Wentworth
Institute of Technology
Big data, little data, no data : scholarship in the networked world /
An examination of the uses of data within a changing knowledge infrastructure, offering analysis and case studies from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities.
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cambridge, Massachusetts :
The MIT Press,
[2015]
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: |
Full text (Wentworth users only) |
| Local Note: | ProQuest Ebook Central |
| Summary: | An examination of the uses of data within a changing knowledge infrastructure, offering analysis and case studies from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. "'Big Data' is on the covers of Science, Nature, the Economist, and Wired magazines, on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. But despite the media hyperbole, as Christine Borgman points out in this examination of data and scholarly research, having the right data is usually better than having more data; little data can be just as valuable as big data. In many cases, there are no data -- because relevant data don't exist, cannot be found, or are not available. Moreover, data sharing is difficult, incentives to do so are minimal, and data practices vary widely across disciplines. Borgman, an often-cited authority on scholarly communication, argues that data have no value or meaning in isolation; they exist within a knowledge infrastructure -- an ecology of people, practices, technologies, institutions, material objects, and relationships. After laying out the premises of her investigation -- six "provocations" meant to inspire discussion about the uses of data in scholarship -- Borgman offers case studies of data practices in the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities, and then considers the implications of her findings for scholarly practice and research policy. To manage and exploit data over the long term, Borgman argues, requires massive investment in knowledge infrastructures; at stake is the future of scholarship." |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xxv, 383 pages) |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-360) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780262327862 0262327864 0262529912 9780262529914 |
| Language: | English. |
| Source of Description, Etc. Note: | Print version record. |