Digital Enlightenment

Established in 2009, Cultures of Knowledge is a collaborative, interdisciplinary research project based at the University of Oxford with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. We are using a variety of methods to reconstruct the correspondence networks central to the revolutionary intellectual developments of the early modern period.

How have digital technologies changed research? What are the new challenges they pose? What role should a research library play in the 21st century? Growing Knowledge at the British Library explores these questions with our researchers in order to inform the debate on the future of research.

The advent of social media has led to people expecting the same degree of reflexivity in other walks of life, including in their interactions with the State. As more conversations between citizens and government move online, masses of data on citizens’ views and preferences will be created. The Civic Long Tail argues that the potential for ‘big data’ to make government more intelligent and responsive will only be realised if government also learns how to open up this data to the civic entrepreneurs who seek to make the data useful for citizens and communities.

The collection of large amounts of data from social media presents new opportunities for social research to understand the relationship between off- and online activity. As more movements combine – and blur – virtual and real protest, these questions will become increasingly urgent and important. These surveys, collected through Facebook using a new methodology, offer new ways forward in exploring this challenge.

Futurelab is an independent not-for-profit organisation (registered charity number 1113051) committed to developing creative and innovative approaches to education, teaching and learning. We achieve this through a mixture of research, events, school development and resources across the UK and internationally.

The Edgeless University argues that this can be a
moment of rebirth for universities. Technology is
changing universities as they become just one source
among many for ideas, knowledge and innovation. But online tools and open access also offer the means for their survival. Their expertise and value is needed more than ever to validate and support learning and research. Through their institutional capital, universities can use technology to offer more flexible provision and open more equal routes to higher education and learning.

The internet is the greatest source of information for people living in the UK today. But the amount of material available at the click of a mouse can be both liberating and asphyxiating. Although there are more e-books, trustworthy journalism, niche expertise and accurate facts at our fingertips than ever before, there is an equal measure of mistakes, half-truths, propaganda, misinformation and general nonsense. Knowing how to discriminate between them is both difficult and extremely important.