Research Knowledge Documentation, Analysis and Exploration in Empirical and Descriptive Sciences

ended

Descriptive and empirical sciences, such as History, Archaeology, Biodiversity, and Cultural Heritage, are the sciences that collect, observe and describe phenomena in order to explain them and draw interpretative conclusions about their behaviour and their relationships under given circumstances. Researchers in these sciences usually encounter problems related to the integration of data coming from different sources, the epistemological adaptation and refinement of their research under specific circumstances, the usability of their data analysis methods and tools, and the transparency and reliability of their research processes and results. The ReKnow project aims to support researchers in descriptive and empirical sciences to better handle these problems by providing models, algorithms and tools that allow for better documentation, analysis and exploration of research processes and data. This will be achieved by combining i) the expertise of the host institution in cultural informatics, its strong background in conceptual modeling and argumentation theory, and its long-standing collaboration with a large number of organisations in descriptive and empirical sciences, ii) a set of training activities that will provide the principal researcher with the required disciplinary and interdisciplinary background to achieve the project objectives and which complement his current expertise in semantic web technologies, exploratory search, and data mining, and iii) the close collaboration with two History projects and a research institute dedicated to the study of the history of science, that provide requirements, use cases and data as well as the opportunity to directly apply the ReKnow results in real scenarios.