous and extensive exchanges of letters. The development of the publishing industry and business has leveraged the capacity of disseminating research results, questions and debates. The impact of IT-based tools has accelerated the phenomena, but has not changed its meaning and scientific raison d'être. The main revolution is in the capacity nowadays to not only share theories and results, but also instruments and data at a point never experienced before. This is the core of Science 2.0, as emphasised by Barbara Kieslinger and Stefanie Lindstaedt in an analysis of Science 2.0 practices, it means in our field "the possibility for researchers to share lab results, protocols, class activities, etc." (p.2). We fully agree.
But there is one point worth to discuss. The authors mention (p.1) the effort invested in "publishing one's ideas". The word "idea" deserves some attention. The scientific activity, in my opinion, is less about sharing ideas than agreeing on results which could be turned into shareable knowledge shareable. What means that the issue is to discuss the rational and the argumentation (if not proof) supporting the claimed results. Sharing ideas leads to an over emphasis on social interactions and concern about ownership, sharing results would call for paying more attention to the data, the theories and the methods we use and down play the issue of ownership (which actually can never be avoided, e.g. polemics about anteriority). If sharing and publishing ideas is our core business, then I understand those who fear theft (plagiarism) and vandalism. If we privilege the sharing of results then the risk is less important, but the challenge more difficult to take up because it means some consensus on the theoretical frameworks and the related methods. Indeed, I mean results coming from work advanced enough so that it makes sense to share it (and not unfinished work, see p.2 sec. 3.).
The discussion on TEL Science 2.0 is actually a discussion about our scientific practice (whatever is the technology): What do we publish? What does it mean to publish "ideas" and "unfinished" (and sometimes not started) projects? Data cannot be published without being documented, here what can we say, then what are the conditions for sharing data in our domain?
In the end the problem is less to open up our research, than demonstrating by reaching reasonable theoretical and technological consensus that it produces something tangible, and not only discourse. The risk of Science 2.0 is exactly that: increasing and accelerating the production of discourses at the price of forgetting the production of high quality results and developing the TEL knowledge base.
A note after the reading of: Kieslinger B., Stefanie N. Lindstaedt S. N. (2009) Science 2.0 Practices in the Field of Technology Enhanced Learning. In: Science2.0 for TEL Workshop. ECTEL, Nice, France
Since the beginning of its history, Scientific research has been a social activity with a large place given to communication, debates and collaborations. There are many evidences of this social dimension of the scientific activity, including famous and extensive exchanges of letters. The development of the publishing industry and business has leveraged the capacity of disseminating research results, questions and debates. The impact of IT-based tools has accelerated the phenomena, but has not changed its meaning and scientific raison d'être. The main revolution is in the capacity nowadays to not only share theories and results, but also instruments and data at a point never experienced before. This is the core of Science 2.0, as emphasised by Barbara Kieslinger and Stefanie Lindstaedt in an analysis of Science 2.0 practices, it means in our field "the possibility for researchers to share lab results, protocols, class activities, etc." (p.2). We fully agree.
But there is one point worth to discuss. The authors mention (p.1) the effort invested in "publishing one's ideas". The word "idea" deserves some attention. The scientific activity, in my opinion, is less about sharing ideas than agreeing on results which could be turned into shareable knowledge shareable. What means that the issue is to discuss the rational and the argumentation (if not proof) supporting the claimed results. Sharing ideas leads to an over emphasis on social interactions and concern about ownership, sharing results would call for paying more attention to the data, the theories and the methods we use and down play the issue of ownership (which actually can never be avoided, e.g. polemics about anteriority). If sharing and publishing ideas is our core business, then I understand those who fear theft (plagiarism) and vandalism. If we privilege the sharing of results then the risk is less important, but the challenge more difficult to take up because it means some consensus on the theoretical frameworks and the related methods. Indeed, I mean results coming from work advanced enough so that it makes sense to share it (and not unfinished work, see p.2 sec. 3.).
The discussion on TEL Science 2.0 is actually a discussion about our scientific practice (whatever is the technology): What do we publish? What does it mean to publish "ideas" and "unfinished" (and sometimes not started) projects? Data cannot be published without being documented, here what can we say, then what are the conditions for sharing data in our domain?
In the end the problem is less to open up our research, than demonstrating by reaching reasonable theoretical and technological consensus that it produces something tangible, and not only discourse. The risk of Science 2.0 is exactly that: increasing and accelerating the production of discourses at the price of forgetting the production of high quality results and developing the TEL knowledge base.
A note after the reading of: Kieslinger B., Stefanie N. Lindstaedt S. N. (2009) Science 2.0 Practices in the Field of Technology Enhanced Learning. In: Science2.0 for TEL Workshop. ECTEL, Nice, France
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