Distributed research and scientific creativity: Accessible data for the social sciences

Abstract

This chapter explores the feasibility of creating a web-based data integration and delivery system that relies on the distributed expertise and creativity of the system’s users to develop new knowledge. We use the experience of the interdisciplinary team in Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences (S4) at Brown University for illustration. We have created several research tools that facilitate and support new and creative research enterprises. These include internet mapping systems to explore Hurricane Katrina, community-level census data, public school segregation and testing outcomes, and nursing home services. All of these systems have certain features in common. 1) Unlike GIS archives, they provide GIS functionality on web browsers, so that users are required to have minimal software expertise. 2) Unlike static maps that are designed to support specific conclusions, they leave it to users to find new spatial patterns in the data. 3) By juxtaposing a limited set of variables in the same site, these tools invite users to explore a specific range of questions that reflect intellectual issues being pursued by the creators. In projects like those discussed in this chapter we count on the expertise of social scientists from a range of disciplines who can take advantage of the freedom to explore and use data related to their individual needs, but who do not need to be GIS experts to do so. New and exciting opportunities present themselves as the field of cartography embraces the Internet.