An examination of the ways that digital and networked technologies
have fundamentally changed research practices in disciplines from
astronomy to literary analysis.
In Knowledge Machines, Eric Meyer and Ralph Schroeder argue that
digital technologies have fundamentally changed research practices in
the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Meyer and Schroeder show
that digital tools and data, used collectively and in distributed
mode--which they term e-research--have transformed not just the
consumption of knowledge but also the production of knowledge. Digital
technologies for research are reshaping how knowledge advances in
disciplines that range from physics to literary analysis.
Meyer and Schroeder map the rise of digital research and offer case
studies from many fields, including biomedicine, social science uses of
the Web, astronomy, and large-scale textual analysis in the humanities.
They consider such topics as the challenges of sharing research data and
of big data approaches, disciplinary differences and new forms of
interdisciplinary collaboration, the shifting boundaries between
researchers and their publics, and the ways that digital tools promote
openness in science.
This book considers the transformations of research from a number of
perspectives, drawing especially on the sociology of science and
technology and social informatics. It shows that the use of digital
tools and data is not just a technical issue; it affects research
practices, collaboration models, publishing choices, and even the kinds
of research and research questions scholars choose to pursue. Knowledge
Machines examines the nature and implications of these transformations
for scholarly research.
