There is also the idea (going back to Francis Bacon) that giving
a large community access to data will lead to the reflexive/self-critical
approach necessary for improving science; we could make a big leap with “big
data”
From: The Forum for
Information Standards in Heritage (FISH) [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of LEE, Edmund
On
size, the point is that the larger the community of those sharing knowledge,
the more likely it is that there will be two or more people who can
effectively share a piece of knowledge [this is akin to 'Metcalfe's
Law' - the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number
in the network].