Onlinestudie: Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten im Web 2.0

Abstract

The Web 2.0 provides new opportunities to academic researchers for handling knowledge and information: digging up information and sources, exchanging knowledge with others, handling resources, producing one’s own content through the Web is simple and inexpensive. This article deals with the significance of the Web 2.0 to handling knowledge and information, pointing out how cooperation between many people makes it possible to create new knowledge and innovations. The influence of the Web 2.0 on academic research, its potential gain and disadvantages will be discussed and a brief survey of studies that deal with the use of the Web 2.0 by users in general will be presented. The empirical section of the article will present the method and results of a study on “Academic research using the Web 2.0” based on a questionnaire. It was addressed to young academic researchers to find out how they use the Web 2.0 for their own work. One of the results was that the majority of these people use Wikipedia the Online Encyclopedia extensively (or even very extensively) at the beginning of their research, but active participation in the Web 2.0 – say, by writing a personal webblog or contributing to the Wikipedia – only occurs on a much smaller scale. Many services are unknown or tend to be regarded with scepticism. Users still prefer their own local desktop computer to the Web for storing content.