Jeanette H. Baird Phone: +61 3 214 5211 Fax: +61 3 214 5267 jbaird@swin.edu.au
Swinburne University of Technology Graduate Research School P O Box 218 Hawthorn Victoria 3122 Australia
"Knowledge and information are the fundamental strategic resources of our age; access to them through electronic networks is vital for a nation such as Australia, which is geographically large and physically isolated from other nations. Through these networks Australia overcomes the 'tyranny of distance' and becomes not only a user but also a provider and exporter of global information and associated services."[1]
Research data networks have been utilised in Australia and elsewhere for some years [2] and the World Wide Web can be viewed as a major new tool available to researchers utilising those networks. What does the Web currently offer researchers? Our starting point for this general exploration was the expressed view of one of our colleagues that the Web was "little more than a glitzy fad with little real value to the research community."This commentator went on to suggest that "the best resources are the things which have been around for years like ftp, telnet & email."[3] The greatest value to the researcher was proposed to be the email listserver which provided excellent communications on matters of mutual interest within specific world-wide interest groups - allowing simple exchange of views on developing matters.
A slightly different approach may have been present in the minds of the authors of the ASTEC report quoted above, for they describe the World Wide Web simply as a "data exploration tool "[4]. While this may not have been an unreasonable conception in the dim dark distant past of January - August 1994, it is certainly one which calls for further examination in 1995.
Views similar to those of our colleague above have been expressed publicly or less publicly by a number of academics in regard to the limitations of various Web services. The ASTEC report notes that
"Available data suggests(sic), however, that many individuals in research and higher education are currently not using AARNet or Internet-type services. This is due to a number of factors, among them lack of adequate networked desktop equipment, poor knowledge and training, and insufficient network capacity to handle research tasks. It also appears that the science and technology research communities use the network more than humanities researchers; a similar trend has been identified overseas."[5]Other commentators observe:
"As popular as the Internet and other modes of electronic networking have become, there are still many within academe who are just beginning to discover its potential. Many, if not most, faculty at colleges and universities are still in the early stages of discovery....."[6]It was our hope that an exploration of the available resources might help researchers along the road to discovery.
Regarding our own interests, we have a primary interest in assessing the uses of the Web for university researchers. We are managers of a small university research office servicing a Graduate Research School, and are keen to ensure that our main client groups - academics and postgraduate research students - both avail themselves of innovative tools for undertaking research and are provided with the best possible general information. As well, we need to ensure effective communication to industry and other groups of opportunities for collaborative research and access to expertise within our own institution.
Our study of research resources of the Web was undertaken through: cataloguing of Web-based services (email, telnet, ftp, search engines); Web-browsing using these services and resources already established on our CWIS; accessing and reading relevant ejournals; and focus group discussions with colleagues at our university across a range of disciplines. Previous work on development of Web pages for the Swinburne Graduate Research School and on the information needs of research students and staff [7] provided useful background information.
In conducting the survey, we found a range of new Web tools, and evidence of extremely rapid development. The growth of Internet usage can, perhaps, be indicated by the rapid expansion of the catalogued pages of the Lycos search engine. Only a few weeks ago a Lycos search reported that it had searched a little over 2 million references or Web pages. Within about 3 weeks of that initial query such a search reports that in excess of 2.5 million pages had been searched.
In considering Web-based services we identified a domain of activities relevant to research and sought to assess Web resources which could assist researchers working within this domain. We divided this overall domain into three categories, as follows:
These activities embody both information-seeking and information transmission experiences/behaviours and - in and among these exchange processes - the generation of new knowledge (creativity in theory development and/or the production of research findings). These activities do not necessarily occur in a discrete or linear fashion, for several reasons. Many researchers or research groups have a suite of related projects on the go at any one time: we have found that within groups, information "gatekeepers" may obtain a range of different items of information at any one time, for forwarding to separate individuals within their group. [8]As well, conduct of a particular project requires researchers to invoke varying levels of knowledge, by which we mean that a great deal of contextual information is called into play each time a project proceeds. Resulting from our survey, we classified Web resources (both tools and sites) into three levels:
Of the tools now available, we found search engines and MTQ in particular to offer extremely valuable resources. The search engine gives the researcher rapid access to published information on a vast array of fronts. The researcher can rapidly identify items which contain word matches within their catalogued text to particular desired items. The Multi Threaded Query operating at <http://www.sun.fi/mtq/mtquery.html> provides effective concurrent access to great array of search engine tools:
It is difficult to identify the 'best' resources the Web offers in terms of sites under this heading. In terms of tools we would nominate the capabilities for finding information on topics and issues around the world offered by resources such as the MTQ. Tools such as ftp and email are also valuable - when linked to Web pages.
