Science 2.0
As scientists, we work with data collected from instruments. We analyse and summarise these data and we study how variables (time, temperature, concentration, …) affect these summary values to try and develop or test an hypothesis. The hypothesis can be a model in our heads or a computer programme or some statistical relationship which we visualise as a charts or graphs.
We search for what other scientists have done and read their work. We write up our own conclusions and publish them for other people to read and we go to meetings and talk about what we believe to be true. We store information, data, documents, charts and references and we argue with others in our field. We make extensive use of highly specialised (and expensive) software installed on our desktop computers to do this.
I’d like to do all of this on-line, in one place, from wherever I am. I’d like to be able to share all or parts of what I do with some or all of my colleagues, when I am ready. I want to easily handle different file formats and put the data in tables. I’d like to do all kinds of mathematical and statistical analyses, try data mining or build simulations. I’d like to visualise my data in lots of ways and write summaries with references to relevant work by other people. I want my data and ideas archived permanently and securely. I want easy access to data, software services and big computers “in the cloud”. For things I do regularly, I want to string lots of services together to automate my work and make life easier. I want to know who else is doing relevant work and be able to work with one or more people on different projects, regardless of where those people are. I want to write my papers without repeating what I have already done and, when I am ready, I want to publish my work so anyone can use my data and ideas. Sometimes I want my data and ideas to be private and confidential to me and a few others. Sometimes, such as when I publish, I want it open, transparent and reproducible. Even when it is to be published, I want some time to look at it in private, to make sure I have done the work carefully.
I want to do all that, and other things I haven’t thought of yet, and if I share what I am doing, I want it for free.
That’s why we created InkSpot
Comments
Interesting that you want *this* for free and yet there is always going to be a cost somewhere along the line, either for you as a tax payer through public subsidy of web 2.0 efforts or through reduced service quality as an organisation struggles to meet costs without financial backing or advertisers. Like you say in the open drug discovery item, things cost and take time, the same with IT.
I did a round-up of nice comments from various scientists and commentators on social media in science on Sciencebase, hope you don’t mind my giving it a plug here. Some of my interviewees had some very insightful things to say.
As a user I want things for free — of course I do, but will pay if I have to. However, if I am sharing my work and contributing to the venture, I sure as hell want it for free and I want it back when I need it. So that’s a problem if we want a sustainable activity. The UK invested significant amount of money for example in academic research into e-Science designed to stimulate development tools and systems to support collaboration. Excellent work has been done and software systems and know-how has been created, but if dependent on public grants it is not sustainable. That’s what business is for. Sustainable high quality support. The open source software community have had to innovate business models that stay true to the open, community spirit, but also make money. If Open Science is to become sustainable, then we need to find sustainable business models also. There are plenty of examples from OSS, but now it needs to be put into practice. I think it is doable. Time will tell.
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