Knowledge-sharing in multidisciplinary projects

Cummings, Jonathan.N. and Kiesler, Sara. 2005. "Collaborative Research across Disciplinary and Organizational Boundaries." Social Studies of Science 35/5: 703-722

This paper by Sara Kielser, professor at Carnegie Mellon, and Jonathan N. Cummings, professor at Duke University, discusses the problems associated with knowledge-sharing in large project involving multiple disciplines and universities. Their study was based on 62 scientific collaborations supported by the Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence programme of the US National Science Foundation in 1998 and 1999. The aim was to study the different kinds of techniques used to bridge distances and how effective they were.

Multidisciplinary projects are beneficial in that they bring in expertise from various field and from people trained in various environments. At the same time, physical distance, difference in working styles, use of different softwares, etc. could create barriers in such projects. The questionnaire of the study asked scientists what mode of communication they used and what the outcomes were. The outcomes were classified as new ideas/knowledge (patents, publications), tools for research (software, databases), training of scientists and engineers (PhD students, undergrads), and outreach and public understanding of science (school and community projects etc.)

The results showed that most of the projects used the traditional methods of faculty supervised tasks (84%), seminars (55%) etc. while the use of technology like conference calls (13%), online discussions (8%) etc. was minimal. The major discipline involved were computer science (16%) and electrical engineering (13%) while basic sciences like biology (8%) and maths (9%) had limited representation. The authors also investigated the relation between the number of Principal Investigator Universities and the coordination mechanisms used and found that to a statistically significant degree, more PI universities involved in a project predicted fewer coordination mechanism used in that project. The authors were led to conclude that distance and organizational boundaries still interfered with communication.

Having more PI universities was also found to be negatively associated with the generation of new ideas/knowledge, student training and project outreach. In this context, the authors call for new research into the theories of innovation and social networks; creation of new technology for ongoing conversation, reducing information overload, support simultaneous group decision-making etc.; and policy changes like longer-term funding to build collaborations, budget revisions to support such infrastructure, and better awareness regarding 'proposal pressure' amongst the researchers.

Science and the Judiciary

"Government regulation of major technologies has to take into account a conflicting array of scientific, social and economic considerations and of public and private interests."

The paper “Science, Technology and the Limits of Judicial Competence” was written by Sheila Jasanoff and Dorothy Nelkin and published in 1981 in Science.

It explores the complex relationship between the Judicial wing of the State and  litigation involving Science and technology expertise. The core argument set forth by the authors is that judicial competence in litigation relating to science and technology disputes is complicated by the uncertainties involved in determining the consequences and hence, it loses grip of conceptual and policy issues of the case at hand in its focus on the technical aspects.

As the role of science and technology in daily life is becoming increasingly common, so are the issues among scientific experts and among the social, moral and ethical characters in the public.

The environmental and health risks of technology make the requirement of “best scientific information” essential in regulatory science like the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Toxic Substances Control Act. Judiciary is constantly in need of technical advice from scientific experts to make rational and legitimate decisions.

Reforms in the judiciary structure are proposed – where some say that judiciary should have a reductionist role to play, confining itself to the procedural verifications scientific evidence collection. Or even a close partnership between the judiciary and experts is suggested at every step of the litigation. Some even ask for a different body of judiciary well-trained in such expertise to deal with the issues of science and technology.

The large scientific and technological components of an issue are seen as placing an unusual burden on the adjudicating bodies.

Two major classes of litigations relation to science are categorized as:

(i) Ethical issues raised by scientific advances ( particularly biological sciences)

(ii) Technology which poses risks to the society and the perceived deficiencies in the government’s effort to mitigate these risks through regulatory action.

High level of uncertainty involved in the regulation of scientific and technological development compounds the difficulty. Disagreements exist about the magnitude of risk, appropriateness of measuring techniques and the reliability of data.

According to Jasanoff and Nelkin, the reforms to adjudication focus on the issue of technical uncertainty to the extent of exclusing the conceptual and policy issues at stake.

The following case studies exemplify this:

The Del zio case: A woman sued the Columbia University, Presbyterian hospital and the chairman of Columbia’s department of obstetrics for not allowing her to undergo a voluntary in vitro fertilization. The trial focused entirely on the technical aspects of the scientific procedure and weighed the credentials of the experts involved, rather than taking the basic value of the case into account: The woman’s personal desire to undergo in vitro fertilization and the Federal government’s regulations and conditions about the same given to the University.

The authors feel that the Judiciary is better equipped to weigh competing values and interests rather than settle disputes between scientific experts.

