Wikiversity talk:Research guidelines/Archive/En

Objectivity

Research posted on Wikiversity should be conducted in an objective manner, including posting the raw data without manipulation.

Original research should be conducted objectively. The researcher should be willing accept any outcome of its analysis. One may propose a hypothesis, and then, using the results, prove or disprove his hypothesis, without manipulating results. One should not conduct a research to prove one's self right (or someone else wrong).

Wikiversity is a wiki, and anybody can edit your project. You must allow others to edit your work, or otherwise Wikiversity is a wrong platform for it. Please be aware that not every contribution on wikiversity is accurate or even true. However, do not disregard opinions because they contradict yours. Rather, discuss and build upon them.

I have a simple solution to the problem of the lack of objectivity. Every user should be obliged to base their views and claims on sources. Conflicts between opposing views can be resolved first by studying aditional sources. If this doesn't resolve a conflict, then both views can be described by the proponents of these views in footnotes. In an article, verifiable information should be more important, then the NPOV-policy.--Daanschr 11:50, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

This is an important point. Citation of sources is a fundamental foundation for research-related activities. But eventually, research projects reach the end of the existing literature and those who are engaged in research projects must move beyond the sources that can be cited. The steps that are taken beyond cited sources must be fully explained. A major task for the peer review process is critical evaluation of the steps that are taken beyond cited sources. --JWSchmidt 15:50, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

A solution for the problem of peer reviews could be that we have different groups of peer reviewers all with different guidelines. Some peer reviewers could be open for a large public with little requirements on quality and other peer reviewers could be more exclusive and aimed at objectivity. This way anybody can join Wikiversity and it could still get the highest quality possible. For me the main problem remains to get people here to join Wikiversity, otherwise it will not work at all.--Daanschr 10:46, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Objectivity is often not hard to check. However, it requires an expert to check if an argument is correct.--24.186.207.74 11:53, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

There are several levels of checking objectivity. The most simple one would be having data from a respectable source. A second level could be acquiring different kinds of respectable sources, which could contradict eachother, then it should be determined which respectable source is more objective then the other. A third level could be the misinterpretation of sources. Sometimes misunderstanding a single word or sentence in a book of 300 pages can change a whole outlook on the subject. To conclude, objectivity is hard to check to my opinion.

An argument can be a genuine opinion of a person. Experts with a different opinion shouldn't be allowed to check the correctness of an opinion. I am in favour of open debates, in which freedom of expressing views is guaranteed. To decide which opinion is more important to give notice to then another opinion, it would be good to give prominence to a certain level of objectivity.--Daanschr 12:17, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

"objectivity is hard to check"...."genuine opinion" <-- The conduct of research requires social support systems that guides the research process towards objectivity. One important component of the research process is protection of the process from conflicts of interest. There are many political, religious and economic influences that can deflect the research process away from objectivity. Part of the Wikiversity guidelines for research should be a requirement that everyone participating in research declare their known biases and potential conflicts of interest. Wikiversity needs a Research Ethics policy that includes high standards of scholarly ethics and rules about declarations of conflicts of interest. "freedom of expressing views is guaranteed" <-- This freedom in turn guarantees that individuals and groups with similar biases will introduce their biases into the research process. A peer review process must exist that has the power to expose these biases and overcome them. A wiki automatically has an element of peer review and all wiki participants are called upon to check the work of other editors. However, such informal peer review is highly distributed and does not automatically result in an effective system to detect and weed-out biases. If Wikiversity is going to have original research and avoid potential problems, some type of formal peer review process must be established that will be rigorous, explicit and open to verification. --JWSchmidt 18:25, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The links that you posted are all leading towards the English Wikiversity. In the Netherlands words as ethics and bias are hardly ever used. There has been nobody in my country who tried to prevent me from being unethical or unbiased. Therefore, i misunderstood you completely and perceived your words as negative. At the moment, i wouldn't want to translate the words bias and ethics. These words are perceived as negative by Dutch people. I would like to propose to use more neutral words instead of ethics and bias when dealing with interlingual discussions. This has to be discussed with people from other languages then English and Dutch. Other languages could have another perspective again. The NPOV-policy on Wikipedia wouldn't pose any problems. I really liked it when i read it the first time.--Daanschr 21:16, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem of declaring biases is that it will unnecassarily simplify views. My experience is that persons of different ideologies can agree with eachother in details, while dissagreeing with others within their own ideology on the same details. Also, some people want to have a label or don't know what to choose between biases. Another issue is what should be mentioned as a bias and what is common knowledge? People can change their views and will have trouble staying connected to a former bias. An insistence on people to mention their biases will lead to enormous political problems. Mentioning so-called biases will lead us away from objectivity instead of getting towards it, because objectivity is often hidden in the details and not in the wider concepts.

