New paradigms for socio-technical knowledge exchange, especially within and across academic disciplines, is important in order to generate insights about how new knowledge is (and can be) created. Academic researchers regularly use Web-based tools such as wikis, blogs, electronic repositories and open publishing systems to promote the open exchange of knowledge, but with varied levels of success. This work creates an open knowledge exchange system that is based on socio-technical principles, one conducive to collaborative research and the generation of new knowledge. This work will facilitate an egalitarian review process, provide support for micro-contributions as well as full-length reviews of working papers, and allow for immediate feedback on the relevance and utility of contributions. The work begins with a conceptual design and develops a socio-technical system comprised of existing tools as the basis for a KES openly accessible and available to all. It will gather data for future analysis of user behaviors and outcomes to assess the relevance, adequacy and performance of the system?s functional elements.
Intellectual Merit: This work will identify new knowledge about the participants, interactions, and contributions required for a successful, community-mediated system of open academic exchange.
Broader Impact: OKES will provide a research-driven blueprint for launching and operating an open, academic knowledge exchange, which promises to enrich the academic research climate for many fields. It will help students and practitioners in industry more actively engage in knowledge generation, and produce a rich research dataset to support follow-on studies.
Both academic conferences and scholarly publications strive to achieve the same goals: to disseminate knowledge and encourage collaboration and new idea generation. But these goals are becoming less attainable as reviewers, editors and conference organizers serve as gatekeepers of the status quo and conventional ideas, affecting not only the amount of new knowledge being disseminated, but also the timeliness or relevance of what does make it to print or onto the stage, as some authors wait months for feedback, only to find their papers and proposals rejected by a handful of anonymous reviewers. New paradigms for socio-technical knowledge exchange, especially within and across academic disciplines, are important in order to generate insights about how new knowledge is – and can be – created. Academic researchers regularly use Web-based tools such as wikis, blogs, electronic repositories and open publishing systems to promote the open exchange of knowledge, but with varied levels of success. With partial funding from the NSF this past year, two teams of researchers, one from Massey University in New Zealand, the other from New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, NJ, created a conferencing and open knowledge exchange system that is based on socio-technical principles, one that is conducive to collaborative research and the generation of new knowledge. Our goals was to identify new knowledge about the participants, interactions, and contributions required for a successful, community-mediated system of open academic exchange in order to provide a research-driven blueprint for launching and operating a system that can enrich the academic research climate for many fields. We believe it will help students and practitioners in industry more actively engage in knowledge generation and produce a rich research dataset to support follow-on studies. The prototype system we created was preceded by an extensive survey of computing professionals about their likelihood to use and opinions regarding different functionalities of our system design. We gathered data about user behaviors and attitudes to assess the relevance and adequacy of the system’s functional elements. During the course of the year, we applied our survey results and many of the participants’ comments to the development of a web-based information exchange system that facilitates an egalitarian review process, provides support for micro-contributions as well as full-length reviews of working papers, and allows for immediate feedback on the relevance and utility of contributions by any registered user. The work began with a conceptual design, from which we developed a knowledge exchange system using open source tools that is openly accessible and available to all. We tested it extensively during the last two months of funding, and it is available from the researchers to any individual or organization that wishes to examine it, use it, and improve upon it. Early adopters include a special interest group of the Association for Computer Machinery, an international group of philosophers and a new educational assessment organization, all of whom intend to use it for upcoming conferences in 2011 and 2012. It provides the means by which individual researchers can present their ideas for peer review and comment, invite interested collaborators to participate in refining and testing new concepts, organize impromptu and traditional conferences in order to proliferate those ideas, and add to a growing body of knowledge in collegial, egalitarian and timely ways.
