Encouraging a corporate open data culture: An interdisciplinary approach to assessing risk and uncertainty in the hydrocarbon exploration industry

Introduction

The Royal Society’s influential paper on the use and misuse of risk analysis asserts that “[a]ny corporation, public utility or government will react to criticism of its activities by seeking…new ways to further the acceptable image of their activities” (Pearce, Russell & Griffiths, 1981). In the past decade the timely availability of relevant data has become widely acknowledged as having “a huge potential benefit” to the practice of risk assessment and management (Hughes, Murray, & Royse, 2012). Partly in response to climate change concerns the importance of access to data is acknowledged at a local, national and international level. To enable and encourage the wider use of public environmental and health related data, initiatives like the European Union’s INSPIRE Directive are establishing standardised, legally enforceable data infrastructures (European Union, 2014), and many governments have adopted ‘open data' strategies (e.g. UK Government, 2014; Google, 2011).

While the benefits of open data has been recognised and is being acted on in the public realm, despite the good intentions of some corporations (Ghafele & O’Brien, 2012, Alder, 2014) most commercial organisations have been slow to respond. The principle barriers to data sharing in the corporate sector have been identified as resulting from concerns over intellectual property, commercial confidentiality, and ‘cultural’ issues. While not offering any actionable recommendations to tackle these issues, the UK Government’s recent ‘Foresight’ Review asserts that “a more holistic approach to risk analysis…is undoubtedly needed” (Hughes et al, 2012).

Risk analysis and management of uncertainty demand an interdisciplinary approach (Rougier et al., 2010: 4) and the purpose of this essay is to follow this course and explore the social science disciplines of Anthropology and Economics in order to propose a combined approach that includes relevant methods from both fields. While the evolution of these disciplines has followed different trajectories, and underlying methodological differences can be identified, the increasingly blurred boundaries within science ensure that the identification of discrete ontologies is problematic. The move towards transdisciplinarity involving as it does the sharing of research tools and theoretical perspectives, and the emergence of new multidisciplinary fields (e.g. economic anthropology) provides a fertile field for developing ‘Mode 2’ research propositions (Nowotny, 2001).

Specifically, this essay explores the factors influencing data sharing in the hydrocarbon exploration industry (HEI) where potential exists for the timely publication of data gathered from monitoring hydraulic fracturing activity.

Background

Hydraulic fracturing, more widely known as ‘fracking’, is a technique that has been used to release and collect methane gas from shale rock for more than 60 years. The fracking process employs explosive charges and specially formulated chemical fluids pumped under high pressure to help release gas for extraction. This process takes place more than 1,500m below ground level, at a significantly greater depth than typical coal mining activities (Mair et al, 2012; Wood, 2012). The British Geological Survey estimate that “resources of 1,800 to 13,000bcm [billion cubic metres]”, the equivalent of more than 23 years supply at current UK consumption rates, are “potentially recoverable” from sites in northern and southern England (POSTbox, 2013). However exploration is required in order to discover if this potential is realisable. 

Public concerns about fracking focus on the possibility of increased seismic activity, leakage of chemical contaminants into the water table, air pollution caused by the leakage of methane, and the continuing reliance on carbon resources with potentially harmful effects on the world’s climate (Mair, et al, 2012; Kibble et al, 2013; Ricketts, 2013). These concerns have been expressed in public demonstrations against the process (The Guardian, 2013), and the introduction of moratoria on exploration in a number of countries. These public expressions of concern are viewed by the HEI as a significant additional risk to an already hazardous enterprise (Wood, 2012).

In the UK, all industrial activities are subject to health and safety audits and some involve continuous, around the clock monitoring. For example in the HEI, Cuadrilla Resources commission Ground Gas Solutions Ltd. to provide monitoring services (Cuadrilla, 2013) which aim to: “…provide confidence to regulators, local communities and interested third parties that no environmental damage has occurred.” (GGS Ltd., 2013). Some of this data are made public via reports to regulatory authorities which can be subject to significant delay, are written in formal, technical language, and are not easily accessed by the general public (Boholm, 2003: 172). This essay proposes a interdisciplinary research methodology to explore the potential for allowing open access to real time (or close to real time) monitoring data that could help to alleviate some public concerns.

Economics

Whether analysing large scale issues of national or global significance (macroeconomics) or focussing on the actions of individuals and local groups (microeconomics), the study of economics is defined by its evaluation of human behaviour in relation to the exploitation and control of scarce resources. In all disciplines there are varieties of opinion on the efficacies of different theories; in economics this can be illustrated by reference to the divergent theories regarding government intervention in markets advocated by Keynesian economists and those following the Chicago School. In practice economists prioritise their research by balancing the availability of data and the effectiveness of its collection against the needs of their audience (e.g. government agencies and corporations) and the strength of their beliefs in the determining factors that influence the behaviour of individuals in society (Kuznets, 1978). For example, when seeking solutions to economic depression a Keynesian may advocate increased government spending, whereas a Chicago School economist would suggest increased money supply, allowing a free market to correct itself.

Key concepts in economics include the evaluation of the cost and benefits of future economic activity and the maximisation of utility. Predicting the outcomes of activities with varying levels of uncertainty involve the collection of relevant data, risk analysis and the evaluation of statistical probability. In high-risk investment industries the effective collection and analysis of data is vital, not least in hydrocarbon exploration, where the large rewards for discovering untapped, scarce resources are balanced by the huge investments involved in exploration. The assessment of risk plays a significant part in evaluating the potential costs and economic value of recoverable hydrocarbon resources and multidisciplinary teams comprising geologists, statisticians, legal experts, engineers and economists are engaged within the HEI to ensure that rational choices are made, resources are used to their full potential and that risk is kept ‘as low as reasonably practical” (HSE, 2014). A range of complex and exhaustive appraisal models are used in evaluation, the core aims being to use data as efficiently as possible and minimise subjectivity in order to reduce uncertainty when ascertaining the economic risks and rewards (Nederlof, 2014).