Examples of types of information and sites are as follows:
Information about the research specialisations of the various organisations is frequently listed in Web pages. Indexes which assist prospective researchers and postgraduate students to establish the specialisations of the various universities and to contact the appropriate people in a 'seamless' way make this information tool particularly significant in this area.
An example for Australian universities being referenced in the United States is the references to "Australian Universities research / postgraduate studies offices " <http://www.swin.edu.au/sgrs/ausresch.html> in the index at Chinook College Funding Services site <http://www.indirect.com/user/chinook2/RandomItems.html.> This points the prospective student directly to the individual research manager for email contact or to the university's home pages.
Our examination of university home pages indicates some marked differences in approach, both in terms of the general user-friendliness of such pages to non-academic audiences and in terms of the accessibility and prominence of information on research. We believe a great deal more could be done to ensure that university information is presented in ways likely to appeal to industry and community groups. Where IP specialists are leading the development of CWIS and home pages, research information may not be as prominent as some of us would wish.
The rapid dissemination of such information is critical as timeliness is an essential element. The provision of indexes of grants which occur from year to year and which are easily accessible to the research community become important for forward planning. The Web is an excellent medium for provision of this sort of information as it can be available to all, constantly updated and refined without major problems in dissemination. At Swinburne we support this sort of basic information resource through an Email based 'summary' or reminder system to a list of 'key' individuals. A current project is to replace altogether the significant paper version of this information, known as "Research Brief" which has been distributed for many years, with a Web system (with Email backup). A major benefit of the approach is that information emanating from other organisations or providers can be easily disseminated through URL references - the information which the provider wants to make available can then be accessed with simplicity by the researcher with minimal administrative work for the research office.
Many universities and organisations are now providing funding opportunities information through the Web. Overseas and Australian examples are:
Rice University
Grants information indexes and information <gopher://riceinfo.rice.edu:70/11/Subjects/grants>
University of North Carolina
"GrantSource" <gopher://gibbs.oit.unc.edu:70/11/research/grants.d>
University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury
grants information
Swinburne University of Technology
"Grants info" <http://www.swin.edu.au/sgrs/grant-p1.html>
US federal government programs appear to be relatively extensively documented through a range of web pages and threads. In particular FEDIX provides a gateway to a great range of information from various US Government departments and agencies. <http://web.fie.com/web/fed/>
As for Grants information, there appear to be well developed information threads on a range of US government sponsored scholarship programs, and many Universities maintain information indexes and resources on Scholarships and awards.
For example: Yale University's Fellowships, grants and Awards, information <http://www.cs.yale.edu/HTML/YALE/CS/HyPlans/tap/fellowships.html>
'Windows based' ftp tools have made such transfers far simpler for everyone. The utilisation of the Web to create clear and simple FTP sites for obtaining grant application forms has made the actual process virtually irrelevant - the researcher simply receives the selected document. (An interesting by-product is that some Web browser packages will not only allow receipt of the document in this transparent way, but when received will automatically start the word processor package and present the document to the user to work on.)
The Web provides research managers with the same capabilities for exchange of information, generation of knowledge or benefiting from the experience of other individuals and organisations as it provides for the research activities themselves. Tools such as the rapidly emerging search engines have proven particularly useful to the authors in the development of the information resources for the particular research community they serve.
