No mention of friendfeed, so what about writing a correspondence piece on this? It could be based on http://ff4s-paper.wikidot.com/start and perhaps also put the recent NIH grant for a "Facebook for Scientists" ( http://ff.im/beKk7 ) in perspective by providing an overview over existing tools along these lines and why they are not widely used.
- Daniel Mietchen
http://www.cell.com/authors... / Correspondence: "The Correspondence format provides our readers with the opportunity to respond to an article in Cell—either a research article or Leading Edge article—that has been published within the last 2 months. Correspondence should be no more than 900 words in length with up to five references and should be of interest to the broad...
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- Daniel Mietchen
Now that sounds like a good idea! I'm all for it - especially mention the gazillion "facbook for scientists" already out there.
- Björn Brembs
333 words so far, and once the generic FF description and some highlights from the spreadsheet are in, we will be near the limit. So probably no time to dwell on fb4sci, though I would still like to mention the NIH grant in the hope that those people will build on the ideas we lay out.
- Daniel Mietchen
Maybe steer away from a "but we want to talk about friendfeed" towards more "there is a much richer set of tools out there...and here is a good example..."? Might mean the Fb4Sci stuff can get squeezed in?
- Cameron Neylon
I would actually prefer the Fb4Sci stuff in there, and the article would be more balanced if we were to name a few more services that offer microblogging (I listed some in the Organization part of the document). FF can then be described in two sentences as a particularly useful example because it provides hierarchies of threaded conversations in which the most current and the most popular entries compete for the top of attention.
- Daniel Mietchen
Correspondence has to be submitted within two months, so we got four weeks to go if we are to submit something on the matter. Perhaps we can indeed expand this into a general overview on the potential of web 2.0 stuff for science. To this end, I just started a vote on the "open science breakthrough of the year" at http://ff.im/cidKG .
- Daniel Mietchen
thanks guys - a very interesting read (the paper, these responses, the etherpad document). I've added a couple of possibly-relevant points to the etherpad doc. :)
- Allyson Lister
...bumping to remind me to try and do something about this before deadline...
- Cameron Neylon
To those coordinating this: let me know if you need any extra help with anything...
- Allyson Lister
Allyson, help with shortening the FF part and with adding in something on the non-FF alternatives would certainly do something good to push things forward at this stage. Thanks!
- Daniel Mietchen
Edited a bit and tried to merge the new contributions into the draft. The word count for the FF part now stands at ~570 excluding FF real science examples. I still don't see how we can give an overview of more than one of these services and accomplish anything better than a boring enumeration without spirit. On the contrary, people will just get the impression that scientists can't make...
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- Björn Brembs
Thanks, Pierre, was already mentioned. Just added some examples from this spreadsheet. Word count is now at 760. Tasks remaining (if you agree on the general structure): polishing and final, concluding paragraph. Tasks remaining if you don't agree: re-write :-)
- Björn Brembs
have removed a few words, tightened things up. will do more as time permits
- Allyson Lister
953, so some trimming needed. Mentioned the NIH grant in the roundup section. Which references to take?
- Daniel Mietchen
Good job, Daniel! I think the references are fairly clear, most of them are in the text already (i.e., papers from FF). We have until December 30 to get it all finalized, so we have some time, but I'd rather get it there sooner than later. I think a few more runs of polishing and honing and we should get the final author list together and submit. I suggest everybody who wants to be an author leave the URL to their FFfeed at the end, that way readers get an idea of what FF looks like.
- Björn Brembs
What about signing with a group pseudonym (something like D H J Polymath; http://arxiv.org/find... ) and a link to this thread or the etherpad?
- Daniel Mietchen
I have inquired with them whether links count as references.
- Daniel Mietchen
What about the title? "Should you be sharing science online?" would be my favourite but it is not reflective of the current emphasis. Any suggestions?
- Daniel Mietchen
Pierre - good one. Perhaps add FF as initials?
- Daniel Mietchen
BTW, the doi does not resolve - anybody has the correct one?
- Björn Brembs
I like Clay's idea for a title: "It's not information overflow, it's filter failure " :)
- Allyson Lister
884 words, and a few more slight tweaks. This means we could probably fit an entire sentence about other approaches' existence, if we wanted :)
- Allyson Lister
Right now this sentence is a mixture of DOIs & links: which to use? : "Such conference coverage has even received direct (e.g. ISMB09 http://www.iscb.org/ismbecc..., BioSysBio09 http://dx.doi.org/10...) or indirect (e.g. ISMB08) support from the conference organizers, see e.g. http://friendfeed.com/ismbecc... ." We can convert them all to links, & save some of the 5 publications, but all three examples here have papers associated with them (well, ISMB09 paper is accepted)
- Allyson Lister
Ah - actually it looks like the ref we would use for ISMB08 is actually ref 1 - am I correct? There isn't much detail in ref 1 yet. That could solve part of the problem
- Allyson Lister
I'd also like to find that out, but the DOI does not resolve (for me?). Haven't looked at ref1 yet, to determine if it's redundant.
