ABSTRACT
The terms ‘e-research’ and ‘e-science’ are emerging as the favored descriptors to signal both the shift in the practice and business of scholarly work, and an increasingly common direction for national funding and research priorities. As researchers begin to examine this phenomenon, it is becoming clear that disciplinary differences are crucial markers of success and uptake, with much work remaining to be done in areas outside the natural sciences (e.g., Lloyd & Sun, 2005; Jankowski, 2007; Wouters & Beaulieu, 2007). Closer attention needs to be paid to the ways in which diverse disciplines can use and benefi t from e-research-enabling technologies such as cyberinfrastructure or Grid computing. Not surprisingly, most research to date has tended to focus on the natural sciences (Costa & Meadows, 2000: 255) with some interesting work emerging around the notion of collaboratories (Finholt, 2003; Bos et al., 2007). There have, however, been considerably fewer investigations of the changing practices, cultures, and communities of scholars in the humanities as they engage with an e-research environment.
