The Oxford e-Social Science Project:
ethical, legal and institutional dynamics or grid-enabled e-sciences
The Social Shaping of Technology? Upgrading e-science scenarios for understanding socio-technical change
Panel for the Ninth UK e-Science All Hands Meeting, 13-16 September 2010, Cardiff City Hall
Organisers: OeSS Project Members, University of Oxford
Contact: Timothy Webmoor, Research Fellow in Science and Technology Studies, Institute of Science, Innovation and Society, Said Business School, Park End Street Oxford, OX1 1HP, T: +44 (0)1865 78819, F: +44 (0)1865 288959, E: timothy.webmoor@sbs.ox.ac.uk
Format: Panel
Duration: 90 minutes
Abstract
What is the contribution of e-Social Science to the strategic vision of the UK e-Sciences? The recent international review of the UK Research Councils e-Science Programme characterized the e-Social Science Programme as an asset, recommending that the social sciences develop further insights into the behavioral and social processes involved with harnessing advances in digital technology and practice. Challenges remain, however, with successfully embedding eResearch technologies. Firstly, what is meant by 'e-Social Science' is not well understood by the larger ESRC community of practitioners. Secondly, the relationship of e-Social Science to e-Science needs to be developed and more explicitly articulated. The motivation for holding this panel is to address these concerns by clarifying the nature and role of 'Digital Social Research'. The panel will be targeted to a broad audience of Digital Social Researchers as well as members of the e-Science community who incorporate insights from social science research and/or have working partnerships with e-Social Science projects.
We propose that both of the challenges detailed above may be twinned to an overly simplified conception of 'the social shaping of technology.' That is, the role most widely held to be unique to e-Social Science has been framed within a limiting 'receiver-only' framework: to promote, within social science disciplines, the successful adoption of digital technologies and infrastructures developed by the e-Sciences. This has e-Social Science working more as a translator and less as a contributing partner. And where such adoption does not occur or is slow to proceed, social and behavioral reasons are most often cited for explaining what got 'lost in translation.' Under this scenario, the concept 'the social shaping of technology' is employed to account for instances of low fidelity between the development of eResearch technologies and their adoption by social sciences. This grants the phrase a familiarity that spans the two communities of practitioners. At the same time it renders it empty, with little explanatory power. Consequently, the current scenario leaves little elbow-room for contributions unique to the theory and practice of the social sciences themselves.
This panel will bring together leading national and international experts who are integrally involved with rethinking this relationship between technological development and social processes. We will explore ideas and methods related to 'social shaping.' In formulating and communicating a more robust concept of what we mean by 'social shaping,' the overall aim of the panel is to facilitate and make explicit a two-way exchange between e-Social Science and their counterparts within the UK Research e-Science Program. In what ways can social scientists best support e-Science and digital social research? What can computer scientists learn from social science?
Participants: To be confirmed.