- Björn Brembs
Sorry - yes, @Daniel, the DOI seems broken, but the genomebiology link is the correct one. If we're limited for references, we could just link to the FF room, which is http://friendfeed.com/biosysb...
- Allyson Lister
We have 5 references and thus I added Allyson's to make it 5 :-)
- Björn Brembs
Question as to whether its advisable to include reference to the RW room. I think someone raised this somewhere but I can't see the discussion now.
- Cameron Neylon
Otherwise made a few very minor changes
- Cameron Neylon
@Cameron - yep, a few of us have brought up that point (me and michael and some others I think in the etherpad doc). I'm happy to go with whatever the owners of the room, or the general consensus, wants :)
- Allyson Lister
RW room discussion is in the header of the document. IMHO there are several crucial reasons for finally going public: it's a grey area probably still fair use; more subscribers mean more access; readers will see the usefulness of this room, even if they don't get any of the other features; the kinds of hoops we have to jump through to get access need to be made public and the room has a significant record now.
- Björn Brembs
I think we need to drop ref 6 since we only have 5 and it's not a journal article, correct?
- Björn Brembs
With Etherpad deleting everything by March 31, we should think of ways to archive existing pads - particularly relevant for this one, as it was meant to be citable. As far as I can tell, none of the currently available options preserves the version history, so if we want to have that, we should do a screencast.
- Daniel Mietchen
Indeed, we need to think of something!
- Björn Brembs
Incidentally, the threat of such services disappearing certainly contributes to the hesitation of people to adopt social networks, and the best ways I see to cope with that problem is to have either open standards on data portability, or - better still - social networks (or at least one of the most suitable ones) that are built entirely open source platforms, with open configuration (and of course data portability too). Any suggestions on whether and how this could fit into the concluding paragraph?
- Daniel Mietchen
Isn't it already in there, sort of? Where we write that these tools are in development and NIH funded?
- Björn Brembs
from iPhone
Haven't seen mention of open source and open standards in the news on these NIH grants, so it may be worth making more clear that this is needed.
- Daniel Mietchen
Upon feedback from Graham, I took the RW reference out. Still think some mention of Open Source would be good. http://www.nih.gov/news... does not mention it. 816 words.
- Daniel Mietchen
Can we be part of that feedback, please? I find the RW functionality so convincing for non-social web users that I fear the whole article might be wasted, i.e, preaching to the converted, without this component.
- Björn Brembs
It was in a DM that I just forwarded to you (dunno whether that works), and I asked him to comment here too.
- Daniel Mietchen
Did anyone manage to do a screencast? I could try and do that today if its useful? But maybe better to wait until you feel is finished?
- Cameron Neylon
I think we should wait until it's basically submitted.
- Björn Brembs
Nothing wrong in testing, otherwise I'd also wait till it's submitted. @Björn - sent you screenshot.
- Daniel Mietchen
I'll comment once I get back form work (only have internet access here during lunch hour).
- Graham Steel
Right. 1) Having consulted with Bill, we have (the same) mixed views vis a vis raising the visibility of the RW room. 2) We don't feel that we "own" the room though, it belongs to everyone who uses it. 3) We agree that a poll should be set up for subscribers of the RW room to vote on the issue of whether or not they feel it appropriate to raise visilbility of the room outwith FF. 4) The poll is http://www.micropoll.com/akira... and I'll post a link to it in the RW room shortly.
- Graham Steel
Apart from inclusion of the RW room, the title has not been decided yet. Two suggestions are in there now (I threw away my older one).
- Daniel Mietchen
Also, what about the "like=bookmark" discussion? I would like to see that paragraph go back in.
- Daniel Mietchen
I thought that like=bookmark was clear from the context? If not, then it should be easy to add a sentence to make it explicit.
- Björn Brembs
Björn - see chat bar - Michael was not comfortable with the notion. Any other opinions? Also turned Shirky quote from title to quote and set the title to "Social filtering of scientific information - a view beyond Twitter".
- Daniel Mietchen
Besides, FF search has now been unusably slow for weeks, so I wonder whether we should take this formerly excellent feature off the draft. See also http://ff.im/cO3Jw .
- Daniel Mietchen
Two weeks left to submit. I plan to do it on Sat (Dec 19) around noon UTC. Still to address: RW room and perhaps ephemerality of non-Open Source services like FF. I think I saw somewhere that FF have released (part of) their source code, or plan to do so. Anyone know details?
- Daniel Mietchen
Added "the permanence of services whose source code is not public" as an unresolved issue. brushing welcome. What about the RW room?
- Daniel Mietchen
Also, authors need to identify themselves in the document, or they will be missed. Academic affiliations and FF feeds, please!
- Björn Brembs
Like the current version a lot! Also the source code permanence point was important! We should get it ready, clear authorship and author order. My suggestion is Daniel in front, me in the back and whoever feels should have a place in the middle, but I'm flexible (or does author order matter here at all?). From Bill's argument, we should leave the reference to the RW room in, but I'm also flexible there. If there are no storms of protest now, let's keep it the way it is.
