Leveling the playing field, or expanding the bleachers? Socio-Technical Interaction Networks and arXiv.org

Abstract

It is has been argued that the use of electronic forums for scientific communication has numerous positive consequences, including being an important means for increasing the participation of scientists who are in peripheral locations, such as less research-intensive universities. ArXiv.org, the electronic research manuscript repository for physics and related fields, is examined to understand the level-playing field story told about this kind of online resource. A random sample of research manuscript postings from 1993 and 1999 were coded and analyzed. We did not find evidence that arXiv.org has served as a leveling influence in the fields of theoretical high-energy physics, astrophysics and mathematics. As an alternative to the standard view of arXiv.org as a level playing field, the authors present a socio-technical interaction network model that better explains the roles of online scientific publishing within the matrix of resources that support the conduct of research.