The evaluation process can be broken down into three key stages: 

• Resource evaluation. This is normally undertaken using a "petroleum system model" and is based on the assumption of five independent geological processes that facilitate hydrocarbon accumulation: generation, migration, entrapment and retention and recovery (Häntschel & Kauerauf, 2009). Data for each of these processes are collected using a range of tools (e.g. Geographic Information Systems software) (Hood et al, 2000). 
• Monte Carlo statistical analysis. This uses computer-based statistical analysis tools (e.g. Palisade Corporation, 2014) to process input variables many thousands of times using different random choices to create vectors of equally probable outcomes. A typical output from this process is a range of expectation curves which display the predicted outcomes in ascending order of probability (Nederlof, 2014).
• Economic appraisal. Essentially this involves translating the predicted amount of recoverable resources into a cash value. Considerations of the value of the resource need to account of inflation, predicted future prices, regulation, safety, health and environmental considerations and exploitation contracts and licences. All of these factors are subject to variations over time (e.g. possibility of a future ‘windfall tax’) and economists typically provide a number of alternative scenarios indicating the probabilities arising from the interplay of different variables (Haldorsen, 1996).

While the statistical analysis of this detailed mesh of quantitative data is a powerful tool in helping decision makers in the HEI, economists understand that care must be taken in reaching definitive conclusions and in making predictions. A key concern is that primary data may be treated without a suitable understanding the historical background, conventions and collection practices that influence the production of this data (Fogel, Fogel, Guglielmo & Grotte, 2013: 96). An appreciation of the contribution of anthropological research may be helpful is this area. 

Anthropology

Although anthropologists “cast their net far and wide” (Eriksen, 2004: 45) in order to provide context for their observations, their work is undertaken primarily through close interaction with individuals and the groups they inhabit. In-depth, structured interviews are used extensively and the key research method is ‘participant observation’ – the goal being to extensively record everyday experiences as an aid to gaining new knowledge on the existence (or otherwise) of ‘human universals’ (shared characteristics).

Developing from the study of ‘exotic’ cultures in the 19th and early 20th century, it is perhaps inevitable that with a field as large as the scientific study of humanity at all times and in all places would branch into a heterogeneous collection of sub-disciplines - ‘urban anthropology’,  ‘design anthropology’, ‘theological anthropology’, ‘digital anthropology’, and so on.  Although there probably is an ‘anthropology’ for every area of human activity, each with its own unique ontology, the features that distinguishes this social science from other, similar, disciplines (e.g. sociology) resides primarily in its approach to data collection and interpretation. Unlike researchers in most other disciplines, anthropologists immerse themselves within the social and cultural life of their subjects, living closely ‘in the field’ with the people they are studying. The purpose is to attempt to see the world from the subjects’ point of view, and to provide a rich, contextualised, ‘thick’ description and localised interpretation of this perspective (Geertz, 1994: 140). 

Data collection follows a systematic approach which typically focuses on particular fields of study, primarily: kinship, reciprocity, nature, thought and identification. For example an anthropologist may explore how the community they are researching view reciprocity; how gifts are exchanged, goods are paid for, and how the community view property, as well those things that cannot be exchanged or given away (Weiner, (1992: 33). Comparisons can then be made between groups with a view to establishing and understanding similarities and differences, and ultimately identifying characteristics which are unique to specific societies and those that are universally shared (Goodenough, 1970). 

Within the terms of this essay,  perhaps the most appropriate sub-discipline to explore in some detail is where anthropologists are commissioned by commercial organisations to describe and analyse ‘organisational culture’ – what is typically referred to as ‘organisational anthropology’. Anthropologists working in the commercial sector are usually engaged in ‘problem-oriented’ research, attempting to uncover the root of human relations issues identified by corporate leaders (Catlin, 2006). Within this environment they apply anthropological methodologies to particular fields of interest, for example: work processes, group behaviour, organisational change, consumer behaviour, product design and the effects of globalisation and diversity (Jordan, 2010). The focus of this research is placed on talking with employees and management to reach descriptions and interpretations of the overall culture as well as any existing sub-cultures, with the aim of providing recommended courses of action that are relevant to the organisations’ strategic goals. 

In addition to work in the corporate sector the anthropologists’ practice of long-term engagement is also useful to public policymakers where collected data can be extremely useful in tracking changes in over extended periods of time (Perry, 2013). Within the HEI, anthropologists explore the relationships between companies, state organisations and communities (Stammler & Wilson, 2006), the cultural implications of the regulation of risk (Kringen, 2008), the environmental impact on communities and their resilience to exploration (Buultjens 2013),  as well as land use and the social organisation of the workforce (Godoy, 1985).

Finally, Monte Carlo analysis is not simply the preserve of economic analysts. The method is used in other social sciences including social anthropology (Tate, 2013), linguistics (Klein, Kuppin & Meives, 1969), education (Pudrovska & Anishkin, 2013) and public health studies (Morera & Castro, 2013) and applied to statistical analysis when evaluating and predicting incomplete or missing data.

