Research
is the systematic investigation into our existing knowledge, and the search and
discovery of new knowledge. Research is defined in many sectors including:
artistic, business, economic, humanities, social and scientific. Simply
defined; research is the process of identification and/or confirmation of facts
for the purpose of solving existing or new problems.
The
process of conducting research is broken into seven essential steps, as
follows:
- Identification of research problem
- Literature review
- Specifying the purpose of research
- Determine specific research questions or hypotheses
- Data collection
- Analyzing and interpreting the data
- Reporting and evaluating research
The “literature
review” and “collection of data” steps
are dependent on references, not only the connection and link between objects,
but access to explore and extrapolate viable information from physical and
digital-born reference material. Traditionally, we have defined materials such
as: dictionaries, encyclopedias, books of facts, and publications found in our
library, all as references. With the advent of the Digital Marketplace (digitization,
metadata tagging & search engines), research and references have evolved
dramatically, with many benefits, and some caveats too.
We now have access to over 80 billion web pages of
content, digital references available for use in research. While much of this
information is “free”, a good proportion of this content is inaccurate, biased,
speculative, and created for the purpose of marketing. Therefore, researching
references in the Digital Marketplace requires even more discipline, diligence and
scrutiny than our traditional research from authenticated publications and
sources.
On the other hand, we now have access to 80
billion digital references through a couple of key-strokes, putting us in the
unique driver-seat to learn and know more than ever before.
“My original concept was to provide a free
encyclopedia for every single person in the world….in their own language.” – Jimmy
Wales, founder of Wikipedia, “The Free Encyclopedia”.
Blog Reference:
Wikipedia; The Free Encyclopedia: Research
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.