Gauging the Impact of e-Research in the Social Sciences

Eric T. MeyerRalph Schroeder

Oxford Internet InstituteOxford e-Social Science node of NCeSS

Presented at UK e-Science All Hands Conference, Edinburgh, UK, 8-11 September 2008

Attitudes (and uncertainty) towards e-Research

52%

37%

41%

28%32%

21%

43%

17%21%

45% 43%

59% 60%

70%

19%

77%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

e-Researchis adequately

funded

e-Researchenhances

my personalproductivity

e-Researchenhancesmy team'sproductivity

Many newscientificquestionswill require

the use of e-Research

tools

e-Researchtools arealreadyuseful

e-Researchtools raisenew ethical

issues

Most e-Researchtools are

easy to use

More trainingis needed ine-Research

% o

f re

sp

on

de

nts

Don't know

Strongly agree

Source: Dutton & Meyer 2008

Evidence for Uncertainty Trough

Opponents Disengaged Spectators Promoters

7.6 9.9 43.2 33.3

Certain 40.5 8.7 19.7 68.1 37.9

Marginal 27.0 30.4 33.7 23.5 29.1

Uncertain 32.4 60.9 46.6 8.4 33.0

100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Uncertainty by Perspective (**)

Perspective

Total

Uncertainty

Total

Proportion of sample

Source: Dutton, W.H. & Meyer, E.T. (2008). “e-Social Science as an Experience Technology: Distance from, and Attitudes Toward, E-Research“. Presentation for the 4th International Conference on e-Social Science, University of Manchester, 19 June 2008. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1150422

AVROSS

AVROSS

Publications in e-Research, 1996-2008, Social Sciences Compared to All Disciplines

104

56

28

134

64

154

5 / 36 / 13 / 11 / 128

300

89

289

847878

781

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

1996 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008(1st 7

months) Year

So

cial

Sci

ence

Pu

bli

cati

on

s (n

)

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

All

Dis

cip

lin

es P

ub

lica

tio

ns

(n)

Social Sciences All Disciplines

Publications in e-Research1996-2008, social sciences compared to all disciplines

Publication Patterns in Disciplinein Scopus sample (n=2887)

Social Sciences (n=175)

Computer Science (n=749)

Fields, Citations and AuthorsTable 1. Fields, Citations, and Authors in Scopus e-Research papers, 1996-2008 (n=2920)

Field

N Fields per

paper (mean)

Cited by (mean)

Authors (mean)

Wuchty et al. (mean,

1996-2000) Natural Sciences 102 1.39 2.23 5.58 ** ---

Med-Bio-Health 572 2.60 *** 2.46 4.34 4.39

Computer Science 1676 1.84 *** 1.65 4.11 2.39 ***

All Fields Combined 2920 1.52 1.71 4.05 ---

Math-Physics 703 2.59 *** 1.41 4.00 ---

Engineering 1039 1.38 *** 1.70 3.81 * 2.94 ***

Business-Economics 91 1.84 ** 1.64 3.13 *** 1.71 ***

Social Science 243 1.52 1.64 2.47 *** ---

Arts-Humanities 7 2.14 3.71 1.29 *** ---

Field intersection

Intersection of fields co-associated in Scopus e-Research sample (n=2920)Total CompSci Eng MathPhys Med SocSci NatSci ArtHum

All Fields 2920 1676 1039 703 572 334 102 7Computer Science 57.4% 44.7% 23.2% 83.5% 79.5% 33.2% 11.8% 28.6%Engineering 35.6% 14.4% 68.3% 13.2% 3.3% 8.1% 14.7% 0.0%Math-Physics 24.1% 35.0% 9.0% 5.7% 73.8% 2.4% 6.9% 0.0%Med-Bio-Health 19.6% 27.1% 1.8% 60.0% 15.9% 4.8% 2.9% 14.3%Social Science 11.4% 4.6% 1.3% 0.6% 1.6% 62.0% 2.0% 71.4%Natural Sciences 3.5% 0.7% 1.4% 1.0% 0.5% 0.9% 62.7% 0.0%Arts-Humanities 0.2% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.2% 1.5% 0.0% 14.3%Note: Percentages indicate the proportion of articles in each column also identified with the discipline in the left column.The diagonal represents single discipline papers.

Publications and Interdisciplinarity

Figure 3. Map showing number of articles by field, and article interdisciplinarity

Source: Data retrieved from Scopus using sample search terms; image created with Microsoft Excel .NetMap plugin

Title word clouds by discipline

Oxford e-Social Science (OeSS) Node of NCeSS

Oxford Internet InstituteUniversity of Oxford

Eric T. MeyerResearch Fellow

eric.meyer@oii.ox.ac.ukhttp://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/meyer

Ralph SchroederJames Martin Research Fellowralph.schroeder@oii.ox.ac.uk

http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/schroeder

Oxford e-Social Science Project