I agree with the research ethics, allthough it shouldn't be implemented too rigorously. I would like ethics of research to correspond to worldwide standards instead of the standards of the United States and other countries (I am from the Netherlands and not from the USA).

Regarding the scholarly ethics, truth is a subjective concept. Truth changes thoughout time and from group to group, not because one (self-righteous) group is not biased and all the others are, but simply because truth is hard to catch. Science is a worldwide battlefield. Scientists can only win because their scientific theory works and that of others don't. People can easily fake commitment to the principles of scholarly ethics and get away with it, even being succesful in excluding so-called honest people who are true to their convictions (which could be wrong, meaning not working).

It is impossible to overcome biases, we all have them and keep them or replace them by others. What i am trying to say is not new. Read Blaise Pascal, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Michel foucault and many other promenent western thinkers and ancient philosophers. I guess that you probably wanted to have a peer review to prevent the kind of anarchism normal at Wikipedia. In that i would agree. I am here, because i am dissatisfied with the lack of consideration for facts on Wikipedia. However, more consideration for facts will never remove bias.--Daanschr 23:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

"declaring biases" <-- If people are encouraged to declare their biases and conflicts of interest then they can join in a group effort aimed at consciousness raising and group-assisted introspection. In the past, information and communication were expensive. Vast segments of economies were built around hoarding information and making profit from having kept it from others. If we are going to pursue the Wikimedia Foundation goal of providing free access to the sum of all human knowledge then we need new social practices that facilitate those goals. In a wiki format, a declaration of biases is not an act of chiseling one's dogmatic beliefs into stone, rather, it is the starting point of dialog, the first step on the path to finding common ground and overcoming misunderstandings that arise when we do not openly discuss such things. If we design our policies correctly then wiki will remain a tool for collaboration, in this case, collaboration between researchers who may come at a problem from different directions and with different biases. Yes, openness and discussion can result in some misunderstandings, particularly when participants in the discussion are emerging from the confines of several different and isolated cultural domains, but in a wiki we must view openness and discussion as tools that can help us towards the goal free access to human knowledge. It is up to us to craft a set of guidelines that will allow us to use wiki technology as this kind of tool. "objectivity is often hidden in the details" <-- We have to find ways to use openness and discussion to expose those details. "ethics of research.....worldwide standards instead of the standards of the United States" <-- What Wikiversity needs is the fundamentals of research ethics, things like openness and honesty, things that are not defined by national borders. "truth" <-- I think it is possible to discuss scholarly ethics without introducing the concept of "truth". "People can easily fake commitment to the principles of scholarly ethics and get away with it" <-- It becomes less easy to "get away with it" when all of one's actions take place in an open environment where they are subject to critical evaluation by peers. "the kind of anarchism normal at Wikipedia" <-- I'm not sure that the sort of anarchism that exists at Wikipedia is the main problem we have to deal with in creating research policy for Wikiversity. The main problem is that if we open Wikiversity to "original research" (something Wikipedia does not do) then we need to have an effective defense against against forms of propaganda and silliness that will try to be passed off as "original research". Systems for formal peer review provide a proven method for dealing with this problem. We just need to figure out how to craft such a defense in a form that is well-suited for the wiki format. --JWSchmidt 01:38, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you that it is good to prevent that economic interest spoils the academic practises on Wikiversity. Commercial interest should be excluded.

You didn't responded to my concern of the subjectivity of bias. Therefore i will give you some problems that will very likely arise and you could give some solutions for them, if you want to.

1)What is a bias and what is not a bias? Does it matter what music someone likes or what someone thinks about certain religions or political ideologies or about having pets or if spaghetti may be cut into pieces or not before you eat it.

2)Having a bias can mean different things. An example is political bias. In the USA, liberals are left-wing and conservatives right-wing. In the Netherlands, socialists are left-wing and liberals right-wing. A Dutch right-wing liberal would be a conservative, pro-christian, anti-muslim, pro-capitalism, anti-social security. Does it matter in this case wether this person has a liberal bias? Within a country or a political party, a political bias can be very different. It depends on the person what a bias is. Political parties in my country had major criseses on issues which nearly split these parties in two, all because of dissagreements based on difference of opinion.

