Increasing Stakeholders' Participation in Distributed, Emergent Knowledge Networks

科学家如何创造和分享科学知识，同时利用新技术和信息系统，并认识到知识生产的日益多样化和全球性？对于商业、自然科学和社会科学，以及信息技术的设计者和用户来说，如何使用不同的认识方式、不同的本体论是一个核心问题。这一问题对于任何承担着收集、表示和展示可能对社区和专业具有不同意义的信息和对象的任务的机构尤其相关。对于这些“信息机构”来说，保持数据集的连贯性，同时保持本体论上的多样性，已经成为一个关键的紧张因素。这个项目没有试图缓解这种紧张，而是探索数字媒体系统如何将这种紧张发挥到富有成效和创造性的用途上。主要研究人员评估这样一种假设，即信息系统可以被创建来支持分布式知识和多本体，并且这些系统可以服务于多个社区，并有助于创造和共享新出现的科学知识。这项研究涉及一组联网网站的设计、创建和评估，这些网站在三个专家社区之间共享数字物品：一组考古学家、新墨西哥州祖尼土著社区和五个伙伴组织的一组馆长。通过研究小组对这些对象的分析，如何以不同的方式描述它们，以及对三个社区的每个社区的采访/焦点小组，他们将发现系统可以通过哪些方式与多种基于知识的传统合作，而不是通过将它们归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度的新模式产生广泛影响。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方面的知识，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.