Science 2.0/Brainstorming

This page will be a discussion on applying the principles of Web 2.0 to scientific communication. I wrote up this page just to get the conversation going, please add catgories (or rename it :). Kathleen's open science comments from her soapbox are a good starting place as well. Also, our previous discussion on future approaches to publishing.

Science 1.0->2.0

The idea here is to identify scientific structures that resemble the conventional web (web1.0), and imagine suggestions – however, wild -- for how Web 2.0-type concepts could be used to come up with new structures in science that provide that service better, faster, or cheaper As an example of this here are the analogies from the O'Rielly Web 2.0 article:

• Web1.0-->Web2.0
• Britannica Online-->Wikipedia
• directories (taxonomy)-->tagging ("folksonomy")
• mp3.com-->Napster
• Akamai-->BitTorrent

Examples in Science

• Articles published on a monthly schedule concurrent with a physical journal printing --> Articles published whenever they are accepted and posted in online format.
• Articles collected into meaningful collections by specialty journals --> articles aggregated by search engines, etc
  • (e.g. when was the last time you found a paper by perusing a specific journal in a field rather than searching Pubmed. Journal seems to be losing role of information aggregator)

Ideas for future Science2.0 projects

(e.g. Slashdot type commenting on aricles/hypothesis, etc.)

OWW as an ongoing 'Science 2.0' experiment

Openwetware is good example of Web2.0 meets science, and even though it hasn't been around long I think it already has provided some "in the trenches"-type information about where web2.0 will mesh with traditional scientific research approaches and where it will butt heads.

Meshing

• Standardizing/sharing protocols, see DNA Ligation.

Butting heads

Scooping

When we try and sell openwetware to people one of the most common responses is “if I post my project details there I will be scooped.” We usually ask that they consider a few scenarios:

1. the project is posted online, someone steals the idea and publishes before you without ever mentioning they are working on the project. Publications (science currency) for you = 0
2. the project is posted online, several people email you saying it looks cool, you push those connections and establish 4 new research directions. (one of which is ends up being Nature caliber!). Also, a competitor steals one of the ideas and beats you to the punch. Science currency = 4-1 = 3.
3. You keep information to yourself and publish your work Science currency = 1.

What this illustrates is that the question is whether you think the probability of scenario (2)/(1) > 1. This also approximates one of O’reilly’s web 2.0 principles “The service gets better the more people use it,” since the more people that buy into this model the higher (2)/(1) gets. We think (2) / (1) is already > 1, however we’re naïve graduate students. However, if this is true ‘natural selection’ will lead those adopting an online approach to generate more science currency and outcompete those taking approach (3).

Others

Other common concerns (permissions, vandalism, "own space") provided here