changing research practices and emerging ways of perceiving the social sciences
DESCRIPTION
Our ways of perceiving the social sciences has significantly shifted in the last twenty years. In fact, the discipline has entered an exciting new phase of development. The wave of digitization and the emergence of smart technologies have enabled scholars and social scientists in different parts of the world to digitize content, automate research, and re-wire the way knowledge is co-created and circulated. The ICT upsurge among other trends has created new prospects for social science education and research in the twenty first century (WSSR 2010) . While digitization may have delivered huge gains and transformed the way we teach, learn and communicate knowledge, there are unknown unknowns, logical uncertainties, or if we may glitches impacting the future of digitization and knowledge distribution. The persistent digital divide between the developed and developing world as observed by Wyatt (2010) is one example and the cost of journal subscription and access to knowledge (Perarakis, Taylor and Trachana, 2010), cyber regulation and censorship are another. The digital divide as many has assumed could be a wicked problem. The futures of the social sciences and social science research remain uncertain. This panel will explore and examine the “uptakes” and "downtakes" of digitizing the social sciences. It will discuss and assess the impact and implications of digitization on current research practices, academics, teaching and futures of the social sciences. The panel hopes to engage participants to a creative and critical conversation to explore the futures of social science research and the social sciences.TRANSCRIPT
Changing Research Practices and Emerging Ways of Perceiving the Social Sciences
World Social Science Forum 2013 Palais De Congres Montreal, Canada
knowledge divides: homogenous / singular /data
knowledge multiplies: heterogeneous / plural / data
Closed digitization:
Commercial / Controlled /
Limited Access
Open digitization:
Public / Transparent / Free Access