How experts choose an expert and how non-experts do not

INSIDERS CHOOSE ON THE BASIS OF CONTRIBUTORY EXPERTISE

Contributory expertise, is what you need to do an activity with competence - not knowledge of facts but knowledge acquired by immersion in a domain to acquire tacit knowledge.
 
Interactional expertise, is the ability to master the language of a specialist domain in the absence of practical competence. 

The idea of interactional expertise is immanent in many roles, from peer reviewer to high-level journalist, not to mention sociologist or anthropologist, but it seems not to have been discussed before in an explicit way. 









Ubiquitous expertises are those, such as natural language-speaking, which every member of a society must possess in order to live in it.

Low levels of specialist expertise are better described as levels of knowledge—like knowledge of the kind of facts needed to succeed in general knowledge quizzes.

To acquire higher levels of specialist expertise, more than ubiquitous expertise is needed. To go further along row three it is necessary to immerse oneself in a domain so as to acquire specialist tacit knowledge, not just learn more facts or fact-like relationships. Two categories of higher level expertise are found at the right hand end of the specialist expertise rows. Contributory expertise, then is what you need to do an activity with competence. 

OUTSIDERS CHOOSE ON EXTERNAL CRITERIA OTHER THAN EXPERTISE

The final row of the table refers to the criteria that outsiders try to use to judge between experts to avoid having to make the more difficult kind-of judgments described above. They can check

• expert's qualifications, they can check
• expert's track records of success, 
• or, what we argue is the best method of the criterion-based judgment, they can assess the expert's experience.

SOURCE: HARRY COLLINS AND ROBERT EVANS Rethinking Expertise, CHAPTER ONE, The Periodic Table of Expertises

Who is an "Expert"?

What is "Quality" in Journalism

Quality in Journalism is different things to different people.

According to  ISO 9000, quality is always relative to a set of requirements.
The quality of something can be determined by comparing:
      - a set of inherent characteristics with
      - a set of requirements.
If those inherent characteristics meet all requirements, high or excellent quality is achieved. If those characteristics do not meet all requirements, a low or poor level of quality is achieved.
According to this definition, quality is a relative concept.
By linking quality to requirements, ISO 9000 argues that the quality of something cannot be established in a vacuum. 

Quality is always relative to a set of requirements.

SOURCE: http://www.praxiom.com/iso-definition.htm 

Hype cycle: how "new" is a new technology

A hype cycle is a graphic representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies. The term was coined by Gartner,an analyst/research house based in the United States that provides opinions, advice and data on the global information technology industry.

A hype cycle in Gartner's interpretation comprises five phases:

   1. "Technology Trigger" — The first phase of a hype cycle is the "technology trigger" or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest.
   2. "Peak of Inflated Expectations" — In the next phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.
   3. "Trough of Disillusionment" — Technologies enter the "trough of disillusionment" because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.
   4. "Slope of Enlightenment" — Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the "slope of enlightenment" and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.
   5. "Plateau of Productivity" — A technology reaches the "plateau of productivity" as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.

Journalists as Boundary Spanners rather than Gatekeepers

In the 1970s and 80s, the role of the “gatekeeper” was common in discussions of technical transfer. The gatekeeper acted as a point of contact and a consolidator of external sources of information for the team or department. Typically, the type of information the gatekeeper dealt with was technical information for research or product development, and typically the flow of information was focused on that coming into the organization. 

With the advent of globalization and the Internet, the gatekeeper became less necessary, as technical information from everywhere was (at least in theory) available to everyone. In the 1990s to the present day, then, the recognition of complexity in business relationships and in information management have moved us from the role of gatekeeper to one of “boundary spanner.”

Boundary spanners tend to 

1. read more, 
2. maintain longer-term relationships with experts, 
3. draw on a wider pool of expertise than others, and 
4. are able to derive more value from external sources of information. 

As a system thinker, the boundary spanner understands the specific interests and needs of the varied systems involved in a project.
The boundary spanner needs another essential ingredient beyond a large network: s/he must sustain credibility among a large number of peers.
This credibility is based on the quality of information delivered; interpersonal relationship-building skills; and a track record of responsiveness and reciprocity.

Diane Sonnenwald of the University of North Carolina has created a system of boundary spanning roles based on her work with design teams. She sees five discrete boundary types: 

1. organization, 
2. task, 
3. discipline, 
4. personal, and 
5. multiple, 

with several roles responding to each type. Her premise is that project teams can consider these roles and identify team members who will fulfill each of them in the course of the project. She suggests that communications will be enhanced through this method, and the team will be more effective as a result.

SOURCE: Boundary-Spanning and Boundary Spanners, By Dori Digenti,
http://ddigenti.wordpress.com/papers/boundary-spanning/

Innovation: Definitions

In 1934 Joseph Shumpeter defined economic innovation as:

1)    The introduction of a new good —that is one with which consumers are not yet familiar—or of a new quality of a good.
2)    The introduction of a new method of production, which need by no means be founded upon a discovery scientifically new, and can also exist in a new way of handling a commodity commercially.
3)    The opening of a new market, that is a market into which the particular branch of manufacture of the country in question has not previously entered, whether or not this market has existed before.
4)    The conquest of a new source of supply of raw materials or half-manufactured goods, again irrespective of whether this source already exists or whether it has first to be created.
5)    The carrying out of the new organization of any industry, like the creation of a monopoly position (for example through trustification) or the breaking up of a monopoly position

(Schumpeter, J., “The Theory of Economic Development”, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1934)

The OECD Oslo Manual (1995) provides a guideline on measuring technology-driven innovation.

