Perspectives on Managing Knowledge in the Data-Centric Research Landscape

Abstract

The current scenario of migrating from data deficit to data deluge situation is forcing us to give a thought to bring meaning to the mess by effectively managing the data tsunami. In the Knowledge society, the competitive advantage is gained through understanding the information and predicting the evolution of facts based on data. Digital transactions whether social, economic or in relation to government create data which can, in principle, be used for research and innovation. The present paper touches upon various perspectives of knowledge management in the data centric research landscape. While reflecting on the behavioural aspects of the authors, the paper delineates how the researcher’s environment of working with their own silos with their own small data sets is marking a paradigm shift in approach to collaborate as a community for sharing, accessing data for re-purposing to generate new knowledge. The data generation out of the research activities particularly scientific discoveries is colossal and very significant for brining innovations in research. For this, the author remarks that the key issues are to decipher mechanisms for construing, analysing and extracting meaningful information from this colossal data and manage this ever growing universe of knowledge to provide a robust resource support system for research and innovation, and thereby avoiding duplication of efforts. The paper while highlighting the core challenges, elicits issues that can help in managing data searching, discoverability and usability. To this effect, a number of initiatives that are going on world over to promote effective data documentation and sharing to enable reuse have been educed. Emphasis has been laid on making space for innovation, rather than enforcing rules for innovation by following the new norms for creating discipline in three domains- learning, capturing and reflecting on the technology frontier. The paper illustrates several perspectives w.r.t. Library’s role in Big Data and generating knowledge assets for which capacity enhancement becomes naturally imperative. To this effect, attention has been drawn to various aspects on what Librarians need to know about Big Data and play a part in the ecosystem.