Dominic DiFranzo
Short Term
Develop new digital tools for social
scientists
Better understand how social scientist
work and use qualitative data
Understand qualitative methods and
data better
Expand my understanding of knowledge,
data, and science.
Have better tools and methodologies to
study complex problems (like asthma,
virtual communities, etc)
Show the power some technology
(semantic web) can be used in
qualitative data.
Show how qualitative and quantitative
data can be linked using linked data.
Long Term
Develop and show how new mixed
methods can be used to combine
complex knowledge from many different
sources.
Better relations between social and
natural sciences and the humanities.
Framework for ethnographic studies,
allowing a mix of different tool (semantic
web based)
Show that semantic web is the link
between narrative and database as
defined by Lev Manovich (2001)
Show power of transdisciplinary
collaboration, through examples in other
projects
Investigate new modes of peer review
and publication.
Topical Area Datasets
Social
Theoretical
Question
Asthma Files Understand
site,
how
Interviews
ethnographers
with users of work and use
Asthma Files technology to
researchers,
do their work,
flow charts
how can new
and
tools and
requirements, technologies
use cases
be used to
from users,
help them,
Private and
what
public users
interfaces do
they need,
how is this
different than
natural
sciences?
Why now?
How
prepared?
Bias
Informatics
study of
Asthma
Files
Ethnographers
are using
digitals tools
more and
more. They
have more
data they need
to shift and
use (both old
and new) need
to better
organize their
work, and
share it more.
Technologies
are mature
enough to help
with this
Very prepared
on tech and
informatics
side. My
research is all
in this area for
natural
sciences and
government
data. New
challenges in
understanding
ethnographic
methods and
ideas/workflo
ws
Semantic
Web
expert
that thinks
very much
in that
space,
solution to
everything
.
Backgroun
d in CS,
not social
science.
Cognitive
Computing is
just starting,
allowing for
better
understanding
of text,
pictures,
audio, etc that
was outside
the realm of
computation.
RPI has
Watson now,
how could this
resource be
used to help
Ethnographers
?
Can Semantic
Cross
Web and
discipline
Linked Data be work needs
Good
understanding
of how Watson
works at a
very high
level, training
and
knowledge in
AI and
Cognitive
Computing.
Technolog
ist that
sees
technolog
y as the
answer,
could
blind me
to other
answers
outside of
my area of
understan
ding
Semantic Web
expert,
theoretical
Always
sees
Semantic
Cognitive
Computing
for
Ethnographi
c Data
Asthma Files,
twitter and
other social
media
datasets that
are text
based, and
unstructured
Bridging
narrative
and
Projects that
combine
qualitative
Can machines
like IBM
Watson be
used to make
sense of large
scale
Ethnographic
Data? Can this
be added or be
of use to
Ethnographers
?
Fields
of
Work
Infor
matic
s,
sema
ntic
Web,
Data
mode
ling.
Social
com
muni
ty
desig
n.
Philo
soph
y of
Scien
ce
AI,
Cogni
tive
Scien
ce,
Data
Scien
ce,
Infor
matic
s,
Know
ledge
Repr
esent
ation
Funding
Philo
soph
y of
NSF
NSF,
NIH,
NLM,
DARPA
IBM,
NSF,
NIH
database
and
quantitative
data together
the link
between
narrative and
databases?
What new
methods can
be built with
this
theoretical
understanding
?
cross
methods. Gap
between
narrative and
databases, and
linked data
has matured
to the point
where it could
fill this gap.
background in
natural and
open
government
data
Web as
answer
and may
blind me
to holes
where it is
not
scien
ce,
mixe
d
meth
ods,
Sema
ntic
Web
and
data
Sciec
ne