Sign in or 
Welcome! This is a website that everyone can build together. It's easy!
- EasyEdit
- Edit tags
-
(what's this?What are these tools?
People just like you can add or edit the content on this site. If you want to try editing, but aren't ready to add to this site, try our demo area.
Read more about editing pages at Wetpaint Central.
) - Report page
Share this
A New Paradigm for Research Home
"Many of today's most compelling new questions are still tackled with old institutional models; it's ironic that religion has had its Reformation but that the role of a research university would be recognizable to a medieval monk." -- Neil Gershenfeld, MIT You would think that universities, with their reputation for innovation, abstract thought, and pure research, would be leaders in guiding the knowledge revolution symbolized by the Internet. But to a large degree today's universities are stuck in a time warp. They still do things according to the model developed by Oxford and the University of Bologna in the 12th century; a scholar develops an idea, discovery, invention, or new theory; presents it at a conference a few months later, publishes it as an abstract, submits it to peer reviewed journals, and awaits its adoption by the right people. The whole process takes months or years.
In 1439, when Gutenberg invented his printing press, this was fine. In fact it was at the leading edge of technology. It was a great system for its time, and indeed helped empower the Renaissance and the scientific revolution epitomized by Newton and Galileo.
But it's now 2011. Why does research in the age of Web 2.0 still operate at an oxcart's pace?
Today, scholars all over the world can connect instantaneously. Theories can be developed, refined, and adjusted at the speed of light. Thousands can devote their unique niche talents to a problem that would take a small group of researchers at one institute years to solve. The species is approaching the kind of efficiency that previously was only seen in one integrated biological brain; as Alex Pentland has said, "The nervous system of the human race has come alive."
Universities ignore this at their peril.
In some cases, this isn't a big problem. If you are writing a scholarly monograph on, say, Icelandic sagas of the 8th century, it probably doesn't matter a lot whether your paper appears in 2009 or 2010.
But what if you are working on a cure for cancer? What if you have a unique solution for Global Warming? People who could potentially benefit from your research could actually die before your work makes its way through the old, bloated channels to publication and adoption.
Says Larrry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia: "I believe that researchers are drawn to the wiki model because they naturally love several ideas suggested by the model; working closely with large numbers of their colleagues spread over the world; updating shared knowledge on the fly and avoiding costly duplication of labor; presenting knowledge systematically and in all its glorious complexity, and providing clear and compelling free access to important knowledge of their fields to a world that, in many cases, desperately needs such access."
The purpose of this site is to explore how new research paradigms can revolutionize the way knowledge advances in the sciences, the arts, and the humanities. It's a collaboration between the Philosophical Research Society, the Committee to save Philosophy at Middlesex University, and the World Mind Network.
Feel free to contribute your ideas and suggestions. You can comment at the bottom of this page, or you can form your own discussion group within your particular field.
You can also post videos, podcasts, links to other sites, and PDF files. Send private suggestions and questions to anewparadigmforresearch@gmail.com or worldmindnetwork@gmail.com.
|
JohnModerator |
Latest page update: made by JohnModerator
, Feb 23 2011, 5:01 PM EST
(about this update
About This Update
Edited by JohnModerator
1 word added 1 word deleted view changes - complete history) |
|
More Info: links to this page
|
| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SelenaRaveling | Peer reviewed research | 1 | Sep 13 2010, 1:06 AM EDT by AnishCT | ||
|
Thread started: Mar 17 2010, 4:29 PM EDT
Watch
It's getting to the point where most researchers I know use things like Facebook and Twitter all the time, because their fields move so fast they need to keep a daily tab on the latest happenings, and that necessitates blogs and social networks.
As the previous author said, the peer review system prevents rubbish from being published. But it seems that social networks have their own sort of weeding-out process for insubstantial or derivative work. This is being refined as I write, so that now original research can be published instantly, the proper credit can be accorded (after all, social networks have time and date stamps!) and collaborations across the globe can be formed immediately. Selena Raveling University College, London |
|||||
| Anonymous | Closure of Middlesex Philosophy | 1 | May 2 2010, 11:48 AM EDT by Anonymous | ||
|
|
Thread started: May 2 2010, 6:55 AM EDT
Watch
Management at Middlesex University have shamefully decided to cut all philosophy programs, including the internationally renowned MA and PhD degrees. This essentially means the end of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, a hub for internationally renowned scholarship and the best RAE rated research department in the University. This act of wilful self-harm by the University must be resisted.
Please sign our petition: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-middlesex-philosophy.html |
||||
| Anonymous | Academic and Research Discussion can be e-enhanced | 0 | May 2 2010, 6:25 AM EDT by Anonymous | ||
|
|
Thread started: May 2 2010, 6:25 AM EDT
Watch
Go to the PRS, Leeds, page: "e-Learning in Dialogue" and read the papers and abstracts presented at the York Conference on e-Learning in PRS. There you will read how the academic dialogue, facilitated through e-learning, not only can improve teaching but also research. The link is here: http://prs.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/elearning/elearning_in_dialogue.html
|
||||
Showing 3 of 9 threads for this page
- view all