It focuses on innovation sorted into
i.    products and
ii.    processes.
 

It says that innovations involve a series of
i.    scientific,
ii.    technological,
iii.    organizational,
iv.    financial and
v.    commercial activities.

It points out that nothing is an innovation until introduced to the marketplace..

SOURCE: Innovation Journalism Vol 1. No. 7, 8 Nov 04      Nordfors: The Role of Journalism in Innovation Systems

Media – not reducible to their technologies

When we have studied the media we usually, and fairly safely, have had in mind 'communication media' and the specialised and separate institutions and organisations in which people worked: print media and the press, photography, advertising, cinema, broadcasting (radio and television), publishing, and so on.
The term also referred to the cultural and material products of those institutions (the distinct forms and genres of news, road movies, soap operas which took the material forms of newspapers, paperback books, films, tapes, discs).

In an age of trans-mediality we now see the migration of content and intellectual property across media forms, forcing all media producers to be aware of and collaborate with others.
 

We are seeing the fragmentation of television, the blurring of boundaries (as in the rise of the 'citizen journalist'): we have seen a shift from 'audiences' to 'users', and from consumers to producers .
 

The screens that we watch have become both tiny and mobile, and vast and immersive. It is argued that we now have a media economics where networks of many small, minority and niche markets replace the old 'mass audience'

• Does the term 'audience' mean the same as it did in the twentieth century?
• Are media genres and media production skills as distinct as they used to be?
• Is the 'point of production' as squarely based in formal media institutions (large specialist corporations) as it used to be?
• Is the state as able to control and regulate media output as it once was?
• Is the photographic (lens based) image any longer distinct from (or usefully contrasted to) digital and computer generated imagery?

‘Media studies' understands media as fully social institutions which are not reducible to their technologies.

New Media: a critical introduction, Martin Lister / Jon Dovey / Seth Giddings / lain Grant / Kieran Kelly,  Routledge, This edition (2nd) published 2009 by Routledge

Οι βεβαιότητες δεν είναι απόλυτες αλλά πλαισιακές

ΌΛΕΣ ΟΙ ΒΕΒΑΙΟΤΗΤΕΣ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΠΑΝΤΟΤΕ ΠΛΑΙΣΙΑΚΕΣ ΒΕΒΑΙΟΤΗΤΕΣ.

Όταν πράττουμε, και όταν επιχειρούμε να κατανοήσουμε τον κόσμο, επικαλούμαστε συνεχώς κάθε είδους βεβαιότητες. Όλες οι βεβαιότητες είναι πάντοτε πλαισιακές βεβαιότητες.
Ο όρος «πλαίσιο» έχει άλλες σημασίες -, δεν εννοώ καμία από τις τρέχουσες.

Ένα πλαίσιο αποτελείται από πέντε στοιχεία:

• ·το πρόβλημα που επιδιώκεται να επιλυθεί,
• ·τα συμμετέχοντα άτομα (ένα ή περισσότερα),
• ·τις πλαισιακές βεβαιότητες,
• ·τους συναφείς ισχυρισμούς που θεωρούνται αληθείς και
• ·τις μεθοδολογικές κατευθυντήριες γραμμές, αξίες και κανόνες.

Αυτά τα στοιχεία δεν είναι πλήρως ανεξάρτητα μεταξύ τους. 

Περιορισμοί καθορίζονται από άλλα συστατικά του πλαισίου.

• Οι μεθοδολογικές κατευθυντήριες γραμμές* και-τα συναφή; καθορίζουν το πώς θα αναζητηθεί και θα αξιολογηθεί η λύση
• Η λύση πρέπει να είναι αποδεκτή για τον καθέναν από τους συμμετέχοντες.

Θα χρειαστεί πολύ συχνά να αντιμετωπίσουμε πρώτα άλλα προβλήματα

•     Το να εξηγήσουμε κάτι σε μια ομάδα ατόμων,
•     το να αποσαφηνίσουμε τι εννοούμε με μια συγκεκριμένη λέξη και
•     το να διερευνήσουμε τι εννοεί κάποιος άλλος με μια λέξη,
•     το να εξετάσουμε το τι ακριβώς σκεφτόμαστε για κάποιο συγκεκριμένο θέμα ή
•     * το κατά πόσον οι σκέψεις μας γι΄ αυτό είναι αιτιολογημένες

Τίποτε δεν εγγυάται ότι το πλαίσιο είναι το ίδιο για όλους τους συμμετέχοντες.

DIDERIK BATENS, Ανθρώπινη Γνώση, Πανεπιστημιακές Εκδόσεις Κρήτης, 1996