1. The e-Social Science Research Agenda Peter Halfpenny and Rob Procter School of Social Sciences - University of Manchester UK e-Science All Hands Meeting Oxford 7-9 December 2009

2. Overview 1.UK National Centre for e-Social Science 2.Scope of e-Social Science 3.Changing technical landscape 4.Funding innovation 5.Understanding the community 6.e-Social Science of the future

3. 1. UK National Centre for e-Social Science - NCeSS

4. NCeSS: objective 1 ■Apply e-science technologies to enable better social science ■Little prior demand by social scientists  quantitative – mature products -computer-assisted interviewing -statistical packages  qualitative – beyond computerisation -hermeneutic disciplines -human interpretation central

5. NCeSS: objective 2 ■Social shaping of technological innovation ■Investigates influences on e-Science:  development path -of technology tools and services -of science  barriers to uptake, enablers  usability  real-world use

6. 2. Scope of e-Social Science

7. e-Social Science vision ■Grid  bigger, faster, more collaborative science  little prior demand in social sciences -except for some specialist areas ■Web 2.0  tools to aid research  topic of research (of which more anon)

8. 3. Changing technical landscape

9. Changing technical environment ■Grid  dauntingly complex  doubtful benefits -except in some specialist areas ■Web 2.0  simple to implement and use  immediate benefits

10. Changing technical environment ■Web 2.0  generated interest  raised expectations ■Tailored ICTs  Research 2.0  open source  open APIs  mashups

11. 4. Funding innovation

12. Demonstrators Early Adopters Innovation Pipeline: time & cost Cost Time Proof of concept / mock up Adapt / Create Develop Production level tools and services Maintain Support Unengaged Enthusiasts

13. Demonstrators Computer scientists Innovation Pipeline: staff Cost Time Proof of concept / mock up Adapt / Create Develop Production level tools and services Maintain / Support Support staff Software engineers

14. Demonstrators Research Councils’ project funding Innovation Pipeline: sustainability Cost Time Proof of concept / mock up Adapt / Create Develop Production level tools and services Maintain Support ?? Funding Councils Research Councils JISC Universities Users Open source Business

15. 5. Understanding the community

16. Barriers to uptake ■Social scientists’ adoption handicapped  lack of awareness  technology not transferable  lack of local IT support  risk aversion  resistance to training  not needed for career success  rewards for originality not cumulation

17. 6. e-Social Science of the future

18. The broad e-SS programme  computer-assisted interviewing  web surveys, crowdsourcing  user-generated data: blogs, social networks  social network analysis  new forms of digital data  creation of metadata: tagging, rating  linking data  confidentiality, ethics  sharing data  IPR, ethics

19. The broad e-SS programme  Webometrics  geo-referencing data  mapping geo-referenced data  social simulation  collaborative mark-up of video  text mining  data mining  web-base behavioural interventions

20. Multiple levels of e-SS programme 1.develop the technology 2.social science of technology development 3.social science of technology use 4.implementation of 2 & 3 to improve 1 5.new social science using new technology (impact on science) 6.implementation of 5 (impact on society) 7.social study of implementation

21. Social science of the future ■Explosion of social data  administrative  transactional  spatial  user-generated  systems-generated ■Opportunity to transform social science ■Necessary to transform social science??

22. The future ■Optimistic  ferment of innovation  digital natives are coming  key challenges as drivers ■Pessimistic  e-Social Science innovations unsustainable  barriers to / lack of incentives for adoption  efforts dissipated