An openwetware blog on the challenges of open and connected science

About

This blog contains the thoughts of Cameron Neylon on the technical and social issues involved with ‘Open Science’. Most people would agree Open Science includes freely accesible literature or perhaps making raw data available. Others might think it also involves people working on collaborative documents such as Wikis or the freedom to re-use the published literature or data. At its logical extreme Open Science includes making all the science we do freely available as it happens. Many people find this scarey. Some, perhaps a growing number, find it tremendously exciting.

This blog is a place for me to think through the technical problems and issues involved in electronically recording our work for publication on the web and the other social and logistical issues that are raised by making the science we do more immediately available and more connected to the world outside the laboratory.

I work at the the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the UK’s major provider and supporter of large scale academic research facilities, including synchrotrons, neutron sources, and high powered lasers. In this blog I am writing as an individual research scientist. Nothing written here should be taken or construed as STFC policy or indicative of the tenor or direction of any internal discussions within STFC.

Comments

Comment from Sharon
Time: December 13, 2007, 6:39 pm

I’m looking for some resources or direction for diving into open notebook science. I have been interested in the concept for quite some time and recently began following this blog and a few others. I am excited to see that ONS is real and growing, but I’m not sure the best places to start. I want to find out what other folks are doing, what software they are using and what has and has not worked. I also would love to chat with anyone doing research with human subjects to figure out how IRB restrictions play out in ONS.

Comment from Jeremy England
Time: July 31, 2008, 9:14 am

I’m Jeremy, a grad student doing doctoral research in biophysics at Stanford. I have been working with some other students for a while now on Labmeeting.com, which is a web platform where biomedical researchers can organize their PDFs, share protocols etc. We think it is really important to get researchers comfortable with managing and sharing information online, so we are trying to build simple, free, web-based tools that individuals can use every day to help them in lab. We have gotten lots of positive feedback already, and we are eager to get the word out to more people. I encourage anyone interested in learning more to write to contact@labmeeting.com, or just to sign up and look around at http://www.labmeeting.com

Comment from Eugen
Time: November 24, 2008, 6:18 am

Hello,
I very much enjoy reading your blog.
I am searching the net for a blog where researchers post their papers after those have been finished and styled, and getting feedback on their work. Has anyone tried to do that as an alternative to peer review?
obviously these researchers would have to be independent or from outside the academia since they would not be getting any professional credit for their work if they don’t publish it in journals.
I am especially interested in the humanities (Philosophy, Theology).

Thank you,
Eugen

Comment from Willam Lee
Time: November 11, 2009, 9:09 pm

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