Abstract:In this paper, we describe new methods that use the text of publications to measure the paradigmaticness of disciplines. Drawing on the text of published articles in the Web of Science, we build samples of disciplinary discourse. Using these language samples, we measure the two core concepts of paradigmaticness-consensus and rapid discovery (Collins 1994)-and show the relative positioning of eight example disciplines on each of these measures. Our measures show consistent differences between the "hard" sciences and "soft" social sciences. Deviations in the expected ranking of disciplines within the sciences and social sciences suggest new interpretations of the hierarchy of disciplines, directions for future research, and further insight into the developments in disciplinary structure and discourse that shape paradigmaticness.

Due to investments in interdisciplinary research endeavors, the number and variety of interdisciplinary research centers have grown exponentially during the past decades. While interdisciplinary research centers rely on varied organizational arrangements, we know little about the conditions and processes that mediate collaborative arrangements and interdisciplinary research outcomes. This study examines how different collaborative arrangements shape scholars' experiences of interdisciplinary research and understandings of interdisciplinary knowledge culminations in the context of university-based research centers. We conducted three indepth qualitative case studies on different centers, which recruited researchers from natural sciences, medicine, and social sciences. We refer to them as the Biotech Center, the Environmental Center, and the Premature Birth Center. Our analysis of 53 interviews with interdisciplinary scholars across the three centers demonstrates that the scholars perceive particular features of the centers' collaborative arrangements as meaningful for interdisciplinary collaboration. Specifically, the center's mission, physical architecture, and leadership and task structure were seen as affecting scholars' motivation, interaction, and inclusion in the centers, which then shaped the interdisciplinary knowledge culminations. At the Biotech Center, knowledge was This article is dedicated to our friend, colleague, and coauthor, Eliza D. Evans, who passed away before seeing our work in print. We miss her and cherish her memory.

This article presents a new, text-based measure of interdisciplinarity. The author compares the text of a scholar's publications with text from multiple disciplines and measures the extent to which a scholar's work integrates language from distal and proximate disciplines. The measure is tested on all faculty members employed at Stanford University between 1993 and 2008. Comparisons among text, citation, and coauthorship measures of interdisciplinarity; measures of disciplinarity; and other variables provide validity evidence for the measure. This text-based measure of interdisciplinarity offers new opportunities for data analysis, especially for unstructured text and within book-centric fields such as the humanities.

Objective: This study explores the relationship between online social network involvement and academic outcomes among community college students. Prior theory hypothesizes that socio-academic moments are especially important for the integration of students into community colleges and that integration is related to academic outcomes. Online social networks offer a forum for socio-academic contact and integration on 2-year campuses. Is involvement with online social networks positively related to academic outcomes? Method: This study draws on institutional and online network data. We qualitatively code text from the network (N = 8,749) to examine the extent of socio-academic interaction. Using logistic and multiple regression, we examine the relationships between socio-academic exchanges, other forms of online network involvement, and student academic outcomes in a large sample of students (N = 27,040). Results: Participation in socio-academic exchange is associated with higher grade point average. In addition, the prior academic outcomes of a student's online friends are predictive of the student's own outcomes after joining the network, suggesting the possibility of peer effects. Other network behaviors are not significantly related to the academic outcomes we study. Contributions: This study is the first to consider online social networks as a forum for socio-academic integration at a community college. Our study fills a gap in the research literature with respect to understanding the socio-academic integration of community college