Information and Discovery in Neuroscience(IDN)

Carole Palmer

Graduate School of Library and Information ScienceUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Informatics Tools for Scientific Discovery and CollaborationUniversity of Illinois-Chicago

September 4, 2003

Project logistics

Personnel:Carole Palmer, Associate ProfessorMelissa Cragin and Tim Hogan, Doctoral research

assistants

Location:Information Systems Research Lab, GSLIS, UIUC

http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~neuro/

Funding agency:NSF, Computer and Information Science and Engineering /

Digital Technologies and Society - Grant No. 0222848

Research Questions

What information conditions are associated with significant progress and problems during the course of research?

How does information contribute to:discoveries, breakthroughs, intellectual

advancements

What elements help / hinder the research process?

newness, mobility, scatter, boundaries . . .

Concerns for Information Science

Mix of information and activities supported has important influence on what new knowledge canbe generated.

Research communities value and apply information in different ways.

Interests of researchers need to be represented to larger community of information system developers.

Focus of research program

Domain analysis Fields that serve as models of information dynamics:

distribution, integration, exchange, heterogeneity

InterdisciplinarityStructures and strategies of information work, barriers

Digital library developmentCustomization and cross-domain inquiry and collaboration, knowledge integration

Pre-Arrowsmith associations

Computational project that builds on Don Swanson’s theoretical work on “disconnected literatures”

Papers that discuss potential applications of Swanson and Smalheiser’s tool

identifying “new” informationmobilizing scattered informationeasing information work across boundaries

Arrowsmith is built on the premise that discoveries might be made by linking findings from disconnected literatures.

The Logic of Arrowsmith

Target

Literature

“A”

Source

Literature

“C”

Intermediate Literatures“B”

B 1

B 2

B 3

AB BC

?A C

Links to Arrowsmith project

Invited by Neil Smalheiser to consider using field testing efforts to continue my studies of the role of information in advancing research and collaboration.

Arrowsmith proposal Aim 1:

“…test whether Arrowsmith analyses are feasible and useful for assessing research issues in field tests of neuroscientists working as part of large multi-disciplinary groups…; have investigators from large multidisciplinary groups look actively for opportunities to conduct Arrowsmith analyses that arise naturally from research carried out by their group...”

http://arrowsmith.psych.uic.edu/arrowsmith_uic/

Key factors for IDN project

Naturalistic test sites in compelling field

extensive and complex knowledge basehigh level of informatics activity

Monitoring of information searches

represent ongoing research projects already established, therefore more awareness and less intrusive

Proposed Arrowsmith scenarios

1. Finding pieces of the puzzle in different disciplines

(i.e. nutrition and psychiatry)2. Assessing significance of finding relative to

literature3. Non-expert searching

Do these fit with your lab’s work? Other scenarios?

Non-Arrowsmith tasks?

Arrowsmith and scope of IDN project

Range of information activities, tools and resourcesliterature and data - gathering, using, sharing

High-impact informationpoints of progress and problemsimportant contingencies, combinations, functionalities

Boundary workinformation from outside core specialization or expertisemodes of collaboration and information sharing

Testing previous results

Modes of research relationships between information practices and

strategies for building research base

Major boundary work difficultiessearching far afield vocabularylearning anew core maintenanceexport

- Palmer, Carole L. (2001). Work at the Boundaries of Science: Information and the Interdisciplinary Research Process. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

- Palmer, Carole L. (1999). "Structures and Strategies of Interdisciplinary Science." Journal of the American Society for Information Science 50, no. 3: 242-253.

Objectives

1) Document when information is needed and used in daily research activities.

2) Develop profiles or “scenarios” of information-based advances and problems.

3) Identify effective combinations of information activities and resources.

4) Analyze boundary-crossing information work.

Methods

Qualitative Interviewing

project-basedcritical incidents

Field Observationinformation work

workspace

Document Analysiscitationscontent

Arrowsmith Diaryinformation logs

search logs

Human subjects protocols

Informed consent

Confidentiality

Data aggregation for reporting

Limited use of verbatim text

Cross-case analysis

We look for conditions that promote progress.

Identify stages / modes of research and

Assess related information sources, channels, activities

- high-impact information- significant information problems

- effective information combinations

- levels of scatter- influence of information from subdisciplines- searching and management techniques, needs

Additional analysis

Typology of information activities and key resources

Articulation of information problems unique to neuroscience

Profiling of requirements for transfer and exchange of information between specializations

Applications

Refinements and functionalities for Arrowsmith

Recommendations and requirements for new tools and resources, upgrades for existing

Prioritization for digital library developmentfederation, meta-data, and interoperability

Mapping and supporting the “fault lines” of discovery

New directions for national libraries and information specialists

QUESTIONS?

COMMENTS?

RECOMMENDATIONS?

(always welcome)