Superintendent of Belchertown State School vs. Saikewicz case which deals with the “right to die” of a an incompetent and terminally-ill 67 year old patient of Leukemia, acting through is guardian ad litem, which is weighed against the countervailing interest of the State to preserve human life at all costs, by the judiciary. Though in this case, the judiciary exercised its appropriate function of value judgement of competing interest groups. The authors argue that in most of the “right to die” cases the judiciary gets stuck around the technical definition of death or "brain death", rather than weighing the social and religious value associated with death.

A third case is that of litigations involving patentability of Living Organisms , which again gets derailed to the questions of technical differences between an invention and a living organism based on expert definitions rather than looking at the moral value attached to the commercialization of life-creation.

Taking their argument ahead, the authors point towards the environmental issues which strain the judiciary to a breaking point due to the unique policy context involving various interest groups: Scientific experts, Private Citizens, Special Interest Groups, and more. In such a complex relationship mesh, the trade-offs are difficult to determine and it further complicates decision-making as the boundaries between the agency and the patient blur. The dichotomous two party litigation system of the American judiciary is unable to accommodate such complexity. 

An example is that of the agitations against Nuclear Plants and the trespassing of the activists in the premises of the same to hold protests. The activists see trespassing as a lesser evil of the two and hence justify an over-dramatization of the greater evil of Nuclear Plants through their trespassing.

The Honicker vs. Hendrie case which argued for a closing down of all Nuclear plants immediately, also created new problems for the judiciary as it overstepped the distinction between policy-making and adjudication.

Also, the risks posed to the environment and human health are evidence-determined require frontier knowledge of the concerned discipline. The judiciary lacks the knowledge and science too has incomplete evidence to offer, hence further complicating matters.
An example is that of neighbourhood members of the airport in California who demanded a compensation for the harm that the noise pollution caused them. 

The proposed reforms have called for closer working of the Judiciary and Science when making value-judgements or for the establishment of a separate institution possessing such expertise to deal exclusively with science and technology related disputes. 

Yet, the authors argue that a closer working of the two institutions of science and law will fail to take into account the Fragile Values as long as they are focussed on the technical information enhancement of the litigation. Rather, Judiciary being the strongest institution of these fragile values must not allow a hegemony of the scientific expertise to overshadow the basic social, moral and ethical conceptualizations in such litigations as exemplified in the previous cases.

What do you think? Though this article is written in the context of the Federal Courts, it has an analogy in the Indian scene too. The Bhopal Gas Tragedy is one the many cases in account, where compensation given to the victims is devoid of the social considerations. Another example is that of the Unilever Thermometer Factory in Kodaikanal causing serious consequences for the workers and local population. (One can also look at the case of Jadugoda uranium mines in Jharkhand and the damages caused to the local population's health).

Or, the current agitation among the Indian public against the propitiation of Nuclear power plants in Kundankulam and Jaitapur.

Please do comment and post relevant contemporary examples.
Thanks.

(Sorry for the unbearable length of the post, but since the paper will not be presented in class, I thought a detailed summary would be helpful)

Science and the State: 'Societal control and knowledge in democratic societies'

This summary of the above mentioned paper by Reiner Grundmann and Nico Stehr, introduces the notions of knowledge policy and the politics of knowledge, distinct from research policy. While research policy takes the aims of innovations as largely unproblematic (insofar as they help improving national competitiveness), knowledge policy tries to govern (regulate, control, restrict, or even forbid) the production of knowledge.

Knowledge is a wealth creating power. Not only is it growing at an increasing pace, it is also being transformed in the process. If we talk about knowledge societies, we cannot remain silent about knowledge politics. Concerns about the societal consequences of an unfettered expansion of natural scientific knowledge are now raised much more urgently and are moving to the centre of disputes in society and to the top of the political agenda. Many issues need addressing. Most importantly, a completely new 'politics of knowledge' may emerge, with its own institutions and dynamics. Its basic feature is the use of knowledge to advance not only specific political goals and economic interests, but also certain norms, values and worldviews. The politics of knowledge denotes the contested nature of and the struggle over, scientific and technical advancements.

Science policy as conducted by governments, firms and foundations refers directly to the constitution of scientific knowledge, the individuals who produce such knowledge, the social context within which such knowledge is fabricated, etc. In contrast, stem cell research, for example, pertains to the emerging field of knowledge politics, in which ethical considerations as well as new relations and an informed dialogue between researchers, industrialists, political decision makers and citizens are sometimes included in calls for research proposals.

Self-Regulation of Science? How can we conceptualise the governance of science – the provision of public goods without the proliferation of public ‘bads’? Can we rely on scientists themselves? Consider the following two episodes concerning atomic energy:

· In testimony before the US special senate committee on atomic energy (1946), John von Neumann pleaded with the senators to enact strict government regulations: “it is for the first time that science has produced results which require an immediate intervention of government...” The senate acted upon this and the stringent regulations are still in effect.

