record

Thesis Info

LABS ID
00721
Thesis Title
Mapping Affinities: Visualizing Academic Practice Through Collaboration
Author
Dario Rodighiero
2nd Author
3rd Author
Degree
PhD
Year
2018
Number of Pages
181
University
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Thesis Supervisor
Frédéric Kaplan
Supervisor e-mail
frederic.kaplan AT epfl.ch
Other Supervisor(s)
Boris Beaude
Language(s) of Thesis
English
Department / Discipline
College of Humanities
Copyright Ownership
Dario Rodighiero
Languages Familiar to Author
English, French, Italian
URL where full thesis can be found
infoscience.epfl.ch/record/234375
Keywords
Academic practices, actualization, affinity, cartography, design, digital traces, interaction, network visualization, scientometrics, visualization
Abstract: 200-500 words
Academic affinities are one of the most fundamental hidden dynamics that drive scientific development. Some affinities are actual, and consequently can be measured through classical academic metrics such as co-authoring. Other affinities are potential, and therefore do not have visible traces in information systems; for instance, some peers may share scientific interests without actually knowing it. This thesis illustrates the development of a map of affinities for scientific collectives, which is intended to be relevant to three audiences: the management, the scholars themselves, and the external public. Our case study involves the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering of EPFL, which consists of three institutes, seventy laboratories, and around one thousand employees. The actual affinities are modeled using the data available from the academic systems reporting publications, teaching, and advising, whereas the potential affinities are addressed through text mining of the documents registered in the information system. The major challenge for designing such a map is to represent the multi-dimensionality and multi-scale nature of the information. The affinities are not limited to the computation of heterogeneous sources of information, they also apply at different scales. Therefore, the map shows local affinities inside a given laboratory, as well as global affinities among laboratories. The thesis presents a graphical grammar to represent affinities. This graphical system is actualized in several embodiments, among which a large-scale carpet of 250 square meters and an interactive online system in which the map can be parameterized. In both cases, we discuss how the actualization influences the representation of data, in particular the way key questions could be appropriately addressed considering the three target audiences: the insights gained by the management and the relative decisions, the understanding of the researchers’ own positioning in the academic collective that might reveal opportunities for new synergies, and eventually the interpretation of the structure from an external standpoint that suggesting the relevance of the tool for communication.