3)The perception of a bias can change from the individual perspective. A conservative can be positive on another conservative, but negative on a liberal only because of the self-pronounced bias. This could jeopardize the attempt to come to good research regarding the problem of subjectivity. On Usenet and Yahoo Groups, there are groups of atheists and christians who try to convince eachother of their own truths. There are similar discussions between muslims and non-muslims. Participants of these discussions could change their perspective of a bias, but the controversy between religiousness and anti-religiousness remains. What strikes me in discussions between atheists and christians is that atheists always try to convince christians with reason, while christians often become christian because of social aspects like love, companionhood, commitment, meaning of life. Something coldhearted reason would never be able to give. I am unofficially not a christian, though.

4)Persons can change from one bias to another.

5)An important point for me is that there are people who can't choose between biases or don't have a certain bias. There are different identities competing within a person, especially among immigrants. Also, some people have no interest in a certain bias like a political one or a religious one. It will not work if they are forced to declare a bias they don't have. On the internet, it will simply mean that they will not participate here and join something else. I am therefore for an inclusive system that allows people freedom of conscience and identity.--Daanschr 08:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

6)Research can be involuntarily put within a certain bias. This year i wrote a paper on the history of Shanghai as a treaty port. For this research, i read a book on the influence of the native place associations on the Chinese society, politics and history. In a review, this book was put within a certain school of thought it didn't belong to my opinion, while the writer of this book devoted her conclusion to looking at history without a pre-conceived concept. Her book became an important source of information for my paper.--Daanschr 08:23, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I like your aim of coming to global understanding between all humans. At another forum, i proposed to try to develop a world public opinion. Contradictions are now predominantly national and i would like to make them more global. An institute like Wikiversity, with an aim to promote objectivity and debate between people of different languages could become this world public opinion, but only if it is inclusive. I don't know if it is good to have a world public opinion, though.--Daanschr 12:23, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

"1)What is a bias and what is not a bias?" <-- Are you asking what kinds of bias are relevant to the conduct of research? This can only be determined in the context of a particular research topic. If someone is doing research on climate change, then they should report potential conflicts of interest such as having a financial interest in a company that is in the energy sector of the economy. Similarly, if someone was active politically raising money, lobbying and trying to influence political decisions about energy policy, that should be reported as a potential conflict of interest. Many organizations that are involved in research cave written rules for conflict of interest reporting (examples: government agency, university, watchdog group, journal)

"2) …political bias" <-- There are many levels of political bias. Some people are active members of politically-motivated groups and are involved in raising funds to push particular political agendas. If someone researching a medical topic related to abortion was politically active in funding, lobbying and trying to influence elections or laws related to abortion then they should report that political activity as a potential conflict of interest for their research activities.

"3)The perception of a bias can change from the individual perspective." <-- this is true, so arbitrary thresholds are often set. For example, some conflict of interest policies set a value for how large a financial interest must be before it has to be reported as a potential conflict of interest. If an individual has private political or religious biases, there is generally no way of forcing such an individual to declare their biases. If someone is politically or religiously active in some way that is related to their research activities and there is a chance that politically or religiously activity can become known and would be perceived by others as a source of bias then it should be reported as a conflict of interest.

"5)…..It will not work if they are forced to declare a bias they don't have." <-- Having a rule that requires people to report their biases in no way suggests that people have to invent something to declare.

"an inclusive system that allows people freedom of conscience and identity" <-- I am not aware that anyone has suggested any policy that would unreasonably limit "academic freedom" in Wikiversity. There are some basic limitations that are unavoidable, such as the Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy and laws that govern online behavior. I think Wikiversity also needs a policy for research ethics that would potentially restrict the behavior of some individuals, but doing so is not unreasonable.

"6)Research can be involuntarily put within a certain bias." <-- research results can sometimes be interpreted in multiple ways that are contradictory. Sometimes people want to retract their work when they feel it is being "misused". Eventually Wikiversity will need rules that cover requests for removing information from Wikiversity. I think the general pattern within the Wikimedia Foundation is that there needs to be a clear legal basis (such as copright violation) for removing information from a wiki that uses the GFDL. In other words, if you publish an idea under the GFDL, then you become unhappy with how someone else uses your idea, you do not get to control how other people are using your idea.

"An institute like Wikiversity, with an aim to promote objectivity and debate between people of different languages could become this world public opinion, but only if it is inclusive" <-- The goal of research is to learn about the world. What we think we know is always tentative and open to discussion and re-evaluation. Objectivity is socially constructed through continual, varied and repeated questioning of what we think we know. Any individual research result is fairly unimportant. It is often wise to only really start to trust research results when multiple independent investigators (preferably using different approaches and methods) report the same results. --JWSchmidt 14:26, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