- Björn Brembs
I did some more brushing - 899 words now without the title (spot landing). As for authoring, I would really like to go for a group pseudonym (as explained above), but the submission process will probably ask for the usual contact information (incl. email) anyway. Order does not matter to me. Will check back in about 36h, with the intention to submit.
- Daniel Mietchen
I was only pointing out that if you mention the RW room at all, you might as well name it. The poll stands at 41 votes (~25% representation, but it seems to me that there aren't many more than 41 really active contributors/users). The tally is No - 56%; Yes - 32%; Unsure - 12%. I don't think the piece loses much by deleting the mention of the RW room, and it seems to me that the users prefer to continue to keep quiet for now.
- Bill Hooker
I tend to agree with Bill. It seems to me that mentioning (and in doing so effectively naming) the RW room is not what users (that cared to vote) want FULL STOP
- Jan Wessnitzer
from iPod
(1) The point of the letter is to attract scientists who are not using social media for their work to FF. As far as I can tell, the one single thing that everybody can profit from that doesn't already exist in mailinglists etc. is the sharing of papers. Moreover, this is also the one single aspect that touches every single reader, as nobody has access to all the literature. So while it...
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- Björn Brembs
(2) This has been mentioned before, but I see no reason why one would have any interest other than supporting closed access, in keeping quiet. The purpose of the room clearly is to 'document', so nobody in his/her right mind would think that their actions remain anonymous. This means that everybody participating must have been well aware that one day this documentation will be...
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- Björn Brembs
(3) I have now voted often enough to skew the results to more than 50% 'yes'. Who can verify that this has not occurred before, on the 'no' side?
- Björn Brembs
Bjoern, I do agree with your arguments. W.r.t. (3), I was merely trying to argue that the vote should be respected (if it were representative). Allowing multiple votes clearly screwed that up beyond repair! ;)
- Jan Wessnitzer
BTW, I voted 'yes' and maybe the only way to do this now is to vote openly here in the Forum!
- Jan Wessnitzer
@Bjoern: "I see no reason why one would have any interest other than supporting closed access, in keeping quiet" -- are you going to pay my legal bills for me, if I get sued? That's a completely serious question. I'm one of the heaviest suppliers of papers in the room -- if anyone is targeted, I certainly will be. I have said many times that I don't think I am doing anything wrong OR...
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- Bill Hooker
@Bjoern, cont'd: I see no reason to think that (before you fucked it up :-) ) the vote was not representative, which means that most of the RW room users were less willing than you to take up arms against their closed-access oppressors. Judge that as you will, my friend, but some of us have limited resources. If even one publisher sends even one cease-and-desist letter to FriendFeed we...
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- Bill Hooker
@Bjoern, cont'd: I fucking HATE that I have to make this calculation. I would rather publish and be damned -- if the publishers do send lawyers, mount an international campaign in defense of the room and its users and bring their shitty empire crashing down around their beancounting ears. But I have my newly acquired all-American cowardice to consider: I have no health insurance and my...
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- Bill Hooker
P.S. I do not really think I can be accused of "supporting closed access"... merely of refusing to fight it to -- not my, but my family's -- last drop of cash...
- Bill Hooker
Bjoern, I will add that any librarians in this room (and I am not the only one) may have a professional interest in keeping mum. We are pathologically helpful folk, so it's hard to resist sending papers -- but we also belong to a profession that looks incredibly askance at even a HINT of copyright-related impropriety. Are you willing to lose me my job over this? Like Bill's, completely serious question. Remember also that my job is intimately OA-related.
- D0r0th34
I cannot sit here and say nothing in light of recent input. I'll be brief simply by saying, 'as Bill and D0r0th34 say(s)'. I too am not willing to put my livelyhood on the line over this (single) issue. All my (OA) eggs in one basket re. this one? I think not.
- Graham Steel
Just a couple of points. (1) I'd assumed that most or all contributors voted in good faith, i.e. once, on this issue. (2) Having read through the draft at etherpad, I think it reads as a good summary of the utility of FF, with or without the mention of RW room (which is only one small paragraph). Is this one aspect really so important, really such a major component of the FF science experience? I think our interactions and discussions are much more important and interesting.
- Neil Saunders
IMHO, the 'no' voters here are blowing the matter way out of proportion. I'll try and put it back into proportion, which may or may not work :-)
- Björn Brembs
@Neil: Good point. I think it may not be all that much of FF for us, but for people not using social media for their work, it may well be *the only* useful thing they can see in this article. That's one of the reasons I'm fighting for it to remain in the letter. I agree, for anybody who is already using this technology, the RW room may only be a minor benefit, compared to the rest of the features.
- Björn Brembs
To all those who "are not willing to put their livelihoods on the line": what part of "document" did you not understand when you signed up? Bill used the right description for this kind of behavior: cowardice. But if you really think our little room of 40 scientists with inadequate access to scientific literature will wake a sleeping giant, I have several additional accurate descriptions.
