Archives 2.0 and university level research opportunities

[Christian van der Ven]

Yesterday I gave a guest lecture at the Amsterdam University on the topic Archives 2.0. The teacher in the end asked me whether I had any suggestions for what research at an university level could contribute to our field. Is there a need for such level research for topics regarding Web 2.0/Archives 2.0? Do you have any suggestions?

As I understand, those students were eager to do papers and such on the topic, but of course those papers need to be written at an university level. Most research topics that I could think of, were more of a 'lower' level.

[Jane Stevenson]

Hi Christian,

Surely there could be valuable research here around areas relating to Web 2.0 and the breakdown of traiditional authority and top-down approaches to knowledge dissemination? Does the advent of Web 2.0 and Archives 2.0 change the role of the 'expert'? How does the collective thought process that Web 2.0 encourages influence the way the world is perceived? Issues of 'authority' and 'control' always seem fascinating to me and there would seem to be plenty of scope for investigating them.

cheers,
Jane.

[Alexandra Eveleigh]

See also this blog post, particularly the linked further details.

[Christian van der Ven]

Thanks to both of you! I gave the teacher some small suggestions, but yours are excellent ones too! I will forward them to him, so he has an idea of all the possible topics -- there will be many more, but we're not here to do all the thinking for him, of course... hehe. Thanks again!