Katy Börner

Peter van den Besselaar

Andrea Scharnhorst

Models of Science Dynamics aims to capture the structure and evolution of science, the emerging arena in which scholars, science and the communication of science become themselves the basic objects of research. In order to capture the essence of phenomena as diverse as the structure of co-authorship networks or the evolution of citation diffusion patterns, such models can be represented by conceptual models based on historical and ethnographic observations, mathematical descriptions of measurable phenomena, or computational algorithms. Despite its evident importance, the mathematical modeling of science still lacks a unifying framework and a comprehensive study of the topic. This volume fills this gap, reviewing and describing major threads in the mathematical modeling of science dynamics for a wider academic and professional audience. The model classes presented cover stochastic and statistical models, system-dynamics approaches, agent-based simulations, population-dynamics models, and complex-network models. The book comprises an introduction and a foundational chapter that defines and operationalizes terminology used in the study of science, as well as a review chapter that discusses the history of mathematical approaches to modeling science from an algorithmic-historiography perspective. It concludes with a survey of remaining challenges for future science models and their relevance for science and science policy.

Encounters Between Complexity Theory and Information Sciences

Models of Science Dynamics

Sally Wyatt

Paul Wouters

Anne Beaulieu

Today we are witnessing dramatic changes in the way scientific and scholarlyknowledge is created, codified, and communicated. This transformation is connected to the use ofdigital technologies and the virtualization of knowledge. In this book, scholars from a range ofdisciplines consider just what, if anything, is new when knowledge is produced in new ways. Doesknowledge itself change when the tools of knowledge acquisition, representation, and distributionbecome digital? Issues of knowledge creation and dissemination go beyond thedevelopment and use of new computational tools. The book, which draws on work from the VirtualKnowledge Studio, brings together research on scientific practice, infrastructure, and technology.Focusing on issues of digital scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, the contributorsdiscuss who can be considered legitimate knowledge creators, the value of "invisible"labor, the role of data visualization in policy making, the visualization of uncertainty, theconceptualization of openness in scholarly communication, data floods in the social sciences, andhow expectations about future research shape research practices. The contributors combine anappreciation of the transformative power of the virtual with a commitment to the empirical study ofpractice and use. The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket.

Experimenting in the Humanities and the Social Sciences

Virtual Knowledge

Andrea Scharnhorst

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