Transcript FTA - European Foresight

Second International Seville Seminar on
Future-Oriented Technology Analysis (FTA):
Impacts on policy and decision making
28th- 29th September 2006
Use of the Internet for Future
Oriented Technology Analysis
Telli van der Lei and Scott Cunningham
Delft University of Technology
Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis
Introduction
• FTA processes include stakeholder identification and
involvement
•We introduce Web mining as a potential method to
accomplish this
•We present a Nanotechnology example
•We evaluate the web crawler on the quality criteria by
Schomberg et Al. (2005)
•Discussion and ideas for further research
Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis
Stakeholder identification and involvement
identification
• Need to know who the stakeholders are for policies and
FTA processes
involvement
• Lot of FTA process need a clear view of the
stakeholders and/or expert opinion
• Need to know which stakeholders are affected by policy
Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis
Innovation networks
identification
• hard: innovation literature / grey literature
• Need for tools to support creation of innovation
networks
involvement
• Communities on the Internet
• Need to enable existing coordination mechanisms
Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis
Web mining may identify stakeholder network
Web crawlers
Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis
Functioning of crawler
Nanotechnology example
• Parameters (1,2,2) – one
iteration and two returns
for forward and backward
linkages.
Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis
Nanotechnology case study
Web portals: nano.gov and nanoforum.org
• Nanotecnology has potential for the future as R&D
expenditure is rising and scientific literature is
increasing
• Nano.gov and nanoforum.org are initiatives of the US
government and the European union. These websites are
set up to be brokers of the nanotechnology community.
• Applied WebCrawler to find the nanotechnology network
for parameters (4,4,4)
• Webcrawler is initiated at top two hits: nano.gov and
zyvex.com
Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis
The nanotechnology network
Complete network
• Nano.gov lies in
the centre of
the network
• Nanoforum.org
lies in the
periphery of
the network
Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis
The nanotechnology network
Network periphery
• Contains six distinct
groups of related
pages
• These groups are
linked to each
other only through
the core
Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis
Quality of internet mining for FTA
Fitness for purpose (Schomberg et al. 2005)
• Adequacy/applicability
• Relevance
• Adaptability/flexibility
• Transformation/encoding
Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis
Quality of internet mining for FTA
Transparency (Schomberg et al. 2005)
• Models documentation
• Sources of information
• Arbitrariness – scientific set-ups
Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis
Quality of internet mining for FTA
Legitimacy (Schomberg et al. 2005)
• Collegial consensus
Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis
Conclusions
Use of the internet for FTA
•
•
-
Advantages
High ecological validity
Just in time analysis
Enablement of decision makers
Disadvantages
Google bombing
Short shelf life of analysis
No theory in innovation networks and a lack of clear
measurement of for example collaboration
- Networks are multi dimensional