Hypertext
Dissertation
Frontmatter
Abstract
Chapter One
Phase One
Toward an Objective Reality of the Collaboratory
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Conclusion
Phase Two
Toward a Subjective Reality of the Collaboratory
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Conclusion
Phase Three
Toward an Intersubjective Reality of the Collaboratory
Chapter Nine
Conclusion
Conclusion of
the Study
References
Appendices
A. Retrieval Set
B. CIRAL Matrix
C. Participating
Collaboratories
Guest Book
Dissertation
Committee
.pdf
Document
Traditional dissertation format suitable for
print. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.
(281 pages, 1.1MB)
Powerpoint
Presentation
(1.MB 103 slides)
List of
Hyperlinks from
the text of the
study
Taxonomies |
ABSTRACT
A Naturalistic Inquiry into the
Collaboratory:
In Search Of Understanding
For Prospective Participants
joanne
twining
December 1999
This study is a three-phase naturalistic probe of the information environment of the
collaboratory and is intended to support the expansive, ecological research of others. The
collaboratory is a "center without walls," or a virtually collocated,
collaborative laboratory where scientists, instruments, and data come together via
computer network technology without regard to geographic location. In Phase One, an
objective reality of the collaboratory is constructed from the documents made accessible
through the world's libraries. Taxonomy construction and quantitative and qualitative data
analysis are used to investigate and prove as practiced principles the assumptions of
relative equality of contribution to collaboratory research by the hard and soft sciences,
and the inherent interdisciplinarity of the collaboratory environment. An emergent theory
of the collaboratory as an ungendered environment is developed. Phase Two creates a
subjective reality of the collaboratory based on experiential immersion in the online
environment. An evaluative instrument, the CIRAL matrix of criteria for inclusion as a
collaboratory, is developed and tested, and four collaboratory site visits are developed.
The collaboratory is found to be an instrumentally determined social environment, with
each implementation unique in its combinations of communication modes and media, and each
generating unique types of data stores. Phase Three constructs an intersubjective reality
of the collaboratory during an electronic Delphi among collaboratory pioneers. The Delphi
determines the "rules of the road" for the collaboratory and identifies skills
collaboratory pioneers value in prospective participants. Phase Three identifies cognitive
dissonance between the intersubjective reality of collaboratory pioneers and Phase One's
findings of relative equality of contribution to, and ungenderedness of the collaboratory
environment. Size of collaboratory is explored as a determining factor in preferences for
balance between formal and informal communication modes, and structured and fluid
experiment planning. The three realities are intertwined to construct a holistic, synoptic
survey of the collaboratory as an emergent knowledge environment in which old science is
done with new tools, but from which new science has yet emerged.
Chapter
One ->
Placed August 1999
Contact reseacher: twining@intertwining.org
Dissertation web: http://www.intertwining.org/dissertation
-30-
|