Abstract
AbstractNowadays universities and other classical research institutions are changing their role in knowledge creation. In general terms we can characterize this transition as the path from “Closed Science” to “Open Science” as a part of a deeper and structural phenomenon known as “knowledge democratization”, where different stakeholders as students, makers and other tech and science enthusiasts are able to create knowledge learning from the researchers and cooperating with them.In this process, science engagement of these new actors is a key point to stimulate their creativity, get some important research skills learnt directly from the researchers and be able to apply these skills teaching others in a continuous “learning chain”.In this article, we introduce some main features and preliminary results of an experiment called “The infinite learning chain” done in cooperation with Arduino, focused on sensing science and based in a real research project of Group of Atmospheric Science (GAS) called Luleå Environmental Monitoring Stations (LEMS). We debate some interesting questions related to the impact of the format in terms of science engagement, STEM skills acquisition and cooperative learning involvement. We used as “learning ecosystem” a professional Lab, the INSPIRE Lab a complete multidisciplinary facility for space and environmental research and exploration.
Highlights
We have an excellent – hierarchical – science and technology system in Europe but it is not still connected with its economic, social and cultural horizontal background
The usercentered Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) approach has been applied to different fields as heritage preservation using digital technologies and storytelling (Balestrini, Bird, Marshall, Zaro, & Rogers, 2014) or to design technological interventions that tackle the challenge of a growing ageing population in urban areas (Righi, Sayago, & Blat, 2015)
The Urban Environmental Monitoring Station for Luleå was one of the projects awarded within the Luleå University of Technology’s call Enabling ICT, intended to gather ideas which can serve as pilots for the further implementation of novel systems to drive cities smarter by taking advantage of the Information and Communication Technologies
Summary
We have an excellent – hierarchical – science and technology system in Europe but it is not still connected with its economic, social and cultural horizontal background. Scientists, citizens, publishers, research institutions, public and private research funders, students and education professionals as well as companies from around the globe are sharing an open, virtual environment called The Lab.” (European Commission, 2016) In this new vision the two spearheads that are speeding up the evolution to the Open Science paradigm are: 1) The digitalization as the main new technology infrastructure – Lab in your smart phone – and 2) the open living lab as the most suitable learning ecosystem to host a completely new way for research; the knowledge co-creation. The Infinite Learning Chain is based on the project Environmental Monitoring Stations (LEMS), a research project of the Group of Atmospheric Science (GAS) which includes sensing capabilities to collect data from the environment In this regard, it is important to consider that there are key differences between traditional Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the more novel IoT and sensing technologies. Co-designing is changing the roles of the designer, the researcher and the person formerly known as the “user” in the whole process
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