EAGER: A Knowledge Aggregator for the Social Sciences

EAGER：社会科学知识聚合器

• 批准号: 1551458
• 负责人: Barry Markovsky
• 金额: $ 29.04万
• 依托单位: University of South Carolina at Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1551458&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAGER; Knowledge; Aggregator; Social; Sciences

This project will develop an integrated set of web-based tools for advancing theories about human individual and social behavior, called Wikitheoria. The primary goal is to facilitate the evolution of better and more useful theories by capitalizing on conditions for successful knowledge aggregation. The benefits cut at least two ways. Tools developed in various areas of information technology will be serving the social sciences by systematizing the theory-building process. The theory modules thus produced will, in turn, enhance research in cyber-human systems and other fields where assumptions that are made about human and group behavior are not always well-grounded in prior theory and research. In general, users that participate even minimally in Wikitheoria are likely to gain an appreciation for the benefits of more careful attention to the logic and terms of their theories. Assuming a threshold of participation is eventually surpassed, the project may even transform the way theory is produced and evaluated in the social sciences, and the way that social science theories are utilized in cyber-human systems and elsewhere. The lessons learned should also be applicable to the development of programs that facilitate Internet community formation through incentive systems, especially knowledge aggregation communities. The software will be made freely available, both as source code and as a hosted service for research use.A previous NSF grant supported the construction of a prototype that included, among other elements, introductory presentations, instructions, tools to submit "modular theories" to a library, and several crucial administrative subsystems. This innovative new work will develop a completed online system that generalizes beyond the prototype's basic functions, implementing a range of powerful services and infrastructure. These include automated logical and semantic analyses, recommender systems, extensive hyperlinking of the lexicon, analytics, instructional and pedagogical materials, and discussion boards. The system will support collective evaluation and cumulative enhancement of submitted materials, user incentive systems, cross-fertilization between disciplines, identification of integratable modules, evaluations of supporting research, theoretically informed applications, and support for students and applied researchers outside of the social sciences. Wikitheoria will provide tools for those seeking to advance knowledge, and resources for those seeking to apply that knowledge. The interactive nature of the site permits users at any level to ask questions about content, point out ambiguous terms and statements, and in general become part of the theory-development process in a way that is not possible with standard publication models. Thus Wikitheoria can become a valuable standard resource for computer and information scientists and engineers working on human-centered projects, who need to sharpen their theoretical ideas, learn what similar theoretical frameworks are already available, and situate their innovations in a wider cognitive and social context.

该项目将开发一套集成的基于网络的工具，用于推进有关人类个体和社会行为的理论，称为 Wikitheoria。 主要目标是通过利用成功知识聚合的条件来促进更好、更有用的理论的发展。这些好处至少有两个方面。信息技术各个领域开发的工具将通过系统化理论构建过程来服务于社会科学。由此产生的理论模块将反过来加强对网络人类系统和其他领域的研究，在这些领域，对人类和群体行为所做的假设并不总是有充分的基础在先前的理论和研究中。一般来说，即使参与维基理论最少的用户也可能会认识到更仔细地关注其理论的逻辑和术语所带来的好处。假设最终超过了参与门槛，该项目甚至可能会改变社会科学中理论的产生和评估方式，以及社会科学理论在网络人类系统和其他地方的利用方式。汲取的经验教训还应适用于制定通过激励制度促进互联网社区形成的计划，特别是知识聚合社区。该软件将作为源代码和供研究使用的托管服务免费提供。之前的 NSF 拨款支持了原型的构建，其中包括介绍性演示、说明、向图书馆提交“模块化理论”的工具以及几个关键的管理子系统等元素。这项创新的新工作将开发一个完整的在线系统，该系统超越了原型的基本功能，实现了一系列强大的服务和基础设施。其中包括自动逻辑和语义分析、推荐系统、词典的广泛超链接、分析、教学和教学材料以及讨论板。该系统将支持提交材料的集体评估和累积增强、用户激励系统、学科间的交叉融合、可集成模块的识别、支持性研究的评估、理论上的应用以及对社会科学以外的学生和应用研究人员的支持。维基理论将为那些寻求推进知识的人提供工具，并为那些寻求应用这些知识的人提供资源。该网站的交互性质允许任何级别的用户提出有关内容的问题，指出模棱两可的术语和陈述，并且通常以标准出版模型不可能的方式成为理论发展过程的一部分。因此，维基理论可以成为从事以人为中心的项目的计算机和信息科学家和工程师的宝贵标准资源，他们需要磨练他们的理论思想，了解已有的类似理论框架，并将他们的创新置于更广泛的认知和社会背景中。