Scholars Awards: The evoText Project

该项目旨在开发一种新的基于网络的工具evoText，并使其广泛使用，这将为历史和科学哲学的探究和合作开辟新的领域。许多主题的科学文献过于庞大，学者无法全面参与，这是人文学科中的一种大数据挑战。这一领域的传统方法要求学者有选择地使用文献，这不可避免地产生了对科学领域的不完整（也许是有偏见的）看法。正在开发的新网络工具将提供一种绕过这些限制的方法；此外，它将通过互联网公开访问，并将免费使用。此外，它将对中等水平的STEM（科学、技术、工程和数学）教育产生重大影响。PI将通过他的学术机构与当地中学接触，探索如何在课堂上使用evoText，包括为当地教师举办一个关于evoText使用的研讨会。它也将在科学教育相关的会议上进行宣传，例如国家科协举办的各种会议。EvoText将通过允许历史学家，哲学家，科学家和其他人回答由于需要花费数百万页文本的时间而无法回答的问题，从而补充传统的历史和科学哲学方法。它可以用来解决关于科学本质和历史的特定假设，也可以作为发现的工具，指出历史上的突出时期或重要概念，这些概念的调查可能会通过先进的文本分析而富有成果。在资助期间，研究者将实现许多更复杂的文本分析算法。evoText数据库目前包含大约45万篇期刊文章；在此期间，研究者将极大地扩展数据库，增加更多来自开放获取期刊以及JSTOR、自然出版集团和其他封闭获取期刊提供商的内容。他的最终目标是收录所有发表在进化科学上的文章，广泛地解释，并且在相关科学领域（如有机生物学和生态学）以及一般科学领域也接近全面。这将提供一个独特的窗口进入科学，我们很高兴用它来研究生物学的历史和哲学，提出迄今无法回答的问题。

General Audience SummaryThe project aims to develop and make broadly accessible a new web-based tool, evoText, which will open new domains of inquiry and collaboration in history and philosophy of science. The scientific literature for many topics is too large for scholars to engage with comprehensively, a type of Big Data challenge in the humanities. Traditional methods in this area require scholars to engage the literature selectively and that inevitably yields an incomplete (and perhaps biased) view of scientific fields. The new web tool being developed will provide a way around these limitations; moreover, it will be publicly accessible via the Internet and its use will be free of charge. In addition, there is very substantial promise that it will have an impact on secondary-level STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education. The PI will work through his academic institution to reach out to local secondary schools to explore how evoText can be used in the classroom, including running a workshop for local instructors on the use of evoText. It will also be publicized at conferences relevant to science education, such as the various conferences established by the NSTA. Technical Summary EvoText will supplement traditional approaches to the history and philosophy of science by allowing historians, philosophers, scientists, and others to answer questions that cannot feasibly be answered due to the time it would take to work through millions of pages of text. It can be used to address specific hypotheses about the nature and history of science, and can also serve as a tool for discovery, pointing to salient periods in history or to important concepts whose investigation may be fruitful using advanced textual analyses. During the period of the grant, the investigator will implement many more sophisticated text analysis algorithms. The evoText database currently contains around 450,000 journal articles; during this period, the investigator will greatly expand the database, adding further content from open access journals as well as JSTOR, Nature Publishing Group, and other closed-access journal providers. His eventual goal is to include every article published in the evolutionary sciences, broadly construed, and also be close to comprehensive in related fields of science (like organismic biology and ecology) as well as in general science. This will provide a unique window into the sciences that we are excited to use to study the history and philosophy of biology, asking questions heretofore impossible to answer.