- Björn Brembs
(1) Delusion. If you really think someone like Elsevier is risking their 800 millions annual profit in tax payer money by going after people who can barely support themselves, you must be deluded. The music industry doesn't have any profits left to lose, but publishers do. They wouldn't be making record profits during the worst financial crisis in 80 years if they really were so stupid to go after us.
- Björn Brembs
(2) Stockholm syndrome. How many salaries and healthcare plans could you pay from 800 million each year from Elsevier alone? Basically, these guys take your salary and your healthcare and then hold you ransom to shut up and keep your head down - and in response you have nothing better to do than to defend that behavior and cozy up with your captors? You must be the only ones who can see any shred of sanity in such behavior.
- Björn Brembs
(3) Hypocrisy. Isn't it hypocritical to oppose a regime on the surface but then support it when real action needs to be taken? Isn't it ironic that a German is arguing for and volunteering to putting your actions where your mouth is and Americans are arguing in favor of personal safety long before any hint of a serious threat is even perceivable?
- Björn Brembs
(4) Paranoia. There is no precedence of any publisher going after individuals. Publishers have much more to lose than we. Thus, the only potential threat is purely in your minds. There isn't even the slightest hint of any hazard for any one of us on the horizon, yet you defend yourselves against imaginary future actions of your oppressors. More than any of the above, this paranoia...
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- Björn Brembs
(5) Documentation. This thread, more than any number of exchanged papers documents how bad corporate publishers are for the scientific community. Their stranglehold on the community stifles freedom and liberty, intimidates all community members to the point that they delude themselves, develop paranoia and act hypocritically. I think this thread documents more than anything else in this...
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- Björn Brembs
(6) Anticipatory obedience. It is a well-known consequence of dictatorships around the world that individuals in these dictatorships support the dictator even if there is no explicit force, merely because they imagine some bad consequence for themselves or their family if they wouldn't support the dictator. In Germany, every child is raised with what the term 'anticipatory obedience' means. We are being taught how it works to stop all potential threats to democracy at the roots.
- Björn Brembs
1) Elsevier has lawyers on retainer, sending a take down letter costs them very little and makes a point - compare to RIAA - how many college students did they take to court? they are actually legally in their right so you would lose without even a trial 4) it's not paranoia if they really are after you. There is a precedence - in the OSTP letters someone complained about ACM going after a Taiwanese grad student
- Christina Pikas
Björn, don't take this for more than the friendly advice that it is: I don't think it will win over many people in a debate (or win you many friends) to accuse those who are not willing to publicly encourage illegal activities of suffering from delusions, Stockholm syndrome, hypocrisy, and paranoia.
- Lars Juhl Jensen
Bjorn, you have lost my respect. I am blocking you and leaving this room. My email is findable if you care to apologize.
- D0r0th34
Re-reading my posts from this morning, it seems indeed I may have over-exaggerated my points a bit too far. It was and still is my purpose to rouse people and ruffle some feathers on a topic which to me is the worst side of my job. In my frustration that even people who I thought were on my side don't dare to leave their comfort zone for something I find so important, I may have gone a...
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- Björn Brembs
Hadn't voted earlier, but vote now for the references to RW to be included in the article. (nice commentary/response BTW) . RW room is one great thing that you guys are doing and should be proud of. People like me who have no access to any scientific literature (that OA or PNAS or some other because of my country of origination (india) ) are able to do science because of that support;...
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- Sandeep Gautam
I am basically offline now and thus postpone submission until Dec 22. Hope to be able to comment in more detail tomorrow night.
- Daniel Mietchen
@Bjoern: I do understand your position, and I cannot disagree with a lot of what you say. But this is my point of view when I step back a little. 1) the number of subscribers to the room cannot claim to represent the sceintific community (they may or may not be representative, but the claim cannot be made based on the numbers). Nor do I think it can claim to represent the scientific...
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- Kubke
@Kubke: Indeed, very measured words. Last night I've also come to the conclusion that apparently, the situation is not bad enough, yet, for people to seriously push for change. It first has to become a lot worse, before it will get better, I totally agree.
- Björn Brembs
I just rephrased the critical section (lines 45-47). further brushing welcome.
- Daniel Mietchen
That letter looks great! Kudos to all of you!
- Kubke
and actually that question about ACS self-archiving came directly from a FriendFeed conversation with the kind help of Graham and Dorothea :) http://ff.im/buFyT
- Jean-Claude Bradley
What an amazing Universe we live in: a photograph from space of "a glint of sunlight reflecting off the surface of a lake of liquid hydrocarbons on Titan, a moon of Saturn."
- Michael Nielsen
Probably the best open notebook lab entry I've ever seen in Junior Lab. Kudos to Alexandra S. Andrego and Anastasia A. Ierides! - http://openwetware.org/wiki...
All of their notebook entries were outstanding. This was their final lab, and they still had the energy to keep up the excellent work. Definitely very strong talents for this sort of thing--willing to spend the energy on taking the photos and writing the detailed descriptions of methods.