Proposal for an interdisciplinary approach

This essay has explored the relevant theories and research themes that influence those involved in economic decisions in the HEI and how anthropology approaches the study of cultures. A key element in the context of this essay is the evaluation of risk: how does the HEI balance risk and reward in the search for scarce, economically recoverable resources, and what can anthropology offer in understanding the human perception of risk. Central to the risk question, both evaluation and perception, is how data is used to aid economic decision making on the part of corporations, and to enable society to compare potential hazards and manage health and safety, and environmental concerns. 

When experts analyse risk in the HEI, the terms they use to define the costs and benefits of a particular course of action are highly relevant to decision makers, but may have little meaning to “people in social settings” (Boholm, 2003: 166). While the maximisation of utility through rational choices motivates the statistical analysis of potential hydrocarbon fields, from the anthropology perspective this approach fundamentally misrepresents the essentially cultural construction of risk perception (Bourdieu, 2005: 215) and has “limited relevance for explaining how people think and act in situations where there is an element of uncertainty” (Boholm, 2003: 161). 

Although generally useful, there are two essential problems with this approach. Firstly, anthropologists are divided on the concept of ‘culture’. In its plural form it can be seen as divisive and not conducive identifying human universals, definitions of ‘culture’ are often vague and do not acknowledge the permeability of boundaries in human society, or the possibilities for internal variation (Hannerz, 1992: 13). Secondly, when explaining ideas of risk and hazard, anthropology tends to favour definitions based on objective social phenomenon (e.g ‘taboo’ in traditional societies is viewed as a means of maintaining social order - Tansey and O'Riordan 1999: 74) rather than an individuals’ subjective consideration of risks based on available evidence (Slovic, 1987: 280). However, by taking care when making generalised statements regarding ‘culture’ and by exploring how people “identify, understand and manage uncertainty in terms of knowledge of consequences and probabilities of events” (Boholm, 2003: 166) - and by acknowledging the relevance of expert risk analysis, a consensus definition of risk can be expressed as: “a situation or event where something of human value (including humans themselves) has been put at stake and where the outcome is uncertain” (Rosa 1998: 28).

Managing risks at both a corporate and community level entails the timely communication of relevant data in a form that can be readily understood by all parties. In the current setting economic analysis can provide some highly relevant expert insight into risk in the HEI, and anthropological research can describe and interpret the context of the perception and consideration of risk and uncertainty. 

In essence this combined approach would involve primary anthropological research methods including in-depth structured interviews, and participant observation within the HEI and affected communities. The outputs of these studies would be used to inform a more nuanced approach to uncertainty and risk in economic modelling and the use of computational methods (including Monte Carlo analysis) to predict the effects of social vulnerability and environmental protest activity on hydrocarbon exploration. By adopting this form of research methodology it is proposed that an effective approach to communicating risk can be formulated which may encourage a more transparent publication of data and help the HEI “to further the acceptable image of their activities” (Pearce, et al., 1981).
 

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How does a ‘social science’ or ‘philosophy of science’ perspective on science and technology inform Web Science?

'A Manifesto for Web Science'' (Halford, Pope and Carr, 2010) defines the essential characteristics of this relatively new area of study; Web Science “must be a critical discipline” that “looks both ways to see how the web is made by humans and how humans are made by the web”. This broadly socio-technical approach is derived from studies that critically respond to widely-held ‘positivist’ accounts of ‘Normal Science’. These accounts depict the practice of science as a systematic means of discovering facts about the natural world that inevitably progresses toward improved understandings, and technology as a reasonably uncomplicated application of these discoveries. This classical empiricist argument presents a straightforward worldview within which disinterested scientists seek to objectively develop a body of proven knowledge; they make observations, establish hypotheses, collect data and use these to establish new theories. Technologists play a secondary, essentially pragmatic role and “identify needs, problems, or opportunities, and creatively combine pieces of knowledge to address them” (Sismondo, 2010: 8). 

Criticism of this view emerged in the mid-twentieth century, developing Hume’s critique of inductive reasoning (Hume, 1748 [2007]: 26) to establish new ways of thinking about the practice of science and the relationship between science, technology and society.  Originating from theories of falsification (Popper, 1959), ‘epistemological anarchism’ (Feyerabend, 1975) and theories expounding ‘paradigms’ and ‘communities’ as an explanation for scientific and technological progress (Kuhn, 1962), over the past half century this body of thought has developed under the general heading of Science and Technology Studies (STS).

Perceived by some as a threat to the authority and survival of ‘Normal Science’ (Stove, 1982; Theocharis and Psimopoulos, 1987), STS, with its inclusion of non-human as well as human ‘actors’ within its field of view, arguably draws a more nuanced picture of the social construction of science and technology than previous models, and is potentially more suited to the study of the Web.  As a system made up of “decentralised information structures … [and ] informal and unplanned informational links between people, agents, databases, organisations and other actors and resources” (Berners-Lee et al., 2006) analysis of the Web needs to reflect this structure, and employ and develop relevant research methodologies . 

The question then arises that if ‘Normal Science’ explanations are not fit for purpose, what should be the proper approach to doing Web Science?

The processes involved in undertaking scientific enquiry are based on methodologies that set parameters for measurement, analysis, evaluation, and iteration. An essential outcome of this activity is the communication of results. Because of the nature of funding, most scientists are ultimately called to account on their ability to provide effective evidence to substantiate their claims (Theocharis & Psimopoulos, 1987: 598). Web scientists must not only convince their peers in their own and other disciplines of their competence, the efficacy of their methods, and of the explanatory or predictive power of their conclusions (Prelli, 1990: 89-90), but also non-experts, whether they are in communities, governments or corporations. Essentially, in a world where positivist thought continues to maintain dominance, web scientists need to adopt methodologies that are accepted as effective, and modes of communication that are persuasive. In this context STS, the study of “… the myriad, daily negotiations among human and non-humans that make up the consensus called technology” (Haraway, 1997) has much to offer practitioners of Web Science. 

