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2016 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

1. The Importance of Interdisciplinary Research and Teaching

verfasst von : Rick Szostak, Claudio Gnoli, María López-Huertas

Erschienen in: Interdisciplinary Knowledge Organization

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This book will investigate the possibility that a new approach to knowledge organization is better suited to a contemporary academy characterized by an increased emphasis on interdisciplinarity. The knowledge organization systems (KOSs) that are most widely used in the world were developed when a discipline-based view of the universe of knowledge was common within both information science and the wider academy (see Miksa 1992). To set the stage for our analysis, it is first necessary that we define interdisciplinarity (and disciplines) and discuss the increased importance of interdisciplinarity within both the academy and the world at large. The first several sections of this chapter address definitional matters. The next several sections detail the increased importance of interdisciplinary scholarship, its value for scholarly discovery, and the place of interdisciplinarity within the academy and society. The chapter closes by outlining how we can explore in the rest of the book the ways in which knowledge organization should best facilitate interdisciplinarity.

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Nächstes Kapitel The Needs of Interdisciplinary Research
Fußnoten
1
We draw on Repko (2012) extensively in this chapter. As the first textbook on how to perform interdisciplinary research it summarizes an extensive and diverse literature.
 
2
The ‘About Interdisciplinarity’ website of the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS 2013) surveys the literature on best practices for interdisciplinary research and public policy. It also provides best practices for interdisciplinary teaching and administration. Notably, those who teach and administer the growing number of interdisciplinary courses and programs also need enhanced access to both the literature on interdisciplinarity itself (dispersed across many fields) and literatures from diverse fields.
 
3
Interviewing participants is an oft-used method to find out their positions regarding their specialties and their contributions to the research project, and to harmonize positions. For instance, in a project on ecosystems-based management (EBM) the interviewees were asked about ‘what kind of information is needed to support the EBM here? Is that information being collected? How are you using the social and ecological data that you are collecting? And what is the definition of EBM that you are using here?’ (Sievanen et al. 2011, 317). Similar questions can be applied to other topics.
 
4
Nicolescu sees complex plurality and open unity as two facets of the same reality. Reality is multidimensional and it is articulated in levels, levels of reality that have no limitation; the set of levels constitute the transdisciplinary object.
 
5
They focus on the cognitive aspects of disciplines. Sugimoto and Weingart (2015) survey also the social, historical, communicative, and narrative nature of disciplines.
 
6
Already in 1992, Hurd found that virtually half of the journals cited by chemists at her research university were from outside chemistry. She thus urged against discipline-based libraries and for better search tools to aid interdisciplinary science.
 
7
Glassick et al (1997, 9) worried that the ‘scholarship of integration’ was under-appreciated in the academy. They argued that this was needed to overcome the fragmentation and isolation of disciplines, and to make connections within and across disciplines. In their view, scholars of integration would make bits of disciplinary knowledge more meaningful to non-specialists, and would bring new insights to disciplinary research.
 
8
The five were: when a field draws on many others; when a field influences many others, when a subject is studied by many fields, when a certain property is investigated in many fields, and when a subject is studied collaboratively by many disciplines.
 
9
In the 2001 issue of Issues in Integrative Studies, William H. Newell argued that the essence of interdisciplinarity is coping with complexity; while respondents generally appreciated that complex problems (defined by Newell as containing non-linear relationships between variables) were especially suited to interdisciplinary analysis, they doubted that complexity so defined was necessary for interdisciplinary analysis.
 
10
This was indeed the purpose of the interwar ‘unity of science’ movement. See Neurath et al. 1937–8). Szostak (2014c) notes that the interdisciplinary coherence sought by that movement can instead be achieved organizationally through KOS.
 
11
There are also questions of funding. Craig et al. (2005, 372) discuss the issue of ‘interdisciplinary overhead.’ An interdisciplinary project may require significant funding. If this is not achieved, individual scholars may work independently with little attempt at integration.
 
12
Though beyond the scope of this book, it should be appreciated that bibliometric analysis is of particular importance in the realm of interdisciplinary research. Diversity and network cohesion have been chosen as indicators for ID research measurement (Rafols and Meyer 2010). Elleby and Ingwersen (2010) recommend the study of citedness ratios in comparing interdisciplinary research with research evaluation in general.
 
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Metadaten
Titel
The Importance of Interdisciplinary Research and Teaching
verfasst von
Rick Szostak
Claudio Gnoli
María López-Huertas
Copyright-Jahr
2016
Buch
Interdisciplinary Knowledge Organization

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-30147-1

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-30148-8

Copyright-Jahr: 2016

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30148-8_1