· Compare this with the recent controversy about mandatory notification of potential use of biological research for terrorist warfare: “University officials and leading scientists are warning that new government regulations on biological research adopted in the wake of 9/11, and simultaneous efforts to inhibit publication, threaten to undermine the fundamental openness of science and campus life.”

Both episodes show that scientists can be advocates and enemies of a regulation of knowledge. In Merton’s influential description, science is an autonomous, self-regulating system, especially with regard to its normative nature.

This notion of a primary social self-control is a powerful, if mythical, self-description of science, and restricting scientists’ social and intellectual life in a way that is regarded as legitimate, because the spheres of production of scientific knowledge and the execution of political action were considered institutions completely sealed off from each other. Today, science is deeply entangled in politics, and political interests have a determining influence on the development of research. When ‘good’ science produces ‘bad' consequences, it is seen as deplorable. If this were to affect such paramount values as health and safety in an affluent society, political attention and intervention are sure to follow.

Governance of knowledge: Our aim here is to identify institutional frameworks to deal with new and potentially hazardous knowledge.

· We should avoid irreversibility

· We should guarantee and enhance public involvement and democratic decision-making. There is a basic tension in modern societies between democratic and oligarchic principles, since lay people are not knowledgeable enough to participate in decisions about SciTech in a competent manner. A solution to this could be in the education of the public and their inclusion in decision making through a minipopulus.However, the basic rift in such debates is not between lay people and experts, but between two alliances advocating different courses of action based on divergent basic values and knowledge claims. Claims from both sides are tested in public debate.

In short, to satisfy the two criteria, the institutional settings would require wide public participation and open, controversial debate, keeping open as many options as possible.

Globalisation and the nation state: no matter how ambitious and successful single national efforts may be, and no matter what stringent government regulations may be in effect, international competition can undermine such attempts. The most pressing problem is international coordination in order to avoid the Delaware Effect – lowest regulatory standards because of the nations’ preference for attracting business investments. The nation state appears to be helpless in the face of globalised production of knowledge and technical development – an observation that needs to be taken seriously, in the face of transboundary externalities.

Globalisation has led to several governance gaps, which, according to a report to the UN, were identified as:

· Operational: whenever policymakers and public institutions find themselves lacking the information, knowledge and tools they need to respond to complex policy issues.

· Participatory: the difficulties for a common understanding of, and therefore agreement on, critical policy issues.

Beyond classical forms of multilateralism, global public policy networks (actors from different sectors, NGOs, businesses) are promising institutional forms that could help bridge these gaps.

(http://aston.academia.edu/ReinerGrundmann/Papers/280481/Social_Control_and_Knowledge_In_Democratic_Societies)

Do comment.

The Concept of Disinterestedness

Hello. My presentation was on Warren Schmaus's article- Fraud and the Norms of Science. It was published in Science, Technology, & Human Values in 1983. Here's the link to the article- http://www.jstor.org/stable/689245

I found this article interesting because it doesn't conform to what Robert Merton says about every scientist having to engage in scientific research solely in a completely disinterested fashion. It is perfectly okay for scientists to perform research in the hopes of gaining some personal benefit, as long as they do not mess or interfere with the aims of science. This is where the whole question of fraud and negligence comes in. In their haste to attain acclaim in the scientific world, scientists often resort to publishing fabricated or incomplete data, and Merton finds this unpardonable. However, Schmaus adds to this by saying that intentional fraud is bad, but so is unintentional or constructive fraud which arises out of negligence or shoddy work. Schmaus believes that negligence too is reason enough for a scientist to face debarment. Fraud is fraud whether intended or not. Schmaus believes that if the other three norms of science are conformed to, fraud should never be a problem. Organized skepticism and peer review, as Dipali posted about, is supposed to ensure that fraudulent practices in science don't arise. Disinterestedness and organized skepticism should be methodological prescriptions instead of norms. Schamus says that it may be unjust or unfair to require that scientists be disinterested unlike the rest of us. "The pursuit of scientific knowledge is not an important moral value that

conflicts with and overrides a scientist's right to pursue his or her own career. Scientists who commit fraud thus violate not a moral rule that applies only to them and enjoins them from self-interested activity, but a moral rule that applies to everybody and requires scientists to do their duty."

On Peer Review, Fraud and Plagiarism

The article I presented is titled "What is the future of peer review? Why is there fraud in science? Is plagiarism out of control? Why do scientists do bad things? Is it all a case of:“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing?” by Chris R. Triggle and David J. Triggle. It was published in February, 2007 in the journal, Vascular Health and Risk Management. Here is a link for the article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1994041/

This article deals with Merton's norm of Organised Skepticism according to which all scientific claims must be exposed to critical scrutiny before being accepted. This happens through the peer review process but as the paper suggests, there are inherent problems with the very process.