Kuhn’s recognition that science and technology are essentially socially constructed activities, no different from any other work, had a huge impact on the study of science, technology and society that followed in its wake. The assertion that groups of scientists and by extension, technologists, share common methodologies, modes of communication and interpretations of their work which are constructed in social settings in ways that do not accord with straightforward positivist interpretations, continues to be explored by social scientists and anthropologists. 

The common thread of STS is that “technologies … gain sense and significance within everyday activities and ordinary experience’ (Heath, Luff and Svensson, 2003: 77) and various methodologies have and are being developed to explain and deepen our understanding of how science and technology are socially constructed. A significant contribution to these evolving methodologies is the ‘Strong Programme’ of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK). Bloor’s ‘four tenets’ establishes a clear research framework. Methodologies should be:

• Causal - concerned with conditions that bring about beliefs or states of knowledge
• Impartial - with respect to truth and falsity, rationality or irrationality, success or failure. All sides require explanation.
• Symmetrical in the style of explanation.
• Reflexive - applicable to sociology itself. (Bloor, 1991 [1995]: 5).

With its agnosticism toward scientific truths and methodological symmetry, this approach focuses on the work as it is performed, and has an open, naturalistic attitude to science and technological knowledge. It applies the concept of ‘finitism’, in that social forces affect interpretations and rules are adapted when applied to new cases.  

Criticisms of the Strong Programme have centred on the tendency of practitioners to overlook the changeable nature of society and to simplify the interests of participants as well as areas of conflict. This leads to problems in demonstrating causal links between beliefs and membership of social groups.

The link between technology, beliefs and membership of social groups is highlighted by explanations of how powerful interests may benefit in the social construction of technology. Langdon Winner asserts that by the adoption of some technologies people are unconsciously coerced into actions that may be against their interests. However while power can be exercised in the “design and arrangement of a device or system” to the potential benefit of individuals who align themselves with powerful institutions, it is by no means given that these technologies have “intractable properties” (Winner, 1986). As Pinch and Bijker convincingly argue in their description of the development of the bicycle, as technologies are brought into the field of practice, users exercise ‘interpretive flexibility’ (Pinch and Bijker 1989). That is, science and technology is essentially a rhetorical operation where inventors design artifacts to solve particular problems with specific uses in mind, but users adapt and modify them to fit many and various unforeseen circumstances. 

In terms of web-based technologies for learning, ideas generated within Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) closely align with the concept of affordances. This concept has been adopted by educational studies from Gestalt psychology to describe characteristics of the learning process (Laurillard et al, 2000) often attributed to learning technologies. The basic affordances of an artefact are “fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used” (Norman, 1985) which are “usually perceivable directly, without an excessive amount of learning” (Gibson, 1979). For example, research into students use of lecture video recordings has shown that they do not watch entire lectures (as may have been predicted by developers), but fast forward through the material to find content of particular interest to them (Gorissen, Van Bruggen and Jochems, 2011).

The adaptation of technologies to meet various specific needs also opens to question the position that scientists and technologists can be studied as discrete and identifiable communities with shared methodologies and ontologies. Haraway’s exploration of disputes within feminism in the eighties (Haraway, 1991) indicates that categorisation of communities is problematic.

In addition Haraway’s re-evaluation of human-machine symbiosis personified by the ‘cyborg’, a creature often depicted as a threatening in science fiction, represented the construct as an empowering figure. The cyborg concept is revisited twenty years later in the context of the Web as an expression of ‘post-human’ entities brought about by the wide adoption of web technology (Hayles, 2006). Hayles re-imagines the cyborg web as the ‘cognisphere’ - a non-human, or disembodied, network that does not replace the human body but extends it through incorporation into human life practices. Non-human networked and programmable media become ‘cultural cognitions’ as they impact on human sensory-motor functions, cognitive processing, and wider political and economic activity. The individual is no longer an appropriate unit of analysis as these ‘cultural cognitions’ are embodied both in people and their technologies.

In direct response to concerns about the prevalence of social determinism in STS, Actor Network Theory (ANT) replaces artefacts and social relations with “chains which are associations of humans … and non-humans” (Latour, 1991: 110). Latour acknowledges that the processes of science and technology are alike and coins the term ‘technoscience’ to encapsulate both (Latour, 1987: 19) and in a similar manner to the Strong Programme, ANT employs methodological symmetry and makes no hierarchical distinction between the human and non-human. 

Actor Network Theory employs three key concepts to describe and analyse the 'co-evolution' of technoscience and society: 

• Actor worlds: defines the identities, histories, sizes, theories, and roles that unite the diverse entities (human and non-human) involved in specific areas of study.
• Translation: “To translate is to speak for, to be indispensable, and to displace.” The researcher ‘delineates the scenario’, ‘problematises’ actions and sets out the terrain that the ‘actor-world’ inhabits. To reach a ‘stable construction’ a process of displacement takes place when the entities under analysis are written up within the context of their physical and social environment.
• Actor networks: The description of the dynamics and internal structure of actor-worlds which emphasises that the structure is “susceptible to change” (Callon, 1986).

In his analysis of the development of an electric car in France in the 1970s, Callon describes the role of electronic fuel cells within the actor network as a “black box whose operation has been reduced to a few well-defined parameters, gives way to a swarm of new actors: scientists and engineers who claim to hold the key to its functioning”. In this analytical process controversies are divided into a series of other elements as a watch is "dismantled by a jeweller to find out what is wrong" (Callon, 1986: 30).

