Industrializing science

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Industrializing science is an idea of chopping research projects into smaller pieces in a new way, so that each person can focus on his/her own field of expertise. For example, an assessor working on a variable should focus on the knowledge and understanding of the topic. The assessor describes how the variable should be derived based on data and dependencies, but a code-builder actually writes a computer code with an appropriate software to perform the task.

Scope

How should tasks of an assessment be divided so that the work flow is as fast as possible and the tasks are performed by specialists of each relevant area?

Rationale

Tasks can be divided to specialised people. Some specific roles could be:

• Assessors synthesise information and organise it into systematic, quantitative descriptions.
• Code-builders write computer code for modelling purposes based on the descriptions provided by the assessors.
• Collectors collect and search for existing information, upload or link it to relevant pages of assessments, and categorise pages so that the information is easier to find.
• Commentators read and comment assessment pages, point out and fix inconsistencies, and ask for better descriptions.

There are several advantages in dividing tasks to different people:

• The assessor saves time by not worrying about the software-specific issues where he/she is not an expert.
• The purpose and required functionalities of the code are documented early on and to the very detail, because it must be a sufficient specification for the code-builder.
• When there are at least two people (assessor and code-builder) working on the same page, they must be able to communicate their own information and understand that of the other. The division of tasks simply forces to a minimum level of collaboration.
• The actual writing of the code can be delegated outside the research group.
• The code-builders can specialise and produce libraries of ready-made functions for typical situations.

Result

Assessment projects are chopped into smaller pieces in a new way, so that each task is described and applied by different persons. The idea is that each person can focus on his/her own field of expertise, and that the description must be clear and specific enough to inform another person about what should be done. For example, an assessor working on a variable should focus on the knowledge and understanding of the topic. The assessor describes how the variable should be derived based on data and dependencies. Then, a code-builder writes a computer code with an appropriate software to perform the task described by the assessor.