Interdisciplinarity

Thanks to Humanist I came across this Chronicle of Higher Education essay by Myra H. Strober about fostering interdisciplinarity, Communicating Across the Academic Divide (January 2, 2011.) Strober has written a book about interdisciplinarity titled, Interdisciplinary Conversations: Challenging Habits of Thought whose conclusion she summarizes in the essay,

The three common explanations for a lack of faculty interest in interdisciplinary work are that the academic reward system militates against it (hiring, promotion, salary increases, and most prizes are controlled by single disciplines, not by multiple disciplines), that there is insufficient funding for it, and that evaluating it is fraught with conflict. These are significant barriers.

However, while doing research for my new book, Interdisciplinary Conversations: Challenging Habits of Thought, I found an even more fundamental barrier to interdisciplinary work: Talking across disciplines is as difficult as talking to someone from another culture.

I am chairing a committee that is developing a vision for the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Alberta. We have been talking to people, running brainstorming events, and writing up case studies to identify the barriers to interdisciplinarity just in our Faculty of Arts. One thing that is clear is that there are a tremendous number of faculty/students who want to try interdisciplinarity from team-teaching across disciplines to blowing up departments. One of the things that hinders many is the extra effort it takes to get out of the department, to find people, to find the support mechanisms, and to navigate the bureaucracy (which is really oriented around departments.) We need a “front desk” type function where you can get advice and mentoring.

Digitization Day Conference Report

On Thursday we held the first University of Alberta Digitization Day. The idea was to bring projects on campus that are digitizing research evidence from texts to 3D objects. We also invited a number of units on campus that provide research computing services like Library that runs an Education and Research Archive (ERA).

See my Digitization Day Conference Report. At the end is a list of issues that came from the final Lightning Round. Also, I have put up a list of useful links in the Histories and Archives area of the CIRCA wiki.

Digitization Day

The CIRCA Histories and Archives group I am part of is organizing the University of Alberta’s first Digitization Day.

This one-day event is a chance for research projects that are digitizing evidence to meet up with each other and with units on campus that provide relevant research services. Projects that are creating digital archives of different sorts will give short presentations as will units on campus that support research.

The idea is to bring a lot of digitization projects together to learn about each other and what is happening on campus. My sense is that we have hit a critical mass on campus and now that we have a trusted digital repository ERA (Education and Research Archive) it is time to start talking and sharing knowledge. Each project should not have to reinvent itself.

Australian R18+ games rating gets govt support « GamePron

From Slashdot I came across a story in GamePron about how Australian R18+ games rating gets govt support. In Australia any game that isn’t classified MA 15+ or below is refused classification and thus can’t be sold. (The Australian system is law unlike the voluntary industry ESRB system.) The Australian government is now considering adding a new R 18+ designation based on government supported studies and consultations.

Of particular interest is a literature review on Literature review on the impact of playing violent video games on aggression (PDF). This excellent review concludes that “research into the effects of VVGs (Violent Video Games) on aggression is contested and inconclusive.” (p. 5) This 50 page review by the Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department is a model of clarity and balance – it is worth quoting in greater detail,

There is some consensus in the research that some members of the community, such as people with psychotic personality traits, may be more affected by VVGs than others. However, there is mixed evidence as to whether VVGs have a greater impact on children.
A number of other findings of this review arguably reduce the policy relevance of VVG research.

  • There is stronger evidence of short-term VVG effects than of long-term effects.
  • The possibility that third variables (like aggressive personality, family and peer influence, socio-economic status) are behind the effect has not been well explored.
  • Researchers who argue that VVGs cause aggression have not engaged with or disproved alternative theories propagated by their critics.
  • There is little evidence that violent video games have a greater impact than other violent media. (p. 5)

Ontology Explorer

Science-Metrix from Montreal has released a web tool for exploring their ontology of scientific Journals, the Ontology Explorer. There is actually more than one visualization as they also have a Map of Science too.

One neat thing their ontology browser lets you see is what fields are citing which other ones to see the flows of knowledge, so to speak.

IEEE Spectrum: Ray Kurzweil’s Slippery Futurism

From Slashdot I was led to a great critique of Kurzweil’s futurism, see the IEEE Spectrum: Ray Kurzweil’s Slippery Futurism. I’ve tried to tackle Kurzweil in previous posts here (on Singularity University), but never quite nailed his form of prediction the way John Rennie does.

Therein lie the frustrations of Kurzweil’s brand of tech punditry. On close examination, his clearest and most successful predictions often lack originality or profundity. And most of his predictions come with so many loopholes that they border on the unfalsifiable. Yet he continues to be taken seriously enough as an oracle of technology to command very impressive speaker fees at pricey conferences, to author best-selling books, and to have cofounded Singularity University, where executives and others are paying quite handsomely to learn how to plan for the not-too-distant day when those disappearing computers will make humans both obsolete and immortal.