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What’s the Deal with the Web/Blogs/the Next Big Technology: A Key Role for Information Science in e-Social Science Research?

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Book cover Context: Nature, Impact, and Role (CoLIS 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 3507))

Abstract

Since many nations have provided substantial funding for new e-social science and humanities investigations, there is now an opportunity for information scientists to adopt an enabling role for this new kind of research. Logically, a more information-centred environment should be more conducive to information science and to information scientists taking part in other types of research. In this article it is argued that information scientists can play a valuable role by evaluating new information sources in a meta-disciplinary context, developing tools and methods to analyse the data and, crucially, contributing to the prediction of the kinds of research questions that the data may usefully help address. It is argued that this is both an essential service for social science research and one that information science is uniquely placed to provide. A timely response to this challenge may also generate novel research problems within information science itself.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing and Information Technology, University of Wolverhampton, Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1SB, UK

    Mike Thelwall

  2. Networked Research and Digital Information – Nerdi, NIWI-KNAW, Joan Muyskenweg 25, PO Box 95110, 1090 HC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Paul Wouters

Authors
  1. Mike Thelwall
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  2. Paul Wouters
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Strathclyde, Scotland

    Fabio Crestani

  2. Dept. of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde, G1 1XH, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

    Ian Ruthven

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Thelwall, M., Wouters, P. (2005). What’s the Deal with the Web/Blogs/the Next Big Technology: A Key Role for Information Science in e-Social Science Research?. In: Crestani, F., Ruthven, I. (eds) Context: Nature, Impact, and Role. CoLIS 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3507. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11495222_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11495222_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-26178-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32101-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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