Open Access, Web 2.0

Openness helps everyone

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Bursty science depends on openness:
[Via Science in the open]
An example of a social network diagram.Image via Wikipedia

There have been a number of interesting discussions going on in the blogosphere recently about radically different ways of practising science. Pawel Szczesny has blogged about his plans for freelancing science as a way of moving out of the rigid career structure that drives conventional academic science. Deepak Singh has blogged a number of times about ‘bursty science‘, the idea that projects can be rapidly executed by distributing them amongst a number of people, each with the capacity to undertake a small part of the project.
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There will be many of these little experiments – using online conversations for scientific endeavors. Even inside an organization, having an online area to ask for help can be useful. Trying to use email for this purpose has little effect.

There are several ways to  use Web 2.0 approaches to ask/answer questions. An online forum works well if it is substantially populated and active. A forum with a 3 month old unanswered question will not be very useful.

One approach that works is to have one person, or a small group, act as troubleshooters. They probably already exist in many organizations. They are the ones every one goes to when they have a problem in the lab.

They usually have a wide range of knowledge and often work to help people find a solutions to a research problem.

Have these people move online. A troubleshooting page on a wiki would allow questions to be asked. The troubleshooters have the opportunity to find answers. FAQs could be written to respond to the endless questions many troubleshooters receive.

Then when someone asks for some help, there is already a team with responsibility to find answers. And, because all this is open and transparent, the troubleshooters can finally get the well deserved credit they should.

Helping in the lab is generally invisible to others, particularly when evaluation time comes around. It is hard to document just what the help accomplished.

A troubleshooting wiki, on the other hand, would provide ample documentation on just what help was provided and the effect that help had on the organization. The ability to actually document who helps the organization move forward will be very valuable.

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General, Open Access, Web 2.0

Science in the open

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University by jeffpearce
Progress toward Public Access to Science:
[Via PLoS Biology: New Articles]

PLoS Chairman of the Board Harold Varmus applauds the newly enacted NIH public access policy as a positive step toward ensuring greater access to and better use of the scientific literature.

This very nicely discusses some of the recent changes that are making Open Access to scientific information a going concern. Anyone receiving money from NIH has to deposit the accepted manuscripts into PubMed Central and allow freely available viewing within 12 months.

He also mentions the continuing problem of copyright. Many journals require the authors to turn over all rights to the journal in order to have the paper published. This is becoming a problem in the Web 2.0 world, since the concerns of the author do not often match those of the publisher.

As Varmus writes:

Finally, unless authors modify their copyright agreements with journals before publication—something they are urged to do—journals will continue to retain inappropriate control over the use of their articles, which is currently confined largely to reading online for most articles in PMC.

Harvard has recently addressed this. Faculty members must grant a non-exclusive license to the University for it to post on a website it maintains, one that is open and free. Faculty can opt out of this on a case by case basis if the journal will not permit this.
Varmus comments:

Moreover, the nuisance of writing to the Provost every time a desired journal refuses to conform to the Harvard policy may cause faculty members to rethink their choice of venue, thereby minimizing use of the “opt-out” option.

The journals make their reputation based on the reputations of its author scientists. If a journal has a restrictive copyright policy, these scientists may go elsewhere, putting pressure on the journal to adopt more open access.

This story is not over yet. But it has the potential to revolutionize scientific publishing. Stay tuned.

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General, Open Access

Teaching science

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structure by Vik Nanda

Rethinking Outreach: Teaching the Process of Science through Modeling:
[Via PLoS Biology: New Articles]

How can we get high school students interested in science? Here is a program that matches students with researchers, with the purpose of building a physical model of the protein being investigated in the lab.
What an outstanding idea! Not only did these students learn a great deal about how research is actually done but they also were instrumental in helping the researcher have some of the tools he needed.

These sorts of interactions will always be needed. Humans like to interact personally with others. But, Web 2.0 technologies can make it easier for these sorts of interactions to take place. Meetup is a great example of this.

There are already hints that scientific meetings may take a similar path. Again, not to replace the conferences already taking place but as an adjunct.