- Steve Koch
from Bookmarklet
They do have a factor of 2 error somewhere, but I really don't care very much :)
- Steve Koch
That's one of the strengths of an Open notebook: such errors won't survive very long! :-)
- Bill Hooker
ditto Bill - since the results are linked to raw data errors are far less dangerous than traditional publication, where you pretty much have to trust that the authors did not make any mistakes
- Jean-Claude Bradley
The US gov is inviting comment on the Public Access to Science and Technology. http://friendfeed.com/mrgunn... I know we have some comments, can we draft a quick letter?
Will be happy to contribute and carry work load. Would it be worthwhile to write an 'international' letter that could be forwarded to individual govts (a letter that would be put forward globally, and simultaneously, with signatures from around the world).
- Kubke
Can look over drafts and do tinkering if it is useful...or just sign if it isn't
- Cameron Neylon
Cool, I'll start something on Etherpad.
- Mr. Gunn
question is: should we have 2 letters - one from US residents (whether citizens or whatever) and one from interested international folks? I don't know if they get sorted into different piles or what.
- Christina Pikas
I dont see a need for two letters. The signatures could be separated into US scientists and international support.
- Kubke
Open Notebook Science in undergraduate education. A former student in our ONS class is linking to his notebook in his graduate school applications. - http://openwetware.org/wiki...
Another example of a good unintended consequence of using ONS in undergraduate lab courses. He is a star student and did outstanding work. Clearly has a successful research career ahead of him. It's only anecdotal evidence, but I have to think that the fact that he's linking to his ONS coursework means that he's likely to be more open with his future research (when he's able to).
- Steve Koch
from Bookmarklet
@Steve... indeed... but soon he'll realize that Open Collaboration in a world where everyone is closed is not so easy... we're chem/bio informaticians are in a luxury situation in that respect...
- Egon Willighagen
Just out of curiosity, Steve, what kind of guidance did the student receive in terms of the writing itself? I like his style -- energetic (stylistically, this means he writes in mostly active sentences, uses passive correctly yet more sparingly than is typical in published scientific prose), confident (a stylistic result of grammar and vocab choice: in this case, few hedge words used...
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- Mickey Schafer
Great! It is an easy way to stand out from the competition - especially if your work is high quality
- Jean-Claude Bradley
@Mickey I'm guessing you were looking at his "final" formal report on electron diffraction. I think the short answer is that my guidance had little impact on his good writing. You can see his rough draft (http://openwetware.org/wiki...) along with my comments at that time in the margins. I do try to push the students to write in an ill-defined...
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- Steve Koch
@Egon, I do spend a lot of time talking with the students about the reality of scientific practice as it stands today. In fact, I tell them, something like, "if you continue in research, you're more than likely going to have to practice closed science. And you may even have to write things down by hand in a paper notebook! Having been through this class is going to make you hate that...
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- Steve Koch
The quote I use with my senior undergrads doing thesis writing with me: ""For those who reach maturity with their natural curiosity intact and enhanced by education, the joy of discovery is a strong driver of success. The joy of research, however, can be fleeting or at best fickle." --W. Franklin Gilmore, President Sigma Xi
- Mickey Schafer
Steve, Egon -- I guess it's true that most science is still practiced in a closed fashion, but my feelings about whether students should be exposed to the idea has changed a lot during the last year. Now, I think it's sort of mandatory that at least one person explain the option (along with OA as a publishing strategy) b/c I think it is this generation that will have to make...
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- Mickey Schafer
Steve - I think your guidance is right on track. Those who are learning to work openly (to whatever degree) are at a significant advantage for finding positions with groups who value that approach - but they are also qualified for traditional "closed" positions with the added benefit of being able to show their potential future employer what they are capable of doing in their public...
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- Jean-Claude Bradley
Most excellent. Since we're in Festive time - let's hear from...a Choir:- http://www.youtube.com/watch... How they knew about this cool development however, is beyond moi.
- Graham Steel
Health 2.0, Personal Genomics and Open Science: A Talk with Shirley Wu of 23andMe http://significantscience.com/2009... Thank you, Shirley, for a nice chat!
I appreciate the irony: a review of a Creative Commons licensed book, with a strong open data slant, behind a paywall. It's Nature's business model, and that's their choice, but it's a bit of a pity. I'll self-archive it when the time comes around.
- Michael Nielsen
I was surprised about the footnote - is it really 2011? How many "notes added in proof" will this mean?
- Daniel Mietchen
Daniel - The book doesn't focus on ephemera, insofar as it's possible to avoid, for the reason you mention. A few of the examples will date, but I expect the general argument to still be essentially correct decades from now. It's a book that's meant to help change hearts and minds through a powerful general argument, not TechCrunch for scientists, if that makes sense.
- Michael Nielsen
Nice review, looking forward to your book Michael
- Frank
The review now appears to be out from behind the paywall. It wasn't when I posted last night. I don't know why the change has happened.
- Michael Nielsen
When did you drop the working title "The Future of Science"? This is the first time I've seen "Reinventing Discovery" and a publication timeline...
- Bill Hooker
I changed the title a couple of months back - I like this one more, although it's still a working title. The timeline is tentative.
