[p2p-research] Fwd: JCOM 9(1) - new issue - March 2010

Wed Mar 24 08:30:50 CET 2010

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <jcom-eo at jcom.sissa.it>
Date: Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 5:21 PM
Subject: JCOM 9(1) - new issue - March 2010
To: michelsub2004 at gmail.com

Dear all, we announce that the March 2010 issue of JCOM - Journal of Science
Communication - (issue 1, volume 9)

http://jcom.sissa.it/

is online.

This JCOM issue is a special issue entirely dedicated to peer-to-peer and
user-led science.

Comments, remarks and papers by you are kindly requested.

Next issue will be online on the 21st June 2010.

Contents:

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EDITORIAL

Users and peers. From citizen science to P2P science

Alessandro Delfanti

This introduction presents the essays belonging to the JCOM special issue on
User-led and peer-to-peer science. It also draws a first map of the main
problems we need to investigate when we face this new and emerging
phenomenon. Web tools are enacting and facilitating new ways for lay people
to interact with scientists or to cooperate with each other, but cultural
and political changes are also at play. What happens to expertise, knowledge
production and relations between scientific institutions and society when
lay people or non-scientists go online and engage in scientific activities?
>From science blogging and social networks to garage biology and open tools
for user-led research, P2P science challenges many assumptions about public
participation in scientific knowledge production. And it calls for a radical
and perhaps new kind of openness of scientific practices towards society.

http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901(2010)E/

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ARTICLE

Changing the meaning of peer-to-peer? Exploring online comment spaces as
sites of negotiated expertise

Marie-Claire Shanahan

This study examines the nature of peer-to-peer interactions in public online
comment spaces. From a theoretical perspective of boundary-work and
expertise, the comments posted in response to three health sciences news
articles from a national newspaper are explored to determine whether both
scientific and personal expertise are recognized and taken up in discussion.
Posts were analysed for both explicit claims to expertise and implicit
claims embedded in discourse. The analysis suggests that while both
scientific and personal expertise are proffered by commenters, it is
scientific expertise that is privileged. Those expressing scientific
expertise receive greater recognition of the value of their posts.
Contributors seeking to share personal expertise are found to engage in
scientisation to position themselves as worthwhile experts. Findings suggest
that despite the possibilities afforded by online comments for a broader
vision of what peer-to-peer interaction means, this pos
 sibility is not realized.

http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901%282010%29A01/

**********

Science blogs and public engagement with science: practices, challenges, and
opportunities

Inna Kouper

Digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) are novelty tools
that can be used to facilitate broader involvement of citizens in the
discussions about science. The same tools can be used to reinforce the
traditional top-down model of science communication. Empirical
investigations of particular technologies can help to understand how these
tools are used in the dissemination of information and knowledge as well as
stimulate a dialog about better models and practices of science
communication.
This study focuses on one of the ICTs that have already been adopted in
science communication, on science blogging. The findings from the analysis
of eleven blogs are presented in an attempt to understand current practices
of science blogging and to provide insight into the role of blogging in the
promotion of more interactive forms of science communication.

http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901%282010%29A02/

**********

The public production and sharing of medical information. An Australian
perspective

Henry C.H. Ko

There is a wealth of medical information now available to the public through
various sources that are not necessarily controlled by medical or healthcare
professionals. In Australia there has been a strong movement in the health
consumer arena of consumer-led sharing and production of medical information
and in healthcare decision-making. This has led to empowerment of the public
as well as increased knowledge-sharing. There are some successful
initiatives and strategies on consumer- and public-led sharing of medical
information, including the formation of specialised consumer groups,
independent medical information organisations, consumer peer tutoring, and
email lists and consumer networking events. With well-organised public
initiatives and networks, there tends to be fairly balanced information
being shared. However, there needs to be caution about the use of publicly
available scientific information to further the agenda of special-interest
groups and lobbying groups to
 advance often biased and unproven opinions or for scaremongering. With the
adoption of more accountability of medical research, and the increased
public scrutiny of private and public research, the validity and quality of
medical information reaching the public is achieving higher standards.

http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901%282010%29A03/

**********

Social network science: pedagogy, dialogue, deliberation

Richard Watermeyer

The online world constitutes an ever-expanding store and incubator for
scientific information. It is also a social space where forms of creative
interaction engender new ways of approaching science. Critically, the web is
not only a repository of knowledge but a means with which to experience,
interact and even supplement this bank. Social Network Sites are a key
feature of such activity. This paper explores the potential for Social
Network Sites (SNS) as an innovative pedagogical tool that precipitate the
'incidental learner'. I suggest that these online spaces, characterised by
informality, open-access, user input and widespread popularity, offer a
potentially indispensable means of furthering the public understanding of
science; and significantly one that is rooted in dialogue.

http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901%282010%29A04/

**********

Open science: policy implications for the evolving phenomenon of user-led
scientific innovation

