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domusBITae and PRIMER Initiatives

 en español   The domusBITae initiative has being promoted since 2009 by University of León (Spain), the Science of Information Institute (USA), BITrum (Spain), Munich University of Applied Sciences (Germany), INTECO (Spanish National Institute of Communication Technologies, Spain), Unified Theory of Information R.G.(Austria), University of Barcelona (Spain), University of the Aegean (Greece), Mälardalen University (Sweden), Universidad Carlos III (Spain), Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), University of Szeged (Hungary), Aalborg University (Denmark). It is open to new participations.
In order to foster interdisciplinarity in information studies and other areas of knowledge and practise -particularly regarding sustainability in the information society-, domusBITae has two main and interrelated focus: 

(1) the infrastructure for the creation of an Open Interdisciplinary Research Center (see bellow)
(2) the PRomotion of Interdisciplinary methodologies in Education and Research (PRIMER) (see bellow)

Besides these main areas of development, domusBITae is also working on:

(3) the edition of BITagora ® see edition section
(4) the sites of some research organisations in the field of information studies using a preliminary development of domusBITae gateway. So far these organisations are ISIS (http://is4is.unileon.es) and ScII (www.scii.org)
Open Interdisciplinary Research Center (domusBITae infrastructure)

The proposed resource center for information studies is aimed at bridging across the many research communities devoted to this broad field and social stakeholders in order to enable an interdisciplinary and overarching understanding of information in all its meaningful aspects. Since there are for information relevant grounds concerning formal-, physical-, chemical-, biological-, cognitive-, social-, technological-, ethical- and philosophical sciences, the traditional gaps and boundaries between sciences must be overcome to achieve an actual overarching understanding of information, which might be essential to cope with the global challenges of our information society. DomusBITae allegorically joins the Latin terms: "domus" (house) and "vita" (life) with "BIT", stating for the modern scientific treatment of information.

The proposed infrastructure is based on an integration of resources weaved by (1) a semantic network built upon the ongoing interdisciplinary understanding of information, and (2) a visual oriented interface based on the user experience while searching for knowledge or training; communicating with colleagues in the same or different fields; or cooperating in education, research and innovation. The set of inter-weaved resources intents to gather an open typology of scientific data qualified by the scientific community in different levels of validation, so that both novelty and rigour can be combined.

The proposed system -according to its preliminary design- should be constituted, as illustrated by the following modules: 

  1. A domusBITae Gate basically composed by: (i) a confederated set of communities using a specialised Content Management System (dB-CMS) adapted to the needs of the communities in information studies and providing immediate access to the domusBITae resources; and (ii) a user interface based on social interactions enabling the engagement of users as active participants. 
  2. A Directory of Communities of Information Studies providing immediate linking among domusBITae e-Communities (i.e. confederated by using the dB-CMS, as well as linkage among communities, contents and information about communities in information studies).
  3. A Repository of documents and other open access digital assets in the field of information studies, in which the community and any user can self-archive according to a policy of progressive access regarding liaison and under an evaluation scheme to provide quality assessment. 
  4. A Collaborative and Educational Toolkit (C&E tools) for the parallel constitution of emerging collaborative teams and e-learning platforms within domusBITae and integrated by tools for: (a) interoperability with resources and community and (b) effective e-Venues enabling empowering interaction. This combination of tools offers the basis for the constitution of e-Campus in interdisciplinary information studies for both research and education.
  5. A virtual community glossary with a twofold objective: (a) promoting interdisciplinary clarification and disambiguation on common terms and problems, and the concerned viewpoints; (b) providing a semantic network for the interoperability and knowledge integration of the infrastructure. The already working platform BITrum glossary (since 2008), in which the proponents are involved, conforms the ground for this module, which inherits its name.
To achieve both a maximal effectiveness and impact of the system the design is planned to be done with a relevant representation of the Scientific community, looking for the consent of the community and the adaptation to their necessities.

For more details see the corresponding section in stylusBITae
PRIMER - PRomoting Interdisciplinary Methodologies in Education and Research

This initiative pursues the development of recognised interdisciplinary studies -including education and research- based on system science, open innovation and design science, and aimed to develop abilities for integrating knowledge that can be addressed to the solution of scientific and societal complex problems, as environmental and social sustainability, ICT and society issues, the building of social responsibility, etc. 
To that end the following CURRICULA types are envisaged: 
(a) modules for providing complementary qualification (including summer courses), recognised by HE institutions (in partnership); 
(b) open courses certified through the open Badge system; 
(c) training modules for teachers and researchers interested in bridging domains or tackling complex problems. 
On the other hand, RESEARCH activity should be also developed in integration with the educational programmes.

ODS approach: An integrative Framework

The integration framework of the three approaches: Open Innovation, Design Science, Systems Science is illustrated in the following figure. We name this integrative framework ODS approach.


This interrelationship among the 3 methodological approaches is closed related to the relation among aesthetics, politics and sciences as presented in different contexts (for instance, in the past European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research in Vienna, the Workshop on Information and Systems in Munich, the Summer Course on Social Networks in León, all these held during 2012 and organised by the proponents, but also often referred to in the work of R. Zimmermann).

PRIMER refers metaphorically to the education & research programme proposed, even consider its polysemy: it initially refers to the compilation of elements for teaching to read; in our case we wish to offer foundations in a nutshell to understand unity in real-world diversity. But primer also refers to the small part of explosive used to detonate a larger explosive; whereas we wish to offer basic elements so that a broad and creative confrontation to problems emerge, and it is a sort of explosive confrontation to complex and intriguing issues what we would like to see. Furthermore, primer is also used in genetic contexts, referring to the segments of DNA or RNA complementary to a given DNA to initiate replications; according to our viewpoint -as some of the proponents have exposed- it is because of the common architecture of the knower and the world why he can -partially- get to know it.

Motivation

  1. EU encourages interdisciplinarity as a means to face complex societal and environmental challenges or our age (e.g. EURAB-2004, RISEPTIS-20010);
  2. The International Standard on Social Resposibility ISO26000, refers to the need of adopting overarching approaches to the organisations, problems and environments in the endeavour of building social responsibility. EC encourages education and training programmes to promote social responsibility (A renewed EU strategy 2011-14 for Corporate Social Responsibility).
  3. The founding process of an European Higher Education Area aims at promoting cooperation in the attainment of a sustainable future, and to this end interdisciplinarity is specifically encouraged.
For more details see:
Participation and additional information

If interested in joining the initiative (there is a networked system for collaborative development), please contact coordination team.

More information about domusBITae initiative, programmes for potential funding, and the system created for collaborative development can be found in the corresponding private area.
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