- Michael Nielsen
Microscopy Research and Technique, Vol. 71, No. 11. (2008), pp. 778-786. By providing two examples, the option for embedding 3D models in electronic versions of life science publications is presented. These examples, presumably representing the first such models published, are developmental stages of an evertebrate (Patella caerulea, Mollusca) and a vertebrate species (Psetta maxima, Teleostei) obtained from histological section series reconstruction processed with the software package Amira. These surface rendering models are particularly suitable for a PDF file because they can easily be transformed to a file format required and components may be conveniently combined and hierarchically arranged. All methodological steps starting from specimen preparation until embedding of resulting models in PDF files with emphasis on conversion of Amira data to the appropriate 3D file format are explained. Usability of 3D models in PDF documents is exemplified and advantages over 2D illustrations...
- Björn Brembs
+1 Björn - this is a most impressive piece of work !! @Daniel, I'll check those links out tomorrow.
- Graham Steel
Now I need to find out how to get the 3D model of our experimental setup into our PDFs!
- Björn Brembs
Daniel: how is imagej used to embed 3d models?
- Mike Chelen
imagej produces the 3D models, animate the embedding.
- Daniel Mietchen
That is a great link Bjorn. My student has been producing similar models of brain/brain regions that are extremely useful since one can rotate the brain, remove regions, or "slice" it at different angles (great when trying to interpret histology and also to calculate stereotaxic approaches for electrophysiology). But it never occured to me he could publish the dynamic pdf.
- Kubke
(via pedrobeltrao) A proposed author ID system is gaining widespread support, and could help lay the foundation for an academic-reward system less heavily tied to publications and citations.
- Pierre Lindenbaum
Great start! Pullquote: "In his classic book Management Teams, UK psychologist Meredith Belbin used extensive empirical evidence to argue that effective teams require members who can cover nine key roles. These roles range from the creative 'plants' who generate novel ideas, to the disciplined 'implementers' who turn plans into action and the big-picture 'coordinators' who keep everyone...
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- Björn Brembs
The dude's gettin' it: "This kind of 'microattribution' could ultimately make it possible for each researcher to have a constantly updated 'digital curriculum vitae' providing a picture of his or her contributions to science going far beyond the simple publication list."
- Björn Brembs
Fantastic article! Finally: "But perhaps the largest challenge will be cultural. Whether ORCID or some other author ID system becomes the accepted standard, the new metrics made possible will need to be taken seriously by everyone involved in the academic-reward system — funding agencies, university administrations, and promotion and tenure committees. Every role in science should be recognized and rewarded, not just those that produce high-profile publications."
- Björn Brembs
Just noticed a few glitches - ref 15 from the preface is missing and Antony's bio is missing from the print version. These problems don't show up on the LuLu preview but they do on eReaders, as reported by Abigail on her Nook. So the eReader can serve as a way of checking formatting before print.
- Jean-Claude Bradley
"What happens when a virus walks into a bar? Find out with Science Comedian Brian Malow." Oh this should be fun with Brian Malow in da house with Dr Kiki and Leo
- Graham Steel
FF doesn't meet all your requirements but it does seem to work well compared to the specialized services - at least in some fields
- Jean-Claude Bradley
Well I guess that's not surprising given my biases - at some level I'm more interested in what people think I've missed than my own predjudices though. FWIW I think a clever combination of DropBox, FriendFeed and some of the elements from StackOverflow, with perhaps a bit of the coordination ability of posterous would go very close to the mark. Still need better network and filter management tools though - somehow they need more configurability but less configuration...
- Cameron Neylon
OpenWetWare is looking to make a major overhaul in the next couple months, and has a bit over 1 year of funding left. I feel like this is an opportunity to at least try to do some of the things that most people think are necessary for SS4S. Not perfect, but better so that we'd have a better idea of what is really needed. I think the time frame (now; already funded) makes "not perfect" a...
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- Steve Koch
I really like what you said in point 10. It's something that I've seen far too many scientists being cavalier about. Federation, open protocols and specifications, along with open source, are very important to science.
- Christopher Granade
Might be worth seeing how far sourceforge meets your criteria. Certainly it's totally based around objects, i.e. software projects, and there are lots of high quality open source science projects whose code is hosted there. Although it has community/social networking tools I've personally never really used these and most visits I've had to sf have either been fleeting (to download...
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- Dan Hagon
Steve, absolutely we need to keep evolving with the resources available. OWW is a great place to do that.
- Cameron Neylon
Dan, there was a conversation around using Github in a similar way some months ago and I think these things have a lot of potential as a back end. I think federation is important enough that you'd want to use a DVCS rather than SVN as a back end though.
- Cameron Neylon
Sourceforge has several DVCS options in addition to svn these days. Although github is great I would be wary of anything that requires scientists to learn the intricacies of git. hg and bzr are much more friendly to non-developer types that don't need the full flexibility of git. I've had some success using them to collaboratively author LaTeX documents.