In the study of the Web, ANT methodology can be used to unpick and analyse the actor world within which heterogeneous entities (individual users, researchers, web protocols, network infrastructure, the National Grid, news media, Mark Zuckerberg etc.) interact on an equal footing with (for example) a social network platform. The object of study is not the actors themselves, but the phenomena which is expressed through the interplay of these components (Barad, 2003).

Latour asserts that with the increasing availability of digital techniques and tools which allow “the tracing and visualization of …social phenomenon” and as digital profiles are changing the definition of what it means to be an individual, it may be more productive to focus on this ‘one level standpoint’, in contrast to exploring how individual decisions impact of social constructions (the ‘two-level standpoint’). Latour’s hypothesis is that significant, deeply entrenched social phenomena may be fruitfully investigated, analysed and evaluated through studying the ‘performance’ of new data mining and visualisation techniques.  “Web 2.0...has turned [one-level standpoint] navigation into a mainstream experience which might be captured in a sentence: the more you wish to pinpoint an actor, the more you have to deploy its actor-network.” (Latour et al., 2012: 591).

Criticism of theories that foreground social construction of technology focus on the lack of utility awareness this understanding brings to those actively involved in the experience (Hacking, 1999: 2), however, STS provides a diverse, eclectic and in-depth range of approaches to the study of the co-evolution of science, technology and society (e.g. the heterogeneity of actors under scrutiny, the equal treatment of human and non-human entities and methodological agnosticism) and indicates the efficacy of rejecting a ‘fixed theory of rationality’ and applying an ‘anything goes’, mixed approach when developing methodologies for Web Science (Feyerabend, 1975: 28). As Haraway asserts: 
‘The point is to make a difference in the world, to cast our lot for some ways of life and not others. To do that one must be in the action, be finite and dirty, not transcendent and clean.’ (Haraway, 1997: 36).

In education, as in other fields, it is acknowledged that technology provides "the means through which individuals engage and manipulate both resources and their own ideas" (Hannafin, Land, and Oliver, 1999: 128) but also that “...new technology easily supports a fragmented, informational view of knowledge…and is in danger of promulgating only that.” (Laurillard, 2002: 227). In this environment policy makers require guidance on the potential impact of web technologies (e.g. Jisc, 2013 and New Media Consortium, 2013) which enable educators to develop interventions that orchestrate and scaffold learning. This strongly indicates the necessity for using research and evaluation methods that explore the full range of potential affordances and constraints of web technologies and provide predictive tools that facilitate reliable indicators of future challenges and opportunities.

Therefore a mixed approach that enables researchers to choose appropriate methods, whether it is the randomised trials of the positivist tradition, other quantitative and qualitative methods, or pragmatic evaluation processes is required. In the second half of the last century there have been calls to democratise science and technology (Feyerabend, 1999: 224), and the inclusion of public participation has been shown to “increase[s] the quality and relevance of the research” (Staley et al., 2012). In recent years the validity of employing “multiple evaluators” in heuristic evaluation (Nielson, 2009), user involvement in systematic literature reviews (EPPI Centre, 2013), and public involvement in the research and evaluation of health technologies (NIHR, 2013) indicates increased awareness of the usefulness of non-expert involvement in research practices. This may take the form of ‘crowdsourcing’, for example data collection using Mechanical Turk initiatives (e.g Saunders, Bex and Woods, 2013), ‘citizen science’ interventions (e.g. Crowston and Prestopnik, 2013), online surveys (e.g. De Vera et al., 2010), or the formal engagement of lay panels in the assessment of research options (e.g. Boote et al., 2012).

In 2007 environmental scientist Mike Hulne contributed an article for The Guardian about the role of STS in the study of the changing global climate: 

All of us alive today have a stake in the future, and so we should all play a role in generating sufficient, inclusive and imposing knowledge about the future. Climate change is too important to be left to scientists - least of all the normal ones. (Hulme, 2007).

This sentiment applies equally to the study of the Web. In order to develop effective research programmes that disentangle the complex relationships between people and technology, that facilitate better understandings of the impact of changes brought about by our interaction with the Web, and improve the ability to predict the effect of Web-based activity, scientists in the field, informed by STS theories, need to employ wide-ranging, diverse and relevant methodologies. 

References

Barad, K., 2003. Posthumanist performativity: towards an understanding of how matter comes to matter. In Signs, 28(3) pp.801-31.

Berners-Lee, T., Hall, W., Hendler, J.A., O’Hara, K. , Shadbolt, N.  and Weitzner, D.J., 2006. A Framework for Web Science. In Foundations and Trends in Web Science Vol. 1, No 1 (2006) 1–130 [Online] Available at http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/263347/1/1800000001%5B1%5D.pdf (Accessed 1 December 2013).

Bloor D., 1991. The strong programme. In Knowledge and Social Imagery. Ch 1 [Online] Available at http://faculty.washington.edu/lynnhank/Bloor.pdf (Accessed 1 December 2013).

Boote, J. D., Dalgleish, M., Freeman, J., Jones, Z., Miles, M., and Rodgers, H., 2012. ‘But is it a question worth asking?’A reflective case study describing how public involvement can lead to researchers’ ideas being abandoned. In Health Expectations. [Online] Available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1369-7625.2012.00771.x/full (Accessed 9 December 2012).

