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Record W4382618980 · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2306.16177

Defining data science: a new field of inquiry

2023· preprint· en· W4382618980 on OpenAlexfundno aff
Michael L. Brodie

Bibliographic record

VenuearXiv (Cornell University) · 2023
Typepreprint
Languageen
FieldBusiness, Management and Accounting
TopicBig Data and Business Intelligence
Canadian institutionsnot available
FundersUniversity of Toronto
KeywordsData scienceComputer scienceField (mathematics)Ontologye-ScienceParadigm shiftScope (computer science)Philosophy of scienceCyberinfrastructureBig dataManagement scienceEpistemologyData miningMathematics

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Data science is not a science. It is a research paradigm. Its power, scope, and scale will surpass science, our most powerful research paradigm, to enable knowledge discovery and change our world. We have yet to understand and define it, vital to realizing its potential and managing its risks. Modern data science is in its infancy. Emerging slowly since 1962 and rapidly since 2000, it is a fundamentally new field of inquiry, one of the most active, powerful, and rapidly evolving 21st century innovations. Due to its value, power, and applicability, it is emerging in over 40 disciplines, hundreds of research areas, and thousands of applications. Millions of data science publications contain myriad definitions of data science and data science problem solving. Due to its infancy, many definitions are independent, application specific, mutually incomplete, redundant, or inconsistent, hence so is data science. This research addresses this data science multiple definitions challenge by proposing the development of coherent, unified definition based on a data science reference framework using a data science journal for the data science community to achieve such a definition. This paper provides candidate definitions for essential data science artifacts that are required to discuss such a definition. They are based on the classical research paradigm concept consisting of a philosophy of data science, the data science problem solving paradigm, and the six component data science reference framework (axiology, ontology, epistemology, methodology, methods, technology) that is a frequently called for unifying framework with which to define, unify, and evolve data science. It presents challenges for defining data science, solution approaches, i.e., means for defining data science, and their requirements and benefits as the basis of a comprehensive solution.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.094
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.080
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Theoretical or conceptual · Consensus signal: Theoretical or conceptual
GenreCandidate signal: Methods · Consensus signal: Methods
Teacher disagreement score0.094
Threshold uncertainty score0.496

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0940.080
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0040.002
Bibliometrics0.0160.022
Science and technology studies0.0100.068
Scholarly communication0.0410.078
Open science0.0060.020
Research integrity0.0090.028
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0040.002

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.386
GPT teacher head0.290
Teacher spread0.096 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designTheoretical or conceptual
Domainnot available
GenreMethods

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations0
Published2023
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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