Increasing Stakeholders' Participation in Distributed, Emergent Knowledge Networks

科学家如何才能创造和分享科学知识，同时利用新技术和信息系统，并认识到知识生产日益多样化和全球化的性质？如何使用不同的认知方式和不同的本体论，是商业、自然科学和社会科学以及信息技术设计者和用户的核心问题。这一问题对于任何承担着汇集、收集、代表和展示可能对社区和专业有不同意义的信息和物品的任务的机构来说都特别重要。对于这些“信息机构”来说，保持数据集的一致性，同时仍然具有本体上的多样性，已成为一个关键的紧张局势。这个项目不是试图缓解这种紧张关系，而是探索数字媒体系统如何将这种紧张关系转化为富有成效和创造性的使用。主要研究人员评估的假设，信息系统可以创建支持分布式知识和多个本体，这些系统可以服务于多个社区，以及有助于创建和共享新兴的科学知识。这项研究涉及的设计，创建和评估的一组网络网站，共享三个专家社区之间的数字对象：一组考古学家，祖尼土著社区的新墨西哥州，和一组策展人从五个合作伙伴组织。通过研究小组对对象的分析，它们如何以不同的方式描述，以及与三个社区中的每一个的访谈/焦点小组，他们将揭示系统可以与多种基于知识的传统一起工作的方法，而不是通过将它们分类为单一标准来消除这些差异。这项研究将通过创建和评估扩大科学参与的新模式产生广泛的影响。该项目的重点是如何产生和分享人类学和考古学等行为科学的知识，但它也为其他学科提供了利益相关者参与的模式。

How can scientists create and share scientific knowledge in a way that simultaneously takes advantage of new technologies and information systems and recognizes the increasingly diverse, global nature of knowledge production? The problem of how to work with differing ways of knowing, with differing ontologies, is a central question to business, the natural and social sciences, and designers and users of information technology. This issue is particularly relevant for any institution that holds the task of assembling, collecting, representing, and displaying information and objects that may have different meanings for communities and professions. For these "information institutions" maintaining the coherence of a data set while still being ontologically diverse has become a key tension. Rather than trying to mitigate this tension, this project explores how digital media systems can put this tension to productive and creative use. The principle investigators evaluate the hypothesis that information systems can be created to support distributed knowledges and multiple ontologies, and that these systems can serve the multiple communities as well as contribute to the creation and sharing of emergent scientific knowledge. This research involves the design, creation, and evaluation of a set of networked sites that share digital objects among three expert communities: a group of archaeologists, the Zuni indigenous community of New Mexico, and a set of curators from the five partner organizations. Through the research team's analyses of the objects, how they are described in different ways, and interviews/focus groups with each of the three communities, they will uncover means by which systems can work with multiple knowledge-based traditions rather than sweep away these differences by classifying them into singular standards. This research will have broad impact by creating and evaluating new models for broadening participation in science. The project focuses on how to produce and share knowledge in behavioral sciences such as anthropology and archaeology, but it provides a model of stakeholder participation for other disciplines as well.