Virtual Knowledge: Experimenting in the Humanities and the Social Sciences is a collection of essays which look at “newly emerging forms of knowledge” and asserts that “changes in society not only reconfigure the conditions under which new knowledge is produced; they are, at the same time, objects of study”. The interaction of expertise and authority informs what is privileged as scientific or scholarly knowledge.
One of the more interesting discussions is of collaborators sharing calendars. The point of doing so is to facilitate planning and scheduling of meetings among the members of the Virtual Knowledge Studio. However, in this case members “were instructed not to select a ‘busy/not busy’ option when sharing calendars” and instead were “instructed to make the specificities of our engagements visible”. Members ignored the instructions and used the “busy/not busy” option even though they were explicitly told not to do so.
In “Exploring Uncertainty in Knowledge Representations: Classifications, Simulations and Models of the World” the authors discuss how the natural sciences, humanities and social sciences address the issue of uncertainty. Uncertainty, the authors maintain, is a source of knowledge rather than a problem to be overcome with additional information.
The discussion of uncertainty is central in “Virtually Visual: The Visual Rhetoric of Geographic Information Systems in Policy Making”, which discusses Holland's National Institute for Public Health and Environment. The large margin of error in its analysis is not conveyed in the visual representations of the analysis. Also, the lack of an “agreed-upon standard of measurement” contributes to uncertainty and potentially confusing or misleading visual representations. This chapter focuses on GIS and policy-making and provides examples of how visual information can be presented to policy makers.
“Sloppy Data Floods or Precise Social Science Methodologies? Dilemmas in the Transition to Data-Intensive Research in Sociology and Economics” explores how big data (the deluge of tons of information) will affect two fields in the social sciences. “New Technologies”, the authors claim, “are also creating opportunities for new substantive theory”, in addition to the so-called “crisis” of which many scholars write. One such opportunity is the emerging field of neuro-economics.
“Beyond Open Access: A Framework for Openness in Scholarly Communication” states that “a high degree of variability in the way research is conducted limits the potential to standardize research practices, a characteristic that influences the role of scholarly communication”. The authors observe that openness other than open access is slow to be embraced in formal scholarly communication. The part that technological developments play in family and population history is explored in “Virtual Knowledge in Family History: Visionary Technologies, Research Dreams and Research Agendas”. Most of the research agendas in the field of family history make use of a “deficit model”, but with more information the “plot structure” changes. The authors here suggest a “systematic cross-comparative research set up”.
This collection of essays can stand alone or be used as a research methods course text and is highly recommended for a university offering postgraduate coursework in the social sciences.