- Matt Leifer
Matt, ok, I'm behind the times (nothing new there!). The intracies are less of an issue as this would only be a back end. No SS4S that any significant proportion of scientists use is going to look _anything_ like a code repository. To start with your average scientist is never going to touch a command line. If you're dealing in Latex you're already talking about a minority I'm afraid....
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- Cameron Neylon
There are several wikis that use DVCS as a backend. This could be a starting point for developing the type of thing you are interested in.
- Matt Leifer
LaTeX isn't the minority in whole areas of math, CS, physics....I guess that brings up the same old complaint: "science" is defined as all biomed, all the time. I'll try to come up with some more substantive comments though
- Christina Pikas
Christina, didn't mean to say it should be excluded just that a non-command line system is non-negotiable so most online VCS aren't going to be good enough as a front end. Support for Word, Excel, video, images, XML and Latex are all non-negotiable characteristics of any such system.
- Cameron Neylon
Matt, not sure that a wiki is the right starting point - the document model doesn't seem right to me, although I'm way behind on the most recent developments in Wikis so I may be out of date on that as well. What is in my head is a DVCS back end with APIs providing access from e.g document authoring systems, databases, publishers, whatever. A feed system that looks a bit like friendfeed...
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- Cameron Neylon
I wasn't suggesting actually using one of the wikis, just that they have already done a reasonable job of abstracting the version control functionality (in fact, some of them support more than on DVCS in this way) so there may be some things in the codebase that are useful. It is also an example of taking a command-line DVCS and giving it a more user friendly interface. In addition, if...
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- Matt Leifer
Ah good to know - which do you think are the best examples of these wikis? I should take a look. In any case at this stage I'm just throwing ideas out. Have no resource to actually a build anything at moment.
- Cameron Neylon
Is there actually a need for social software for scientists? Or should scientists use and customize the existing social networking tools (FriendFeed, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)?
- Martin Fenner
I'm beginning to think the main issue will be that business models for consumers services are incompatible with what researchers need. So yes, customise might be better than build but if we have to go down that route we may as well have a good idea of whats required. One person's customisation is another person's build.
- Cameron Neylon
I'd be curious what you think of HubZero, Cameron.
- D0r0th34
Depends a bit on server setup. For Mercurial I like Hatta, but it requires persistent python processes, i.e. no good for most shared hosts that only allow CGI. There is a list of RCS backed wikis here: http://hatta.sheep.art.pl/Similar projects
- Matt Leifer
Cameron, I love and absolutely agree with the necessity of "scientific objects". If you lack those, then (as Martin points out) just use the general purpose sites. In that principle, I think there are some viable networks -- DVCS systems around scientific code, Mendeley around scientific publications, (eventually our BioGPS around genes). But I think we should be developing specific networks appealing to specific groups of researchers, rather than trying to serve the needs of all scientists...
- Andrew Su
Andrew agreed, but if these are federated then they can all still talk to each other. I'm thinking more framework than site or single service. Ideally all of these things can be plugged in or wired up together...my concern with general purpose sites is primarily that they don't provide the level of trust and stability that we would expect for "research enterprise"
- Cameron Neylon
Just one comment. There are protocols out there that allow different social networks to talk to each other. There are protocols out there that allow web resources to talk to each other. It's not really that hard if everyone supports some basic standards. RESTful API's, OAuth, OpeniD/Facebook Connect/Friend Connect, etc. IMO what's more important is that any sites we design have the...
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- Deepak Singh
@D only really had a chance to have a quick look. First impressions are that it is very slick but looks as though everything has to be on the inside - I don't see much mention of pulling stuff in and out. The multimedia talks are nice but why not pull them in from e.g. slideshare to pick an example.
- Cameron Neylon
completely agreed, federation through standards...
- Andrew Su
Twitter is far from perfect, but look at the infrastructure that has evolved around it e.g. 3rd party apps, services). You don't get that kind of traction around a social networking site just for scientists. Imagine what email or the WWW would look like if there were separate versions just for scientists.
- Martin Fenner
from iPhone
Absolutely but that actually means we can build something better, and as long as it hooks into Twitter (RSS/OAuth...Deepak's list basically) we get all the benefits and all of the functionality we want - as well as a way of drawing people in. Assuming this framework is any good of course. Imagine PubMed if it had been built for the consumer web (actually maybe not such a good example...
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- Cameron Neylon
Sort of responding to Deepak a few comments earlier. Something like a social network is useful for at least one reason: recruiting scientists who aren't ready for open science, or cannot communicate openly for one reason or another. So, a reasonably secure way of making data private and shared with a limited network is a good thing, I think. I think ultimately that will lead to much more open science (my own lab started out with a private wiki before doing ONS)...
- Steve Koch
Steve, but does it have to be a social network per se, or a site for say sequencing geeks (I am looking at you SeqAnswers) with the appropriate features built in. Social networks don't have to be all in the open. Facebook is a social network. 90% of my communication on there is private and you should see how much of my Twitter usage is DM's
- Deepak Singh
Deepak, I think I was just using terminology incorrectly. I was assuming Facebook = social networking.
