Web Based Knowledge Infrastructures for the Sciences: An Adaptive Document

TLDR

Scientific knowledge is increasingly stored online, with a growing array of infrastructures—from journals to collaboratories and logic servers—providing access on the Internet. The article examines these infrastructures to derive implications for their evolution, assess their impact on how scientists create, organize, and integrate knowledge, and illustrate how online content can become more adaptive and structured. The article’s text is composed of individually marked sections that are dynamically assembled to meet each reader’s needs at varying levels of detail.

Abstract

Scientific knowledge is increasingly being stored online. A large number of infrastructures that provide access to scientific knowledge are now available on the Internet. They range from online journals to collaboratories and logic servers. This article examines a variety of such infrastructures and derives implications for their further evolution. It assesses their impact on the way that scientists will create, organize and integrate knowledge. In parallel, the article illustrates how online content may become more adaptive and structured. The text consists of individually marked sections that are assembled dynamically to the needs of each reader on different levels of detail.