Tag Archives: knowledge

Assignment 9B

Under Vaidhyanathans argument, sadly I do believe that I trust Google but it depends. What I mean by this is every time any of us are on the internet (or at least for me), there is an instinct to go to Google. For researching for basic facts or a problem in society, I go straight to google. I do trust google to bring me to basic searches on the web. For example, if I have a question I google it to see different answers. I then by my own judgment, choose a site I see best fit for my question. However in regards to personal life I have seen google shows my twitter account, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube. With that in mind, google worries me. I do believe I trust google for basic searches as a I said, but NOT for personal accounts and knowledge. I do not trust the taking of my accounts in a way that anyone can find or see them. But is there a solution to this problem? Like am I supposed to just delete my accounts? I do have a privacy setting, but I am not sure if this is enough to protect my identity on google. Lastly as for knowledge being a college student in my third year, I understand how to find relevant, useful, and valid information. Iv’e used data bases every year in my previous English classes, I do not use google for information related to academic research or intellectuality. As a whole, I trust google on some level but not on all levels.

Assignment 6B

Martins book chapter is available to read as a PDF on the web, because it describes knowledge in various ways. What I mean by this, is knowledge to him is obtained through various disciplines and fundings. Useful knowledge does not have to be limited to governments or corporations. Martins interpretation of knowledge is it is a liberation. Essentially, understandings of a subject should not be determined by sole by government influence. Ways of finding knowledge and information should not be limited to any group. For example, “Funding for the majority of formal research in the world today is provided by governments and corporations
funding from trade unions, churches, environmental groups or
women’s groups is tiny by comparison” (Martin p. 125-126). As a whole in the public eye, knowledge expenses such as funding is more important to big government and corporation. However the expansion of knowledge generally IS very broad. Martin has an availability of this chapter online because, he wants to make it known that knowledge should be treated as a freedom of research. Any type of organization should be included in helping expand that discipline of knowledge it is known for. Universities tend to be neutral by exemplifying discipline and funding, which is not always true for other organizations or groups. Scholarship tends to be limited to certain disciplines such as medical research, engineering, and lawyers. These areas of study compliment the government and its uses. I believe Martin is saying knowledge and scholarship should not be subjected to the government.

Assignment #8B

Meszaros journal article, “Who’s in Charge Here? Authority Authoritativeness, and the Undergraduate Researcher” mentions questioning authority. Meszaros demonstrates how novice researchers only focus on administrative authority, ignoring crucial facts. For example, students are only focused on getting a good grade and in order to accomplish it. They will blindly follow the direction given by their professors, ignoring whether they should question the instructions.

Personal epistemology theory, which is based on subsequent cognitive development researchers show there are two types of young adults. Dualist, who will believe anything they’re told by “authority” without researching themselves. While Multiplists, believe that anyone’s opinion is valid. A young adult who is a dualist and a multiplist is not enough. Young adults don’t take it upon themselves to researcher the knowledge they acquire. These filters hinder the way a students can and should analyze information. Meszaros mentions that these student should question the authority, and question the knowledge the “authority” claims.

Assignment 6B

Brian Martin’s book chapter is available to read as a PDF online because this makes it easier to reach a larger number of readers this way. It is much easier to find a PDF version online and read from it, then compared to looking for the book and having to purchase it. Martin mentions in the chapter that acquiring a lot of knowledge is sometimes limited. With the chapter being online for everyone on the web to read, Martin wants to make sure that there are no limitations to what people are entitled to know. Making the information of this chapter available, Martin reinforces the idea rhat sholarship should be liberated. There should not be limitations on how to obtain information and knowledge. I strongly agree with this as I feel that college textbooks should be free because the prices are just to expensive to obtain these books.

Assignment #6B

Martin’s book  chapter is available to read as a PDF on the web because, he wants to share his knowledge of research strategies. Martin shares how knowledge is built in mainstream research: “Funding in particular areas and for particular applications is of fundamental… hierarchy within research communities keeps most junior researchers in line.” Martin shows us why the research structure is set up a certain way, some researchers may want to go outside of the mainstream idea. If they do, then they lack being noticed and funded. Martin then shows us another type of research, community participation. This type of research allows anyone to join in research projects with no credentials, leaving control to the community. Martin challenges professional researchers by giving other types of strategies. In having the chapter available as a PDF, Martin gives the audience a chance to research which type of strategy is better for them.

The availability of this book chapter being online does exemplify Martin’s idea that scholarship should be liberated. Martin liberated his idea of how knowledge is build, in doing so he shows the readers why research is done the way it is. Since most research is targeted to certain groups by writing research a certain way, excluding non-credential researchers. Martin’s chapter is written for the reader to better understand, allowing more opportunities for individuals.

 

Assignment #6B

In my opinion, chapter 7, “The politics of research” from Brian Martin’s book, “Information Liberation” is available as a PDF file because the author wished for this information to be as free as most of the information one would need for research.This chapter of Martin’s book is available as a PDF file because he believes knowledge can be accomplished in many different ways.This chapter is also available to read as a PDF on the web because Martin wanted readers to understand that there are different ways of achieving knowledge. He states, “Knowledge isn’t necessarily everlasting, nor is it necessarily of general value. Rather than thinking of knowledge as great truths engraved on tablets in the sky, it’s more useful to think of knowledge as ideas that are generally agreed by specific communities.” He wanted everyone to have access to the PDF file.

