Digital Science: Cyberinfrastructure, e-Science and Citizen Science

Abstract

Digital change and scientific development have mutual implications. On one hand, science and technology development has been a major factor to digital change. On the other hand, the digital era has brought major changes to scientific knowledge production. First, there is a cyberinfrastructure—not only infrastructure for computing, but a major virtual lab where all professionals in science and technology (e.g., researchers, engineers, technicians) can collaborate and exchange data, information, and knowledge. In Europe, this new infrastructure is referred to as e-science. Second, the digital era has increased coproduction beyond frontiers of traditional players, bringing other participants to scientific development. Such kind of co-work is central to both citizen science and transdisciplinary knowledge coproduction, where non-academic players engage in activities such as planning, data gathering, and impact assessment of science. In this chapter, we define digital science as a convergent phenomenon of cyberinfrastructure, e-science, citizen science and transdisciplinarity. We examine how digital science has been a disruptive factor to traditional scientific development, changing productivity, expanding frontiers and challenging traditional processes in science, such as planning and assessment.