OpenWetWare talk:Mission

Proposed addition to mission page

We are taking three approaches to achieve our mission

1. Lower the technical barriers to sharing and dissemination of knowledge in biological research.
   • Scientific and engineering research have strong traditions of publishing research. However, the pace of publishing research (often 6-12 months) has lagged the pace of research. Moreover, much of the information generated in the course of research fails to get captured in research articles (the traditional mechanism for sharing research). Thus, we advocate new, faster timescale publishing mediums like OpenWetWare that can capture biological knowledge as it is generated to complement the existing scientific publishing mechanisms. We are always seeking new tools and technologies that make this open sharing of research easier.
2. Foster a community of researchers in biology and biological engineering that values and celebrates the open sharing of information.
   • Peer review is a fundamental part of biological research. We use it to assess papers for publication, talks to be presented at conferences, grant proposals for funding and job hiring and promotion. Thus, an important part of our mission to promoter the open sharing of research is building a community that recognizes and values that sharing.
3. Explore how open publication platforms like OpenWetWare can tie into existing reward structures in research
   • Ultimately, for the open sharing and digitization of research to be standard practice in scientific research, it will need to be integrated into existing reward structures in science. Researchers need to "receive credit" when they make their protocols, datasets, model files etc. freely available to others. We consider this to be a critical but long-term goal of OpenWetWare.

Additionally, would it make sense to add a sentence about why we care about open sharing of research and what it means for the pace and quality of scientific research?