Doctoral Dissertation Research: Comparative Analysis of Scientific Communication Cultures in Chemistry

博士论文研究：化学科学传播文化的比较分析

• 批准号: 0924445
• 负责人: Carl Lagoze
• 金额: $ 1.17万
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-08-15 至 2012-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0924445&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Comparative; Analysis

This dissertation project funded by the Science, Technology & Society Program investigates communication practices of multiple subfields within chemistry and across the boundary with physics. The rise of the World Wide Web has provided new opportunities to innovate scientific communication. Recent research seeks to understand how and why research fields differ in the manner in which they take up these opportunities. This dissertation project focuses on chemistry, a discipline that has received little attention from researchers. It investigates how various levels of social organization within the chemistry community and at its intersection with the physics community link to research cultures and how they interact in the shaping of scientific communication practices.To study communication patterns and collective forms of research practice, this study combines qualitative (ethnographic) methods and quantitative (network analytic) methods. It explores notions of community and practices of scientific communication through observations and interviews of chemists and physicists at research labs. It uses these qualitative results to ground the interpretation of publication networks. How do publication networks represent patterns of collective interaction and communication? Can network analysis be used to scale-up from a local ethnographic level of study to a description and comparison of collective phenomena? The intellectual merit of this project is twofold. First, it develops an approach for comparisons of variations in scientific communication cultures within the shared context of a discipline. So far most studies have looked at and compared communicative cultures of unrelated research fields. Second, it explores the value of combining qualitative and quantitative approaches to study and compare scientific communication cultures. In particular, it critically investigates the meaning of quantitative constructs from new approaches to publication network analysis in the context of actual social practices.Results of this study are expected to impact development efforts in e-science and open access based scholarly communication services by contributing to a better understanding of the role of research cultures and community structures in shaping scientific communication. The study is expected to be further relevant to network science and to a wider audience of scientists, administrators, and policy makers because of its critical appraisal of the power and limitations of a purely quantitative approach to the study of scientific collectives.

本论文项目由科学，技术社会计划资助，研究化学中多个子领域的通信实践，并跨越物理学的边界。万维网的兴起为科学传播创新提供了新的机会。最近的研究试图了解如何以及为什么研究领域在他们采取这些机会的方式不同。本论文项目的重点是化学，这是一门很少受到研究人员关注的学科。它调查了化学社区内的各个层次的社会组织，并在其与物理社区的交叉点链接到科研文化，以及他们如何在科学传播practices.To研究的通信模式和集体形式的研究practices.To研究，本研究结合定性（民族志）的方法和定量（网络分析）的方法。它通过对研究实验室的化学家和物理学家的观察和采访，探讨了社区的概念和科学交流的实践。它使用这些定性结果来解释出版网络。 出版网络如何代表集体互动和交流的模式？网络分析是否可以用来从地方民族志的研究层面扩展到对集体现象的描述和比较？这个项目的智力价值是双重的。首先，它开发了一种方法，在一个学科的共享背景下的科学传播文化的变化进行比较。到目前为止，大多数研究都着眼于并比较了不相关研究领域的交际文化。其次，探讨了定性和定量相结合的方法来研究和比较科学传播文化的价值。特别是，它批判性地探讨了定量结构的意义，从新的方法来出版网络分析的背景下，实际的社会practices.Results的这项研究预计将影响电子科学和开放获取为基础的学术传播服务的发展努力，有助于更好地理解的作用，研究文化和社区结构在塑造科学传播。这项研究预计将进一步相关的网络科学和更广泛的科学家，管理人员和政策制定者，因为它的权力和纯粹的定量方法来研究科学集体的局限性的批判性评估。