Example: Swinburne University of Technology -
University's Research Management Plan <http://www.swin.edu.au/sgrs/resmanag.html>
Guidelines for submission of a Thesis <http://www.swin.edu.au/sgrs/submis.html>
Other examples are available through institutional CWIS'.
Examples of types of information and resources are as follows:
How much easier are contacts when, from looking at profiles of department, school or centre research, one can make contact directly. Types of information available on many universities pages include:
An example is the Co-operative Research Centre for Sensor Signal and Information Processing at the University of Adelaide <http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/Groups/CSSIP/FundTech.html>
"The emerging trend in collaboration technology is for integrated applications supporting services such as shared drawing surfaces, audio and video. .... New, easy-to-use interfaces are encouraging users to browse the network. Mosaic users, for example, consume 30 - 50 kilobytes per page, as opposed to 1 - 2 kilobytes for an ordinary e-mail text page." [9]What are useful Web resources to exchange information, generate knowledge or obtain experiences? The principal methods have 'always' been the electronic mail system, network news and listservers. The Web can perform a useful role in this area too through linking information provided (including graphic, voice, animated information etc.) directly with email services.
The Web assists in this research collaboration communication as it provides access to both information and communication within the same framework. In effect, therefore, we would suggest that the Web browser has become perhaps the most important collaborative resource of the Internet - outstripping email or the other single purpose tools because it offers 'an integrated service'.
Access to published information is one of the principal tools of the researcher. In this area the Web is providing researchers with unparalleled capabilities as it ties together a vast array of disparate published information sources and resources. The Web browser provides quick and easy access to resources such as library catalogues widely made available through Gopher services. It provides access to net news, and the informal publication systems.
Web indexes such as Yahoo allow researchers to locate published information fairly simply by following through a menu system, and the search engines which have extended the impact of the Web are again particularly useful in this area. A researcher from CSIRO recently reported that utilising the Multi Threaded Query he had received over 600 references to his query in a matter of very few minutes..... and the search only allowed the first 50 references from the Lycos search to be reported !
The Web is being used more and more as a vehicle for the publication of the results of research. Papers and monographs are being made available more extensively through the Web and there are reported to be now be hundreds of electronic journals in existence. Examples of such are numerous.
An example with indicates both the collaboration aspects and the publication aspects can be found at: <gopher://info.asu.edu:70/00/asu-cwis/education/journals/gradstud/kerlin1> a paper by Scott P. Kerlin PhD. University of Oregon, and Bobbi Smith, a PhD Candidate at the University of Victoria which was presented at the annual meeting of the Pacific Northwestern Association for Institutional research and Planning in Portland Oregon, 19 - 21 October 1994. [10]
The paper was made available 'to the world' through posting to a Web site on 31 October.
Not only is it demonstrably, therefore, a more rapid method of publication than the standard print media, but is, through the vehicle of extensive search capabilities, more widely available than a paper in a single printed journal or conference proceedings could be. The processes for this AusWeb95 conference make the point very effectively!
Other examples of papers published on the Web can be found at:
<http://colette.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu/CME.articles.cgi
> and
<http://colette.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu/
> ."Marketing in Hypermedia Computer-Mediated Environments:
Conceptual Foundations, Donna L. Hoffman & Thomas P. Novak,
January 1995, Owen School of Business, Vanderbilt University.
This particular feature / style of Web utilisation will, it is suggested, likely to provide one of the major expansions of Web utilisation over the next period in Web history. It raises many new issues to the researcher and to publishers, but economics and dissemination capabilities will see, we believe, the development of ever more sophisticated tools for access and for information location which, coupled with the elements of speed and economy will make it a most fruitful area of development for the researcher.
