In STS we talked about tacit knowledge and how information is much more effectively spread through communities of practice than through books. The general consensus in class was that online learning could never replicate a classroom environment. One might imagine that personal communication is even more important in state-of-the-art science and technology. A fundamental tenet of science and engineering is reproducibility of others work. But given the importance of tacit knowledge, this isn't easy. The New Yorker recently reported on the Journal of Visualized Experiments, where researchers post videos of their experiments so that others can see them and replicate them. The article above gives examples of how the videos can make subtleties of experiments evident that would have been hidden otherwise. These videos suggest how poorly traditional journal articles share subtle information. Once upon a time, if one wanted to replicate the work of another scientist, the approach might have been to spent time in her or his lab, or perhaps recruit someone who had worked in that lab to come join you. Will the widespread availability of information through these kinds of channels make personal communications less valuable?
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