The Role of e-Infrastructures in the Transformation of Research Practices and Outcomes

In this paper, we examine transformations that have taken place in e-Research, and address the potential for additional transformations as e-Research develops and matures. The notion of a transformation in e-Research can operate on many levels: transformations in the tools used to conduct research, transformations in projects that enable new types of e-Research, transformations to ordinary scientific practice, transformations in the types of scientific questions that can be asked and able to be asked, and transformations in the scientific imagination. While much of the current rhetoric implies that e-Research will transform the very nature of science, other types of less-pervasive transformations are more evident at these relatively early stages in the development of e-Research infrastructures, and some evidence supports the idea that continuity has been more common in the ordinary scientific practice of e-Research rather than transformation. The data from this paper draws on the work of the Oxford e-Social Science project (OeSS).

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