Workshop 1: Social Aspects of Scientific Collaboration

Organisers

Prof. Diane Sonnenwald, Goteborg University and University College of Boras, Sweden

Prof. Elizabeth Davenport, Napier University, UK.

Intended Audience

This workshop aims to bring together researchers who have conducted research on social aspects of collaboration and those who wish to learn more about social aspects of collaboration in the context of e-social science.

Although tools and technology are necessary to support scientific collaborations across geographic distances, they are not sufficient to initiate or sustain collaborations. Social aspects of collaboration are critically important to the success of any collaboration. Organizational policies and practices, scientific practices, disciplinary cultures, paradigms and languages, academic values, personal work styles, information sharing practices, decision-making, perceptions of respect and trust and communication habits, all play a role in collaboration. Research on these topics typically focuses on collaboration in the natural sciences (e.g., O'Day, Adler, Kuchinsky & Bouch, 2001; Knorr Cetina, 1999; Sonnenwald, Whitton & Maglaughlin, 2003; Van House, 2000.) Furthermore, it has been conducted by researchers in different disciplines, including psychology, social studies of science, information studies and science policy, employing a variety of theoretical frameworks and paradigms. This makes it difficult to synthesize the research results and apply them to e-social science contexts. The purpose of this workshop is to discuss social aspects of collaboration and explore their possible role in e-social science.

Potential topics to be discussed in the workshop include:

Data sharing across disciplines, including issues concerning preparation, classification, indexing, ownership, acknowledgement
Aligning practices among different research paradigms and disciplinary cultures
Shared instrumentation
Laboratory access
Collaborative remote work practices
Timing, e.g., working across time-zones with time-critical experimental material and data; negotiating time across groups and individuals for time-shared resources
Object Focused Interaction in e-Social Science; Mike Fraser, Greg Biegel University of Bristol, UK; Jon Hindmarsh, Christian Heath, Katie Best King's College London, UK; Stuart Reeves, Chris Greenhalgh University of Nottingham, UK
Entangled Data: Knowledge and Community Making in E-(Social) Science, Dawn Nafus, Ben Anderson University of Essex, UK