Callon, M., 1986. The Sociology of an Actor-Network: the Case of the Electric Vehicle. In M. Callon, J. Law and A. Rip (Eds.) Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology of Science in the Real World. London, Macmillan: 19-34. [Online] Available at http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucessjb/S3%20Reading/callon%201986.pdf (Accessed 29 November 2013).

Crowston, K. and Prestopnik, N.R., 2013. Motivation and Data Quality in a Citizen Science Game: A Design Science Evaluation. In System Sciences (HICSS), 2013 46th Hawaii International Conference on , vol., no., pp.450,459. [Online] Available at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6479888&isnumber=6479821 (Accessed 11 December 2013).

De Vera, M. A., Ratzlaff, C., Doerfling, P., & Kopec, J., 2010. Reliability and validity of an internet-based questionnaire measuring lifetime physical activity. American Journal of Epidemiology, 172(10), 1190-1198.

EPPI Centre, 2013. Welcome to the EPPI Centre. [Online] Available at  http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/ (Accessed 9 December 2013).

Feyerabend, P., 1975. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. London: Verso.

Gibson, J. J., 1979. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Gorissen, P., Van Bruggen, J.M. and Jochems W., 2011. Analysing the use of recorded lectures by students. Short paper presented during the ALT-C conference in Leeds, UK [Online] Available at http://www.slideshare.net/PiAir/altc-2011-presentation (Accessed 25 November 2013).

Hacking, I., 1999. The social construction of what? Harvard University Press.

Halford, S., Pope, C. and Carr, L., 2010. A Manifesto for Web Science. In, Proceedings of the WebSci10: Extending the Frontiers of Society On-Line, Raleigh, US, 26 - 27 Apr 2010. , 1-6. [Online] Available at http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/271033/ (Accessed 5 November 2013).

Hannafin, M., Land, S., and Oliver, K., 1999. Open learning environments: Foundations, methods, and models. In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional design theories and models: A new paradigm of instructional theory (Vol. II, pp. 115-140). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Haraway, D.,1991. A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. In D. Haraway (Ed.) Simians, Cyborgs and Women: the Reinvention of Nature. London, Free Association Books: 149-181.

Haraway, D. J., 1997. Modest-witness@ second-millennium. Femaleman [Copyright]-meets-oncomouse [Trademark]: Feminism and Technoscience. Psychology Press.

Hayles, N. K., 2006. Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere. In Theory, Culture & Society, December 2006 23: 159-166, [Online] Available at http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/23/7-8/159 (Accessed 5 December 2013).

Heath, C., Luff, P., and Svensson, M. S., 2003. Technology and medical practice. In Sociology of Health & illness, 25(3), 75-96. [Online] Available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9566.00341/full (Accessed 7 November 2013).

Hulme, M., 2007. The appliance of science. In The Guardian. [Online] 14 March. Available at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/mar/14/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange (Accessed 25 November 2013).

Hume, D., 2007. An enquiry concerning human understanding. Oxford University Press. Originally published in 1748. [Online] Available at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9662 (Accessed 6 November 2013).

Jisc, 2013. Jisc Inform: Spotting emerging technologies. Issue 36. [Online] Available at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/inform/inform36/SpottingEmergingTechnologies.html#.UpHf5dK-2So (Accessed 20 November 2013).

Kuhn, T. S., 1962. Historical Structure of Scientific Discovery. In Science, 136 (3518), June 1, 1962, 760-764. [Online] Available at http://www.compilerpress.ca/Competitiveness/Anno/Anno%20Kuhn%20History%20of%20Discovery.htm (Accessed 7 November 2013).

Latour, B., 1987. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

Latour, B., Jensen, P., Venturini, T., Grauwin, S. and Boullier, D., 2012, ‘The whole is always smaller than its parts’ – a digital test of Gabriel Tardes' monads. The British Journal of Sociology, 63: 590–615. [Online] Available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2012.01428.x/full (Accessed 26 November 2013).

Latour, B., 1991. Technology is Society Made Durable. In Law J (Ed.) A Sociology of Monsters? Essays on Power, Technology and Domination, Sociological Review Monograph. London, Routledge: 103-131.

Laurillard, D., Stratford, M., Luckin, R., Plowman, L., and Taylor, J., 2000. Affordances for Learning in a Non-Linear Narrative Medium, in Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2000 (2) [online]. Available at www-jime.open.ac.uk/00/2 (accessed 28 November 2013).

Laurillard, D., 2002. Rethinking university teaching: A conversational framework for the effective use of learning technologies. Psychology Press.

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New Media Consortium, 2013. Sparking innovation, learning and creativity. [Online] Available at http://www.nmc.org/ (Accessed 10 December 2013).

Nielson, J., 2009. How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation. [Online] Available at http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_evaluation.html (Accessed 10 December 2013).

Norman D A (1988) The Design of Everyday Things, New York: Basic Books.

Pinch, T. J. and Bijker, W.E., 1989. The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other. In Bijker WE, Hughes TP and Pinch TJ (eds.) The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

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[Online] Available at http://goo.gl/7MW7PE (Accessed 10 November 2013). 

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Saunders, D. R., Bex, P. J., and Woods, R. L., 2013. Crowdsourcing a Normative Natural Language Dataset: A Comparison of Amazon Mechanical Turk and In-Lab Data Collection. In Journal of Medical Internet research, 15(5). [Online] Available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3668615/ (Accessed 10 December 2013).

Sismondo, S., 2010. An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell.

Staley, K., Buckland, S. A., Hayes, H. and Tarpey, M., 2012. ‘The missing links’: understanding how context and mechanism influence the impact of public involvement in research. in Health Expectations. [Online] Available at onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hex.12017/abstract (Accessed 10 December 2013).