Update: Of course, Web 2.0 approaches can also expand the reach of teaching and communications. A great example was the recent EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Online Focus Session.

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Open Access, Science, Web 2.0

Old versus New

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sheet music by cesstrelle74
Web 2.0: In defense of editors:
[Via Bench Marks]

Ran into a few very interesting (and very different) articles last week, which I wanted to comment on (more posts to follow).
First up is a blog posting on Sciencebase that quotes chemist (and blogger) Joerg Kurt Wegner, with a proposal that the solution for information overload is to do away with editorial oversight and instead rely on social software. Now, obviously, I’m heavily biased here, and I admit that up front. I’m an editor, it’s what I do for a living, and if I didn’t think I made valuable contributions, I would do something else. That said, there are several problems with Wegner’s proposal.
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Web 2.0 encourages people to publish quickly, then work to make it better. This may not be the best route for many scientific endeavors, particularly biological ones.

Editors and peer reviewers perform a vital task – they make sure that the science is done right. It requires special training and a firm understanding of the topic to do this well. Even then there are some important mistakes, as recently happened in Proteomics, where a misleading and plagiarized article was published in February.

The editors/reviewers made a mistake in allowing publication. But the errors and plagiarism were discovered by well-educated people (mostly other scientists and interested individuals) on the web. And this information spread rapidly, forcing the journal to publish a retraction and pull the paper.

Science will need editors and peer reviewers from some time, since good science does require careful scrutiny by experts. But, of necessity, this will be a small group of people, who may not see the forest for the trees.

Perhaps some middle ground will be found between the old approaches and the Wikipedia’s of the world. I am sure that the editors of Proteomics, whose reputation was hurt by this, would have liked to have some way for a larger group to review before publication.

Preprints have been the standard way of sending a draft around to colleagues in order to get comments. Web 2.0 approaches using Open Science may hold similar appeal. Many hard science papers (physics, math, etc.) are online at very early points in the process.

The journal Nature is doing something similar with Precedings. These will be important adjuncts to the old way.

They will enhance but never replace. At least for scientists.

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Knowledge Creation, Open Access, Web 2.0

Public collaboration

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leafby Clearly Ambiguous
Work-in-Progress Culture:
[Via Transparent Office]
Michael Idinopulos makes a great observation – Web 2.0 is collaboration in public. Fewer closed doors and more open hallways.

The real paradigm shift in Web 2.0, I believe, is the blurring the line between publication and collaboration. In the old days, people collaborated in private. They talked to their friends and colleagues, wrote letters. Later they sent emails. All the real thinking happened in those private conversations. Eventually, once the key insights had been extracted, refined, and clarified, they published: books, articles, speeches, blast memos, etc.To me, the really exciting thing that’s happening in Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 is that more and more of those private “pre-publication” interactions are happening in public (or at least semi-public). I think of this as the dawn of the “Work in Progress” culture. We no longer think that something has to be finished before we let strangers into the conversation.

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It will be a difficult transition for many people, since it may be harder for them to totally ‘own’ a work but the pathway that was taken will be available for others to follow; the nooks and crannies. It will be harder to end up in a dead-end when others are there to help you out. And, because of the Long Tail, there will be someone available to help.

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General, Knowledge Creation

Slides gone bad

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This is pretty hard to believe. 65 slides! And there are so many things wrong with each slide: horrible colors, too much clutter on slides, fonts too small. Just to name a few.

Each slide would have to take several minutes to get through, by which time everyone is zoned out and does not get the message. And, with no context, the slides can not be understood by anyone who was not present.

These are nice examples of what not to do.

Your moment of (slideument) Zen:
[Via Presentation Zen]

Coke_ppt_3

Coke3_3 Coke_ppt2_3

Three sample slides for your contemplation courtesy of a 65-slide PowerPoint deck from the world’s biggest brand.

Source: Coca-Cola Japan. Go to the site (investor relations page) and download the presentation slides (1.5MB pdf) and enjoy the journey yourself. The slide deck is ‘the real thing.’ H/T Samuli.

• What’s a Slideument?

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