You made it much clearer for me. I agree with you, including your previous posts to this page. The main problem was the word bias. I translated it as 'vooroordeel', but it probably means something else.--Daanschr 14:46, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia already covers all subjects of knowledge imaginable. The aim of Wikiversity could be to get to a more careful investigation of facts and views. However, Wikiversity will not acquire the quality now prevalent at universities for a long while. Research requires lots of time and could require lots of material which will all cost money. I think that the organization is more important then the rules. Different sets of rules can be used for different purposes, what is needed most is commitment for the organization. This could be reached by organizing projects that are entertaining but also have a high quality.--Daanschr 16:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Research requires lots of time and could require lots of material which will all cost money. ---- Research in mathematics and theoretical physics cost nothing more than time, food and coffee.----Hillgentleman-User talk 02:36, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

You are right, research doesn't necessarily cost money. However, research does require commitment. It will be very hard to get this commitment from a volunteer organization as Wikiversity, because real life universities get money to do research or to teach students. The asset of Wikiversity is that it is a global interlingual organization that could be supported by traditional organizations like universities. Perhaps this is not the best article to come up with this point, as it is about research guidelines.--Daanschr 07:53, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Research process

The research process as a whole does move towards objectivity, but objectivity is a construct that is generated by special social processes. Not all of the individual components of the research process are objective. Research starts with the thoughts and actions of individuals which are by definition highly subjective. The entire research process typically involves cycles of subjective claims and peer review in what could be called the "research cycle". Subjective observations, claims, and ideas that repeatedly survive challenge, tests and peer review can result in increasingly high levels of objectivity about a topic of study.

The neutral point of view (NPOV) policy that has been adopted by previous Wikimedia Foundation projects arose from the need to prevent original research activities and unpublished results from disrupting wiki projects. If Wikiversity is going to allow participants to include original research activities and results in Wikiversity then we need to modify the traditional NPOV policy. The research process often starts by a single person or a small group of like-minded individuals adopting a minority Point Of View and audaciously pushing that POV, even in the face of disbelief and active opposition from the those who hold a more conventional POV, often one held to be true by the majority of investigators in a field of study.

Wiki software is a tool that promotes collaborative authoring of webpages. Each wiki community decides what the rules are that best support the mission of the wiki. Most wikis restrict the editing of at least some pages. The early stages of the "research cycle" often involve the production of idiosyncratic and personalized texts that introduce new ideas to the community. The novel ideas expressed in the initial stages of the "research cycle" are then subjected to review. The typical wiki method of peer review often involves erasing the work of earlier contributors, in particularly, contributions that do not conform to conventional thinking about a topic are likely to be removed from wiki pages during the collaborative editing process. Such conventional wiki editing would be a problem for a wiki that is trying to support original research and the creation of new knowledge.

In the "research cycle", a standard alternative to "wiki peer review" is a system for "formal peer review". Formal peer review is usually a highly structured and formal "dialog" between reviewers and the authors of documents reporting original research. In this "dialog", nothing is erased. In fact, even if a new idea is wrong, the identification of incorrect ideas is still important, and keeping a record of wrong ideas is useful for preventing others from repeating errors. This kind of "dialog" and a system for not ever erasing text is what usually happens on MediaWiki discussion pages. It would be possible to construct a formal peer review system in wiki format (see).

If Wikiversity is going to be a place for, "conducting research and publishing results (within a policy framework developed by the community)" then we need to develop new policies that truly support research, not just adopt a set of rules that were developed for another wiki project and that would cripple research. --JWSchmidt 01:34, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Objectivity?

Pardon the late comment - but I disagree fundamentally with the precondition that research on Wikiversity must be "objective". Obviously, we are not trying to encourage research that is flagrantly intellectually dishonest (or even misleading), but this is all down to the methodology. Research should, in my opinion be methodologically sound, methodologically transparent, ethical, verifiable, and that the author should attempt, as far as is possible and/or necessary to outline from what particular theoretical background they are making their claims. All of this makes for research that can be justified and/or critiqued on fairly solid grounds (and all of which is the minimum requirement for academic research). But none of this rules out that research is often quite personal, subjective - and all the better for it. I realise that we do not want to be a magnet for lunatic research, but having "objectivity" as a minimum requirement is taking these guidelines too far, IMO. Cormaggio 18:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Care must be taken with use of the term "objectivity". I think Wikipedia has it right: w:Objectivity (science). Objectivity is a target, a goal for the entire discovery process. If we all keep that goal in mind then we will do our best to carefully explain our methods so that others can try to independently verify our research results. Each individual human is not entirely objective, but objectivity can be a collective goal that is constructed from the social process of research and peer review. --JWSchmidt 19:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

What Wikiversity should look like

What should Wikiversity look like? Will it be built like sparknotes etc.? --Dnwk 06:18, 17 March 2007 (UTC)