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Theocharis, T., and Psimopoulos, M., 1987. Where Science has Gone Wrong. In Nature, Vol 329, pp 595-598. [Online] Available at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v329/n6140/pdf/329595a0.pdf (Accessed 5 November 2013).

MSc Web Science - Week 18

Reading the paper [Albert Jone]/State Library of Victoria Collections © 2011/CC BY 2.0

It's the first week of the new semester and the emerging theme is 'reading'. Give or take a couple of titles, this is my weekend reading list:

COMP6047 - Further Web Science

• Cabinet Office (2012) ‘Open Data: Releasing the Potential’, White Paper.
• Shadbolt, Nigel and O'Hara, Kieron (2013) Linked data in government. IEEE Internet Computing, 17, (4), 72-77.
• Ubaldi, Barbara (2013) ‘Open Government Data: Towards Empirical Analysis …’, OECD Working Paper on Public Governance 22.
• O’Hara, Kieron  (2011) ‘Transparent Government, Not Transparent Citizens’, Cabinet Office.
• UCL Constitution Unit (2013) Freedom of Information and Data Protection.
• Public Administration Select Committee, Oral evidence to Statistics and Open Data inquiry, Nov 2013. (http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidenceHtml/3823, 3631, 3628 – and cf.4041)
• Anneke Zuiderwijk1, Marijn Janssen, Sunil Choenni, Ronald Meijer, and Roexsana Sheikh Alibaks, ‘Sociotechnical impediments of open data’, Electronic Journal of e-Government, 2012
• Lessig, ‘Against Transparency’, New Republic, 2009 
• Public Accounts Committee, ‘Implementing the Transparency Agenda’, 2012

COMP6048 - Interdisciplinary Thinking

• Repko A. F. (2008) Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory. Sage Publications. Chapter 1 and Chapter 2
• Plus 6 readings for first group work.

COMP6050 - Semantic Web for Web Science

• Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler and Ora Lassila (2001) The Semantic Web, Scientific American.
• Nigel Shadbolt, Wendy Hall and Tim Berners-Lee (2006) The Semantic Web Revisited, IEEE Intelligent Systems, pp96-101, May/June 2006.

COMP6052 Social Networking Technology

• Easley, D. and Kleinberg, J. Networks Crowds and Markets. Cambridge University Press, 2010. MyiLibrary: http://lib.myilibrary.com/Open.aspx?id=272489 (chapters 16, 19 and 20) 
• Watts, D., 2002. A simple model of global cascades on random networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
• Morris, S., 2000. Contagion. The Review of Economic Studies
• Watts, D., 1998. Collective dynamics of “small-world” networks. Nature. 

RESM6003 - Qualitative Methods

• Atkinson, P. and Silverman, D. (1997) ‘Kundera’s immortality: the interview society and the invention of self’, Qualitative Inquiry, 3(3): 304-325. [TDNet - not available]
• Baker, S.E. and Edwards, R. (eds) (2012) How Many Qualitative Interviews is Enough? Expert Voices and Early Career Reflections on Sampling and Cases in Qualitative Research, National Centre for Research Methods Review Paper.
• Edwards, R. and Holland, J. (2013) What is Qualitative Interviewing?, London: Bloomsbury Academic (ePrints link doesn't work).
• Gubrium, J.F. and Holstein, J.A. (eds) (2003b) Postmodern Interviewing, London: Sage. [BF 637 GUB] (Library).
• Kvale, S. (1996) InterViews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing, London: Sage. [HM 48 KVA] (Library).

Video: Stevan Harnad - OA isn't rocket science

On the eve of his appearance to give evidence at the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee on Open Access in November 2013, OA “Archivangelist”, Professor Stevan Harnad spoke about his concerns following the UK government's' apparent u-turn on Green Open Access. Acting on the Finch Report on Open Access to scholarly articles, the government (and Research Councils UK) had accepted what Harnad described as an "astonishing recommendation", essentially proposing to pay publishers considerably more than necessary for Open Access.

Harnad kick-started the OA debate in 1994 with the publication of his 'Subversive Proposal', suggesting that scholarly articles should be made freely available for all via the Web. Physicists and computer scientists had been doing this for years, he argued, and it was about time the rest of the world did the same. The benefits were obvious: academics don't publish for profit - they do so for impact and usage, to gain uptake and application of their ideas, and the evidence shows that OA articles are used and cited more than non-OA.

Subsequent to the 'Proposal', the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton used ePrints to create the world's first OA repository, and mandated OA for all of its journal articles. In 2003 the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee supported this approach, the research councils also adopted watered down Green OA policies and universities and institutions around the world began to follow suit.

However despite the growth in Open Access in recent years, students and academics still need to access most access scholarly articles via their institutions' subscriptions to peer-reviewed journals. These annual subscriptions can amount to many hundreds of thousands of pounds, and even the most well-endowed universities (e.g. Harvard) are unable to subscribe to as many journals as they would like. There are sometimes partial workarounds to deal with this - contacting published academics directly, for example  - but, Harnad asserts, it is more cost and research effective for institutions to adopt Green OA policies and make articles freely available, once they have completed the peer review process.

Although hailed as a "balanced package", the adoption of the Finch Report's recommendation that additional payments be made to publishers to cover the costs of 'Gold' OA (where publishers make articles open after an embargo period) is seen by many advocates of Green OA as a retrograde step. However the Higher Education Funding Council for England's policy proposal  which requires immediate-deposit (i.e. Green OA) as a condition for future Research Excellence Framework eligibility appears likely to be adopted. Should this happen as Harnad hopes, Finch's shortcomings will be remedied.





