TY - JOUR
T1 - Making Science
T2 - New Generations of Collaborative Knowledge Production
AU - Binz-Scharf, Maria C.
AU - Kalish, Yuval
AU - Paik, Leslie
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project is supported by NSF Grant No. 0943203.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 SAGE Publications
PY - 2015/5/4
Y1 - 2015/5/4
N2 - Research scientists have become increasingly dependent on collaborations across laboratories and organizations to maintain their productivity. However, the increased specialization of individual laboratories works against the current drive toward understanding systems in the sciences. Consequently, there is a tension between the rising importance of collaborative efforts and the practical and structural challenges in establishing and managing such collaborations. Combining ethnographic case studies of three biology research labs with network data of their larger scientific community, we explore the changing process of scientific knowledge production in the age of Big Science. We find that virtual technologies open up the knowledge process as scientists have easier access to data, publications, and each other. At the same time, we find that these technologies—specifically scientific databases—do not eradicate the social aspects of scientific knowledge production as collaborative structures in science remain relatively unchanged. We discuss the implications for theory and practice of this seemingly contradictory character of scientific knowledge production.
AB - Research scientists have become increasingly dependent on collaborations across laboratories and organizations to maintain their productivity. However, the increased specialization of individual laboratories works against the current drive toward understanding systems in the sciences. Consequently, there is a tension between the rising importance of collaborative efforts and the practical and structural challenges in establishing and managing such collaborations. Combining ethnographic case studies of three biology research labs with network data of their larger scientific community, we explore the changing process of scientific knowledge production in the age of Big Science. We find that virtual technologies open up the knowledge process as scientists have easier access to data, publications, and each other. At the same time, we find that these technologies—specifically scientific databases—do not eradicate the social aspects of scientific knowledge production as collaborative structures in science remain relatively unchanged. We discuss the implications for theory and practice of this seemingly contradictory character of scientific knowledge production.
KW - big science
KW - databases
KW - ethnography
KW - social network analysis
KW - virtual organization
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U2 - 10.1177/0002764214556805
DO - 10.1177/0002764214556805
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84926192002
SN - 0002-7642
VL - 59
SP - 531
EP - 547
JO - American Behavioral Scientist
JF - American Behavioral Scientist
IS - 5
ER -