Brian Martin book chapter is available to read as PDF on web, because he wants knowledge to be liberated for everyone and not to be limited towards a price. He wants readers to have unlimited ways to seek knowledge, and teach them that there are many ways to find great knowledge in order to help the readers understand more.This chapter of the book can generally be used by anyone reading it in order to recognize how these subgroups can “affect the creation and use of knowledge” by “finding disciplines, hierarchy, and competition”. Furthermore, knowledge in the subgroup culture can tend to be biased, as Martin pointed out in the pharmaceutical world, when it pertains to the funding of research in finding the best drug for a particular ailment.

Martin states the word “Knowledge” suggests certainty, authoritativeness, even usefulness. It is a good thing to be knowledgeable . Yet much knowledge is quite limited, specific, parochial.

The availability of this book chapter online exemplifies his idea that scholarship should be liberated. If it were not available for free online it would defeat his purpose of defending that knowledge and research should be free and not just accessible to people with proper funding.I believe that the availability of this chapter online exemplifies Martin’s idea that scholarship should be liberated. Having the chapter available for readers online without a price goes hand in hand with his belief that knowledge is free and very powerful in the world.Martin would want more “participatory and egalitarian” access to fair, unbiased knowledge to the ordinary person. We should be able to receive any information without paying a price. We should be able to gain knowledge in different ways. We should have access to different types of information and also have access to scholarly data.

Assignment 5B: The Infrastructure of Knowledge

David Weinberger discusses in his work “Too Big to Know”, how knowledge has changed over the course of time due to the development of the Internet. He speaks about how people use to have to go to school for long periods of time to achieve their degree and become actual experts in a subject. However, now in this day in age, people are considered experts just by their efforts of blogging and writing a post on social media about a particular matter. When Weinberger speaks about the infrastructure of knowledge, he is referring to the variety of ways knowledge can be achieved or portrayed. By knowledge infrastructure, Weinberger means the organization and structure of knowledge. He believes that knowledge is based on “credentials” such as degrees and publications and not simple opinions.

According to Weinberger the infrastructure of knowledge is the multiple ways people can achieve knowledge and currently the way people achieve it is not really successful. The way we grab knowledge has also changed because of the internet. The way we receive knowledge has also changed by the information given over the internet. Weinberger states that “knowledge is constantly questioned, challenged, rethought, and rewritten.” The infrastructure of knowledge Weinberger is referring to is the way we look for and receive knowledge, because of so many new networks becoming available. We can not rely on the internet too much. We have to research more in order to know if the information is accurate.He further discusses the topic of networking knowledge in his book. “Knowledge now lives not just in libraries and museums and academic journals. It lives not just in the skulls of individuals. Knowledge is now a property of the network, and the network embraces businesses, governments, media, museums, curated collections, and minds in communication.” There is so many different ways of receiving knowledge that it can be a bit overwhelming. Some resources seem more knowledgeable than others and it is up to us to decide which we believe is more accurate and well- informed.

Weinberger does reinforce that knowledge makes us better researchers in a way that we should be aware of credible and reliable information. When we have credible information and we know it is credible, the researching process becomes much easier. Yes, there is an information “overload” as Weinberger puts it, but we have filters. These filters ” increase information and reveal the whole deep sea” ( 13).  There is so much information out there and there is no “running away from knowledge” we just need to know how to require information without overloading our brains. It makes the researcher find information faster by being able to find whatever they are looking for and by using certain keywords. The infrastructure (to knowledge) can be viewed as a better viewing for internet researchers. The reason to that is because there is more access to knowledge on different topics, but the only thing with that is that you would have to research more, in order to make sure that the information is accurate and not just some unreliable information.

Assignment 5B

In the article Too Big to Know David Weinberger talks about the infrastructure of knowledge. He goes back in time to try to understand what knowledge is and how the internet has changed those concepts of knowledge. He wants to analyze what the true definition of knowledge is and how knowledge began; which he refers to as “the infrastructure of knowledge.” Weinberger says knowledge started with the enlightenment thinkers and the divine right and those people from that era because their ideas came from there own minds and no other place. His questions are weather true knowledge is what we know from others or something only we know that’s not from the internet. He doesn’t know if the internet is making us dumber or smarter by filling us with information. He says ” there’s obviously plenty of data in the world, but not a lot of wisdom” Weinberger states that true knowledge is when someone takes information out of nothing. For example in the old times people use to collect data and from this data they got information in which they created knowledge from for others to know. That is real wisdom according to him. He says “information is to data what wine is to a vineyard; the delicious extract and distillate.” But now  with the internet there is to much knowledge and it has been reducing what we need to know. Knowledge itself changes in the age of the internet. We have the Internets information as a given and work from there and try to use it to make us smarter; that is not what knowledge is about.  Weinberger says “knowledge is so important to us for deciding matters of state that bar needs to be set high.” I think that the understanding of knowledge infrastructure can make us better researchers because we should know first of all not to believe and copy everything from the internet since its other people knowledge and second we should take one idea from the internet and expand from it using our own mind and make questions/ hypothesis out of that information.