Further reading: 

Harnad, Stevan (2013) Follow-Up Comments for BIS Select Committee on Open Access. UK Parliament Publications and Records, Spring Issue http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/352011/

Harnad, Stevan (2013) Harnad Comments on HEFCE/REF Open Access Mandate Proposal. Open access and submissions to the REF post-2014 http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/349893/

Harnad, Stevan (2013) Worldwide open access: UK leadership? UKSG Insights, 26, (1), Winter Issue, 14-21. http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/349406/

Harnad, Stevan (2013) Harnad Evidence to House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee on Open Access. House of Lords Science and Technology Committee on Open Access, Winter Issue, 119-123. http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/348479/

Harnad, Stevan (2013) Harnad Evidence to BIS Select Committee Inquiry on Open Access. Written Evidence to BIS Select Committee Inquiry on Open Access, Winter Issuehttp://eprints.soton.ac.uk/348483/ 

Harnad, Stevan (2013) Harnad Comments on Canada’s NSERC/SSHRC/CIHR Draft Tri-Agency Open Access Policy. Canadian Tri-Agency Call for Comments, Autumn Issue http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/358972/

With the 'Cyborgs' at Speakerthon

Speakerthon 2014
Collaged from works by Andy Mabbett, BBC and  and Tim O'Riordan ©2014/CC BY-SA 3.0

As a nascent Web Scientist the irony of a Dalek 'guarding' the entrance to this weekends' Speakerthon event at BBC Broadcasting House in London, was not lost. Daleks represent a dystopian view of the 'cyborg', the twisted collaboration between organic and inorganic, a man-machine mashup that has willingly or unwillingly sacrificed human empathy for improved performance. The contrast between this popular icon and the people working in the hall beyond was considerable.

Speakerthon was organised by BBC R&D and Wikimedia UK as a collaborative web-enhancement event. The aim of the day was to interrogate the BBC Radio 4's permanently available archive (e.g. The Woman's Hour Collection), select clips of notable people speaking and add them to Wikipedia. Wikimedia UK's Andy Mabbett thought up the idea and has spent the past 2 to 3 years convincing BBC decision makers of the efficacy of opening up their archive. In addition to applying open licences to BBC content, providing a rich layer of information to Wikipedia entries, and adding good quality linked data to the Web, the visibility of the archive is greatly enhanced, and tagged clips will be used to teach applications to automatically identify voices in the archive (e.g. The World Service Radio Archive Project), thereby making BBC researchers jobs a great deal easier.

The day started with a briefing session. We were shown how to use the BBC 'Snippets' software (sadly only made available to us on the day), and what type of clips to listen out for. Finding 20 to 40 second clips of individuals talking, preferably about themselves or their field of work, without interruption or any background music was frustrated on some programmes by over enthusiastic interviewers who would insist on butting in, whereas others (like Desert Island Discs) proved to be a goldmine of useful clips.

Once a clip was identified and selected, 'Snippets' created a URL, which we manually added to a Google Docs spreadsheet along with the persons name and gender, Wikipedia URL, and programme archive URL. This was then picked up by the BBC editorial team, who checked 'compliance' (i.e. the suitability of the clip and any outstanding copyright issues), trimmed and edited the clip (using Audacity a free audio editor), encoded it to the open source .flac format, and uploaded it to Wikimedia. At the time of writing about 100 clips have been uploaded out of the 300 created on the day.

I added eleven clips to the Google Docs spreadsheet, three of which have been uploaded to Wikimedia. I was beaten to finding a clip of one of my Web Science course leaders, and Head of Faculty, Dame Wendy Hall, although I think my selection where she talks about the Semantic Web, is more appropriate than the clip currently on Wikipedia. So far I've embedded voice clips and metadata for Owen Hatherley and Claire Skinner, and three of the clips: Guglielmo Marconi, his second wife Maria Cristina Bezzi-Scali and John Scott-Taggert (the first person to receive a radio message from a ship in distress) are awaiting confirmation of their copyright status.

With the news often dominated by stories portraying the Web as an 'evil cyborg' out to dominate our lives, infringe our privacy and 'exterminate' our liberties, it was a real joy to take part in this life-affirming collaborative cyberspace project. We came together to share our love of archives and an appreciation of technology as a force for good, to start something that has the potential to be considerably bigger than the sum of its parts. 

See also:
Speakerthon: Sharing Voice Samples - Marieke Guy, Open Education Working Group

Please note:
While capturing audio from the BBC's web archive and uploading it to Wikipedia (or anywhere else) is relatively straight-forward, doing so without the express permission of the BBC infringes their copyright.

MSc Web Science - Week 17

Mind the Gap!/ Endlisnis © 2007/  CC BY 2.0

Life and coursework got rather hectic around the middle of last semester, and something had to go, hence the gap in posts. 

Speaking of gaps, we had a MSc Supervisor 'speed networking' event last Friday where we had an opportunity to meet academics who were up for supervising our dissertations - which start in May. Having heard my brief introduction, one potential supervisor advised me to do a literature review and find a gap in what is, admittedly, a very busy field. Having done this a year ago when I applied I was a bit miffed by this comment - but thought I hadn't explained myself properly in the time available. A bit later, when I thought I had given a better explanation, another potential supervisor told me - "oh yes, I have a PhD student who's answered all those questions". Point taken. I need to find my niche - again.

Hopefully normal service - or what passes for normal service - will resume shortly.