Article for ITTE Newsletter

I wrote an article for the latest edition of the ITTE newsletter. Entitled Weblogs, PhDs and Google-generated concept lists it reflects on the process of doing a PhD. In particular issues of using a weblog and the way in which links to the log might help generate a concept map of my reading.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 at 21:54 and is filed under PhD process. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Article for ITTE Newsletter”

  1. Stephen Powell Says:
    13 April 2007 at 0:59 | Reply

    Hi Pete. For me, the beauty of this approach is that it is the antithesis of what many researchers are trying to develop as the semantic web http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web. What I mean is that your approach is ontologically relativistic dependent upon the authors you identify making connections that mean something to them not necessarily according to any pre-determined schema or categorisation. This offers the increased opportunity new understanding built upon the ‘friction’ of competing ideas and knowledge – Wenger’s boundary interactions.

    Thanks for the inspiration – my PhD is still a target!:^)

  2. petebradshaw Says:
    13 April 2007 at 16:41 | Reply

    Thanks Stephen. I might have to digest ‘ontologically relativistic dependen(cy)’ quite slowly ;-)

    Also… is Wikipedia a suitable source for a definition, or does that itself depend on the authors’ viewpoint.

  3. Stephen Powell Says:
    13 April 2007 at 22:44 | Reply

    I think I have read, although I can’t remember where, that research has shown Wikipedia to have fewer errors than Encyclopaedia Britannica. I suppose it also partly depends upon the distinction between fact, interpretation, and opinion and the safe answer is to use multiple sources – which, arguably, Wikepedia already is… Is this an issue of epistemology?

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