Preparing MethodBox for National Service

This is a proposal to deliver a new on-line system for bringing different researchers together to share their expertise and work together on complex social problems. It is important to have different disciplines working together because individual disciplines have different strengths and weaknesses. For example a Social Scientist studying social factors in obesity may have excellent knowledge of how to measure socio-economic status whereas an Epidemiologist may have complementary knowledge about whether to use Body Mass Index or waist-to-hip ratio as the measure of obesity. Even within the Social Sciences there are different disciplines, for example those more familiar with qualitative than quantitative research methods, and vice versa - when a mixture of the two approaches would create a richer picture of the social problem being studied.

We are already working on this problem by using a combination of: 1) studying the way Social Scientists and Health Scientists use information for research; and 2) building web-browser based software to make it easier for researchers from different backgrounds to find the right data for their research question - supporting one another through social networks -like 'Facebook for Scientists'. The prototype of this system is called MethodBox and can be found at www.methodbox.org. Studies of the prototype have shown it is very popular with users from a wide range of backgrounds. By examining the way people use the system we can see that it could be developed further: moving from a simple system to help people find the data they are looking for to a more complex system that raises awareness of data and methods the researcher may not have considered. This awareness might be raised in new ways by harnessing the way researchers interact with datasets and with one another on-line. Like the shopping website Amazon, a user might be prompted "other researchers who selected your data items also selected these items...". This is particularly important with the growth in scientific knowledge because it is becoming less realistic for a researcher to have read all relevant papers before they start their research - for example last month over two thousand new papers were published on obesity.

With a sustained effort, beyond the funding period of the initial eScience Node project, MethodBox could be made ready for the national data services to use. This proposal seeks that sustainability funding so the Economic and Social Data Service and the UK Data Archive can have a reliable socially networked way that users can access archived data and share expertise. It is likely that MethodBox can release more research from the same level of investment in data services because users have a new facility for supporting one another. So investing in this project will multiply the large investments in data services. This proposal is directly in line with the "e-Infrastructure" changes that a recent report across the UK Research Councils called for.

Public sector professionals:-
We will enable public sector workers in the NHS and local authorities to collaborate in Social Science and use social research resources to support professional decision-making. For example, Public Health professionals having easy access to templates for extracting data from the Health Surveys for England (HSE) may avoid duplication of effort in local health surveys where population sizes are large enough to use HSE data instead - we have already identified such cases and avoided waste of public money. The ease of access will be provided via www.methodbox.org. We have already run training courses for Public Health professionals with MethodBox - the Public Health service is now asking for its early public release. Enabling the networking of datasets, expertise and methods for data preparation and analysis can help drive greater value from existing investments in survey data and research. We anticipate these improvements will translate into valuable Social Sciences and Public Health learning. In particular we see potential for wider use of secondary survey research in service needs assessments, impact assessments and policy option appraisals. Research undertaken within Obesity eLab eSocial Science Node identified both an interest in the use of secondary survey analysis in the public sector and an acknowledgement that many analysts felt they lacked the knowledge or skills to carry out such research. Further work led to new collaborations between Social Scientists and Public Health professionals over equity audit. In the Scale node we will build on the relationships forged in Obesity eLab to develop innovative resources for interdisciplinary collaboration - a step beyond sharing resources. This will positively impact local communities by bringing more relevant information to bear on the decisions made over local services, as well as benefiting the researchers concerned by increasing the impact of their work.

Society:-
The most recent ESRC Strategic Review, Delivery Plan and the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods' consultation in 2009 all identify the need for collaborative, interdisciplinary working for social impact. MethodBox will promote interdisciplinary working by making it easier for users from different disciplines to share their expertise over uses of common data services. This increased awareness and sharing is likely to improve the capability of research based to generate new insights into complex social problems such as obesity.

Users of data services:-
By working closely with ESDS/UKDA this project will bring a new scientific social networking interface to data services. The evidence of working with the MethodBox prototype in the current eScience Node indicates that this addition to data services will make it easier for inexperienced users to start using the services, and make it easier for experienced users to disseminate their expertise in ways that make them feel rewarded. MethodBox is therefore likely to increase the user-base and usability of data services.

Data service and project staff:-
The explicit transfer of eScience knowledge from this projects staff to ESDS staff will develop new informatics capability in the data services. Reciprocally, embedding the work in a data service in this way will seed future collaborations to harness generic innovations in eScience and shape them for social research.