Victoria Stodden

>From contributions of astronomy data and DNA sequences to disease treatment
research, scientific activity by non-scientists is a real and emergent
phenomenon, and raising policy questions. This involvement in science can be
understood as an issue of access to publications, code, and data that
facilitates public engagement in the research process, thus appropriate
policy to support the associated welfare enhancing benefits is essential.
Current legal barriers to citizen participation can be alleviated by
scientists' use of the "Reproducible Research Standard," thus making the
literature, data, and code associated with scientific results accessible.
The enterprise of science is undergoing deep and fundamental changes,
particularly in how scientists obtain results and share their work: the
promise of open research dissemination held by the Internet is gradually
being fulfilled by scientists. Contributions to science from beyond the
ivory tower are forcing a rethinking of traditi
 onal models of knowledge generation, evaluation, and communication. The
notion of a scientific "peer" is blurred with the advent of lay
contributions to science raising questions regarding the concepts of
peer-review and recognition. New collaborative models are emerging around
both open scientific software and the generation of scientific discoveries
that bear a similarity to open innovation models in other settings. Public
engagement in science can be understood as an issue of access to knowledge
for public involvement in the research process, facilitated by appropriate
policy to support the welfare enhancing benefits deriving from
citizen-science.

http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901%282010%29A05/

**********

Googling your genes: personal genomics and the discourse of citizen
bioscience in the network age

Marina Levina

In this essay, I argue that the rise of personal genomics is
technologically, economically, and most importantly, discursively tied to
the rise of network subjectivity, an imperative of which is an understanding
of self as always already a subject in the network. I illustrate how
personal genomics takes full advantage of social media technology and
network subjectivity to advertise a new way of doing research that
emphasizes collaboration between researchers and its members. Sharing one's
genetic information is considered to be an act of citizenship, precisely
because it is good for the network. Here members are encouraged to think of
themselves as dividuals, or nodes, in the network and their actions acquire
value based on that imperative. Therefore, citizen bioscience is intricately
tied, both in discourse and practices, to the growth of the network in the
age of new media.

http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901%282010%29A06/

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

COMMENT

Special issue on peer-to-peer and user-led science: invited comments

Alessandro Delfanti

In this commentary, we collected three essays from authors coming from
different perspectives. They analyse the problem of power, participation and
cooperation in projects of production of scientific knowledge held by users
or peers: persons who do not belong to the institutionalised scientific
community. These contributions are intended to give a more political and
critical point of view on the themes developed and analysed in the research
articles of this JCOM special issue on Peer-to-peer and user-led science.

Michel Bauwens, Christopher Kelty and Mathieu O'Neil write about different
aspects of P2P science. Nevertheless, the three worlds they delve into share
the "aggressively active" attitude of the citizens who inhabit them. Those
citizens claim to be part of the scientific process, and they use practices
as heterogeneous as online peer-production of scientific knowledge, garage
biology practiced with a hacker twist, or the crowdsourced creation of an
encyclopedia page. All these claims and practices point to a problem in the
current distribution of power. The relations between experts and non-experts
are challenged by the rise of peer-to-peer science. Furthermore, the
horizontal communities which live inside and outside the Net are not
frictionless. Within peer-production mechanisms, the balance of power is an
important issue which has to be carefully taken into account.

http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901%282010%29C01/

**********

Is there something like a peer to peer science?

Michel Bauwens

How will peer to peer infrastructures, and the underlying intersubjective
and ethical relational model that is implied by it, affect scientific
practice? Are peer-to-peer forms of cooperation, based on open and free
input of voluntary contributors, participatory processes of governance, and
universal availability of the output, more productive than centralized
alternatives? In this short introduction, Michel Bauwens reviews a number of
open and free, participatory and commons oriented practices that are
emerging in scientific research and practice, but which ultimately point to
a more profound epistemological revolution linked to increased participatory
consciousness between the scientist and his human, organic and inorganic
research material.

http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901%282010%29C01/Jcom0901%282010%29C02

**********

Outlaw, hackers, victorian amateurs: diagnosing public participation in the
life sciences today

Christopher M. Kelty

This essay reflects on three figures that can be used to make sense of the
changing nature of public participation in the life sciences today: outlaws,
hackers and Victorian gentlemen. Occasioned by a symposium held at UCLA
(Outlaw Biology: Public Participation in the Age of Big Bio), the essay
introduces several different modes of participation (DIY Bio, Bio Art, At
home clinical genetics, patient advocacy and others) and makes three points:
1) that public participation is first a problem of legitimacy, not legality
or safety; 2) that public participation is itself enabled by and thrives on
the infrastructure of mainstream biology; and 3) that we need a new set of
concepts (other than inside/outside) for describing the nature of public
participation in biological research and innovation today.

http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901%282010%29C01/Jcom0901%282010%29C03

**********

Shirky and Sanger, or the costs of crowdsourcing

Mathieu O'Neil

Online knowledge production sites do not rely on isolated experts but on
collaborative processes, on the wisdom of the group or "crowd". Some authors
have argued that it is possible to combine traditional or credentialled
expertise with collective production; others believe that traditional
expertise's focus on correctness has been superseded by the affordances of
digital networking, such as re-use and verifiability. This paper examines
the costs of two kinds of "crowdsourced" encyclopedic projects: Citizendium,
based on the work of credentialled and identified experts, faces a
recruitment deficit; in contrast Wikipedia has proved wildly popular, but
anti-credentialism and anonymity result in uncertainty, irresponsibility,
the development of cliques and the growing importance of pseudo-legal
competencies for conflict resolution. Finally the paper reflects on the
wider social implications of focusing on what experts are rather than on
what they are for.

http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901%282010%29C01/Jcom0901%282010%29C04

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REVIEW

The unsustainable Makers

Adam Arvidsson

C. Doctorow, The Makers, Tor books (2009)

http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901%282010%29R01/

-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org

Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
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