"The nature of research itself is changing: as scientists are seeking answers to more complex problems the instruments and facilities needed to conduct the research are becoming increasingly expensive and funding is becoming scarce. This has led to increased collaboration. .... Today's research projects often involve numerous sites and numerous entities." [11]
In regard to specific research projects, we asked about the resources for information to be exchanged, knowledge generated or experiences obtained. A range of examples of use of the Web for specific research projects is now emerging. One of the most recent is reported in the Australian magazine Campus Review (now available electronically), where "academics in six countries have collaborated entirely by the Internet, and without ever meeting each other, to produce an 18,000-word paper which was then submitted by email to an international journal that itself could be read on-line". One of the authors stated "This article would not have been possible without the Internet" and went on to refer to his much more efficient use of time in respect of other activities, such as conference organisation. [12]
The Web is providing researchers with unparalleled capabilities and opportunities in this area. Our explorations suggest that development of ever better search capabilities such as MTQ and information selection tools is facilitating project collaborations in a variety of ways.
One example reported to us was the case of a researcher working on the mathematics of sports. This particular researcher reported that he had had great difficulties over recent past years in obtaining the data he needed for his analyses in a timely way. In this case he referred to detailed scores from local and international sporting tournaments and fixtures. He reported that following through sites identified both through Yahoo and the MTQ he has been able to obtain data far earlier and in a form more directly useable than in the past. His research activities are able, therefore, to proceed more quickly and his efforts directed more towards the substantive matters of the research activity rather than data preparation. Another example drawn to the authors attention during preparation of this paper was that of a researcher who utilised the web almost as a shared drawing surface. A diagram was displayed via a Web page for a collaborating researcher to easily access, acquire and respond on.
Kerlin and Smith, for example, in their work on and with those interested in graduate education (K&S 1994), exemplify an interesting behaviour: establishing a listserver and then using it to gather data. In so doing, they point to some of the ways which email feels - at least - like a distinctive research process - storytelling.
Published material of all sorts forms basic inputs to the research community. The rapid growth of the Web as an information resource for government, business, industry and the professions means that more and more of the information sought by researchers will be available through this source. Even non-public material is and will become, it is suggested, more Web-based in the future as the technology provides such excellent dissemination techniques for internal audiences. Providing the 'authorised' researcher with access to such information will be easier for the subjects of research, require less work and time commitment (and therefore cost) on their behalf, and so will, it is suggested, become a likely development in the not too distant future.
Another area identified within our own research community is in the generation of data. The utilisation of the Web in some areas is being built into research designs so that information which is almost not otherwise available can be established (in research into networks and networking - by establishing which members of a network are communicating to what levels with others).
Our observations suggest that researchers using Web-browsers exhibit complex patterns of interaction among these three levels but all report vastly reduced search costs in terms of individual effort and time.
The Web approaches to communications, it is suggested, fit better, in many ways, with the ethos of research than do some of the more 'democratic' systems provided by other Internet type tools. While it is fully 'democratic' in the sense that an individual makes the choice whether or not to make something available, it adds the element of deliberateness both in the provider and the recipient - perhaps a little less frivolous than the flavour which has developed widely within Netnews.
The listserver, it is suggested, tends to promote a conversational interactivity, and a similar flavour exists within the Netnews medium, rather than the preparation of something resembling more closely the traditional paper. Web sites tend to provide collections based around a discipline, and will tend to follow more closely the conventions of publication within those discipline areas. Different Web sites provide different structures and tones, allowing the maintenance of individuality.
While listservers and Email discussion lists are regarded as favourites for direct communication within an interest group, there are many examples where their very popularity is bringing them down. The numbers of subscribers and the process of sending an individual message to each address on the list, makes them resource hungry and has adverse effects on the network itself.
An extract from a recent message is a case in point:
"The subscription list has topped 20,000 subscribers, which is why it often takes more than a day to distribute the Scout Report to the entire list. Hardware and software steps are being taken to alleviate the load. The upgrades are some of the reason for the absence of recent Reports. " "There is no Scout Report for the weeks ending March 11 or March 18. Technical difficulties prevented either the production or distribution of the Report. Also, the InfoGuide, and therefore the Scout Report Web site, are not active at this time, but will soon be back in working order at the same address. " [13]The Web approach, equating slightly more closely to the Bulletin Board or Netnews, places onus for traffic on the recipient. The users of the information are not restricted to those who have 'signed on' to the list, and the traffic generated follows the work patterns (or after hours patterns?) of the recipient. The system may generate more data traffic in total and it creates a different management requirement, but, it is submitted, the management and overheads provide a more effective and economical resource overall.
