Category: Research methods and tools

WikiLeaking Leaks into Science

I have an on-going interest (as well as a stake) in how academia will advance in the digital world, where new capabilities afforded by technology force us to question the way we currently produce and distribute research works. Particular problems that have already been highlighted involve journals. One of these is the idea of the… read more

Techniques for Selection

As we have seen before, this figure shows the stages of a typical approach to a post-hoc study of FLOSS, like a digital archaeologist. The figure shows a series of stages, each of which includes some number of steps, and yields some outcomes. Each outcome may or may not feed into the following stage. In… read more

A FLOSS Research Toolbox

It is remarkable how, when I look through my box of FLOSS research tools, so many of them are pre-existing tools written by others. In the toolbox (or more precisely, in the directory called “tools”) there are also many self-authored programs or glue code, usually put together in a scripting language, but nevertheless the overall… read more

On the Veracity of Sources

When I want to learn about something in free/open source software more generally, there are a number of different types of sources to look towards, each one with their own advantages and considerations, and each with an intended audience. So knowing about all of these types of sources serves as a good indicator of where… read more

Digital Archaeology

Part of the use to which I’d like to put this blog is to disseminate information about research methods and tools. But before I start writing posts with involved details it’s probably prudent to present some sort of overview of the whole thing. Of course, there is no single method that is used by all… read more

In The Beginning…

Why write a blog? Well, why not. It seems like everyone else is. I’ve been racking my brains to decide what I have to blog, or rather what is interesting enough to share with people. My field is computers; specifically research. I’ve been spending a few years researching free/open source software now, and I think… read more