HISTORY OF SCIENCE DEPARTMENT

Professor Donald deB. Beaver, a member of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics, gave an invited paper on the topic of collaboration in scientific research at its 9th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, held in Beijing, China in August. The paper was prepared with the help of Patrick J. K. H. Frey ’03, Mitchell H. Green ’04, and Rachael G. Holmes ’03, who organized, and analyzed data from the Report of Science at Williams for the period 1965 to 2002. Somewhat modified after review, that paper has now been published in Scientometrics.

Professor Beaver’s gave a Science Bag Lunch talk on April 13 to Division III and Psychology colleagues on research productivity as reflected in the Report of Science at Williams, 1965-2002, including remarks on the epistemic authority of collaboration.

In January, he was asked to contribute an article about Science and Technology Studies (STS) at Williams for the Quarterly Newsletter of the Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology of the American Sociological Association.

In April, Professor Beaver was invited to give a paper at the 4th International Conference on University Evaluation and Research Evaluation to be held at Wuhan University in September, and hosted by The Research Center for Chinese Science Evaluation and the Institute of Science and Technical Information of China.

Based on his 33 year association with the Center for Environmental Studies, Professor Beaver gave a presentation at Deerfield Academy in June, “Environmental Literacy: What Do We Need to Know?” as part of a panel discussion about the environment.