With the extensive capabilities and speed offered, Web technology provides and produces a complex set of influences on researcher behaviour and the research processes. It provides an interesting interaction between the requirement 'push' for better access to information and the 'pull' of the technology in providing available tools. As the speed of information growth makes it even more difficult for researchers to 'keep up'. It may be that the speed of access of information will mean that students are accessing information faster than their research supervisors. But the examiner may still take his or her time !!!
The phenomena of the web is not only changing the nature of the research activitiy, but it is generating new fields of research. The consequences and processes of web based communication will, it is suggested, be very important fields of research in themselves for some time to come There are clearly many research groups around the world already working in this area. [14]
Are Web developments leading towards the creation of a research community or is it bringing together the 'technology-adopting' types. Is it creating an enthusiast society more than a research community?
The very simplicity of web utilisation - control of high tech capabilities by the non technical - is, it is suggested, likely to promote increased community of interest - albeit technologically-driven - between teaching-focused and research-focused academics, and increasingly putting more research "into" teaching programs (explored elsewhere at this conference).
There have been suggestions that utilisation of the capabilities offered by the Web may break down disciplinary differences. A key issue is adoption. With search costs now, through the adoption of this technology, very very low indeed, and its simplicity of utilisation, rapid expansion in its adoption throughout the research community is to be expected.
"Many, if not most, faculty at colleges and universities are still in the early stages of discovery, and like the early adopters of any technology, it is difficult to imagine the range of possible uses of these forms of electronic communication. .....
Of the academics who use the Internet, many see it primarily as a new medium for the transmission of electronic mail across campus or across ocean and as an alternative to telephone conversations of the slower "snail mail" system. ... However the possibility for this medium to promote reflective, thoughtful dialogue represents only minimal use of a medium whose potential and sophistication is as yet unresalised. And those who inhabit the halls of academe are uniquely positioned to influence this future, if only we choose to do so." [15]It is suggested that the outcomes are likely to be a community of researchers who are aware of the complex nature of Web interactions and of the mediating effects of this on their understanding and practice of research.
Our exploration highlights the extent to which the development s of 'web technologies' are impacting on the research community through the development of new capabilities for contact and collaboration, through the development of new methodologies for research, for disseminating, and peer review of the outcomes of research.
Search engines and technologies are impacting the capabilities of individuals to access information from disparate sources, and to arrange for its presentation in the most effective manner for their own purposes. The resources appear to be providing capability for greater networking across discipline areas as common interest are identified by rapidly expanding Web-skills. There is, we would suggest, however, less reflection on the Web and its impact on research behaviour than might have been expected.
It indicates that Web services and activities are present or potentially so for all the range of research project "events" we identify. We suggest that the meta-devices now appearing on the Web not only subsume the benefits of previous resources by magnifying smaller-scale forms of packaging such as listservers, but also potentially change the nature of research as experienced by researchers.
Our investigations have led us to a strong sense that the capabilities and resources of the Web are under-explored/under-utilised within the research community. There appears to be substantial and rapidly growing use for benchmarking by research services areas and university promotion and development arms. It is, however, still in a relatively early stage of development as an information base and, at least up until very recently with the extremely powerful capabilities of the Multi threaded Query, not always easy to find. The MTQ is not yet well-established and, although it, and the individual search tools which it utilises have been drawn to the attention of researchers, our investigations suggest that many still do not think of it and may be reluctant to go cold-calling anyway - they, like others, tend to prefer own personal networks, the comfort levels are far higher.
Research is needed into the adoption processes among researchers and others. Availability of a range of search engines like the multi-threaded query, and referencing to others, appear to have the potential to rapidly compress stages in the adoption process. Again, the lowering of transaction costs appears to be a key element.
AusWeb95 The First Australian WorldWideWeb Conference