Here are some of the important arguments/questions in the paper:

Peer Review

• How do you define 'peer?'
• Anonymity in the review process assumes maximal effort and fair judgement. At the same time, it protects reviewers from retribution. But does it lead to laziness?
• Use of vague reasons such as 'my gut feeling is this will not work'
• Why not publish the reviews then?
• "In what direction and should the peer review process actually police scientific fraud and should the peer review itself be subjected to review and potential legal action if scientific fraud by the reviewer is suspected?"
• Tendency to accept only positive data
• Bias - free passage for well-known laboratories, country of origin also influences acceptance
• "If the peer review process is unfair, if the rights of the individual under review are not protected, if the “facts” presented during the review are inaccurate, and the result is a damaged reputation and loss of income then why shouldn’t you sue?"
• Conflict of interest can arise from differences between author, journals and funding sources, vested interests, ideologies, religions etc.

Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

• Means of defining the impact of a scientist's research
• The number of citations for an article in a given year divided by the number of articles and reviews published in the same journal during the past two years
• “80:20” phenomenon - 20% of publications account for 80% of the citations
• But it is essential to evaluate the impact of the individual paper and take into account not only where it was published but, in particular, also how well it has been cited and by whom —a paper in a high impact journal does not necessarily equate with a high impact paper, it is the citation frequency that is more important
• Alternative method - Index of individual productivity, “h”, has been proposed by Hirsch (2005) where h is defined as the number of papers with citation number >h

Fraud

• Difficulty - to determine with complete certainty that malicious intent and not interpretation error, or simply bad laboratory practice, was the cause.
• "Fraud in science, whether initially intended as hoaxes or planned with career and profit-making intentions, not only ruins the careers of the perpetrator, but also, potentially, their innocent colleagues, as well as tarnishing the reputation of the institution where the work was performed and reducing the confidence of the public in the value of scientific research"

Plagiarism

• Self-plagiarism
• Cryptomnesia - unconscious plagiarism?
• Is reuse of descriptions of experimental methods (like A + B = C) plagiarism?
• "Scientists are no different from any other groups in society and, like many other analogous comparisons, a few rotten apples will always be found."

Recommendations

• The establishment of the equivalent of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) in other countries
• Appropriate safeguards designed to protect both the whistleblower and the accused
• Processes whereby the apparent bias in peer review can be reduced are urgently required and should be evaluated
• Heightened awareness and education at all levels concerning the seriousness of scientific fraud in all of its manifestations

Feel free to comment.

- Dipali.

Understanding Merton's Universalism (Gender)

Merton's passion and interest towards the study of the Sociology of Science, especially through the interactions of social and cultural structures with Science. In this regard, he formulated the Norms of Science, namely: Universalism, Communism, Organized Scepticism and Disinterestedness.
This post deals with the norm of Universalism ('claims to truth' ought to be evaluated fairly and not determined by characteristics such as race, nationality, gender, religion, etc.) especially in the context of Gender.

Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams of Cornell University, in a paper titled 'Understanding current causes of women's underrepresentation in science' try to explore the prevalence and causes for gender bias in the academia. The primary causes for under-representation, reports suggested were discriminations in the fields of granting funds, hiring and the journal reviews.

With respect to Journal Reviewing, the authors examine manuscript acceptance rates between males and females while keeping the quality of work as a constant. Analysing works ranging from Budden's study of blind reviews faring better gender-wise in Behavioural Psychology to longitudinal studies spanning two and a half decades, the authors dismiss the argument of gender bias in Journal Reviwing, primarily citing weak justifications and proof of discrimination with respcet to manuscript acceptance rates.In the case of Grant Funding, Ceci and Williams (2010) primarily compare the works of Wennerås and Wold with the Cochrane Methodology Review Group that concluded that apart from the former's study conducted a decade ago, none of the other studies indicate a strong case of discrimination.Hiring, witnessed rather interesting results- one study that looked at positions in R1 universities concluded that women has a better chance of getting interviewed and receiving offers than their male counterparts.

In conclusion, Ceci and Williams are rather sceptical about these conventional claims of discrimination against women. So how do they answer the puzzle of under-representation? The authors attribute it to fertility (life style choices), career preferences (teching over research, for example) and 'work-home' balance issues. While they acknowledge gender differences, they define the differences as 'secondary' and conclude that the real problem lies in the resources attributable to the abovementioned choices and it is those that have to be the focus of the remedy.

Thus, placing it in the context of Merton's Universalism, we see that Ceci and Williams bear a tinge of optimism and infact indicate a move towards Universalism. However, some points to note about the article are that the argument is centered around American contexts and hence cannot be extrapolated to other contexts; the authors primarily look at data for explicit indicators of discrimination, which is rarely the case.

Reference- Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams. Understanding current causes of women's underrepresentation in science. PNAS vol. 108 no. 8 3157-3162 (2010)

-Uttara