- Steve Koch
A great month for science, by Richard Smith - climate change emails, sci. fraud: science needs to do a better job of policing itself - http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment...
It makes the life of a blogger so easy: if it quotes Nisbet, you know it's wrong, so you prepare to destroy it on the blog. If it doesn't you have to actually read it and think....a nice shortcut! ;-)
- Bora Zivkovic
but this is the first time I see a site that is NOT PLoS that is on TOPAZ/Ambra platform. It looks just like a PLoS journal - is that good or bad?
- Bora Zivkovic
My initial reaction was thinking PLoS had a journal I did not know about.
- Kubke
"It looks just like a PLoS journal - is that good or bad? ". Can't be a bad thing, surely ;-)
- Graham Steel
You know the one about imitation and flattery. But Ambra/Topaz is open-source and this kind of use encouraged, right?
- Neil Saunders
Oh yes, I am happy that others are using the platform. Just was wondering if it can be made to look a little different, so people know it is not a PLoS journal.
- Bora Zivkovic
From Twitter: RT @mrgunn: @BoraZ Catch the faulty premise? "Scientists should be impartial, just as journalists are." LOL
- Bora Zivkovic
Look-alike could potentially be bad for PLoS if the content were to be bad and people don't realise it is *not* PLoS
- Kubke
Yes, that, at least through the interim period between now and the day when every journal in the world is on TOPAZ and looks just like PLoS....or just is PLoS ;-)
- Bora Zivkovic
world domination ahoy! anyway, isn't PLoS trademarked?
- D0r0th34
I'm sure it is. But TOPAZ/Ambra is open source and blue color cannot be copyrighted....don't know what is the solution. I would think that each organization would WANT to have a distinctive look and brand....
- Bora Zivkovic
well, look at the number of OJS and DSpace installations that are basically default. best way to avoid the problem is to make an easy templating system for TOPAZ/Ambra... and make sure that the default template is NOT PLoS's.
- D0r0th34
Jan, the point I think I'm getting to is that they shouldn't be. What matters is the interface layer, the API, and not the data format itself. I think this is Deepak's point about data warehousing versus data transport, and Neil's about the importance of APIs
- Cameron Neylon
hrm. format has a fairly substantial influence on the APIs that can be written. this is why so many are up in arms about putting data in PDF.
- D0r0th34
The thing about pdfs though is that you're throwing a lot of the information away. But maybe its a good example - pdf is fine as long as it is the interface through which people see the data (and they want it that way) but as a backend data format it is a problem? Why? Because it makes it impossible to present it in other ways (through other interfaces). So the problem is in a sense mistaking the use case and the use of the pdf as an "API for the human eyeball client" vs a data format.
- Cameron Neylon
Looking at that I'm not sure it makes sense: Second try. The problem with pdfs is the things you can't do with them. If you could pull out the data that is usually thrown away when a pdf is made via some sort of interface it would be fine. I have to say I was thinking more in terms of spreadsheets and relational databases rather pdfs though. Anyway - working out whether it was a useful thought was the reason for putting it out
- Cameron Neylon
Here's what I think Cameron is saying with "Second try": PDF is a great way to *present* charts, text, etc., based on data so you'll know they appear the way you intended--but there should always be accessible *data* (in a widely-translatable spreadsheet or database format if not in XML or some neutral form) behind that presentation. (As a non-scientist, that's what I'd do if preparing a data-heavy document that others could reasonably build on.)
- Walt Crawford
Or, crudely: PDF is a presentation format. It is not a data format.
- Walt Crawford
Walt, that captures it quite well. Treating a pdf like a data format is like treating a tap like water. Bound to end in tears.
- Cameron Neylon
Thanks. As Dorothea can tell you, I'm a big user of/believer in PDF--as a presentation format. But I understand that that's what it is. If my library blog studies were worth building on, I'd make the data available in .xslx or .xsl form (since those are widely translatable).
- Walt Crawford
Personal anecdote on the pdf front: My talks have now got so big that slideshare won't take them so I have to upload as pdf often. This is of course a pain because people can't then re-use the bits from the slides anywhere near as easily as if I put up ppt or keynote files. But pdf at least means people can see what I did and ask if they want the originals. Of course - this doesn't...
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- Cameron Neylon
Cameron: Yabbut. This was entirely independent research, with no paycheck, no sponsorship, and the *hope* of maybe earning half of minimum wage through book sales. Given that, I'd at least like to know before someone else turns it into a consulting gig or otherwise. Maybe that's selfish. I dunno: The community of wholly unpaid/unsponsored researchers isn't that coherent.
- Walt Crawford
If I could encourage researchers to consider just one idea, I think it would be the relationship between how data are stored/formatted and the end use(s) of that data. Simple example: the versatility of delimited text - you can import it to a spreadsheet, load it into a database, read it into R and so on. Similarly, realise when a format is graphical/presentation-oriented. As a friend of mine likes to say: "there's no information in a Word document; it's a graphical representation of information."
- Neil Saunders
Neil: As a simple humanist, your friend's statement puzzles me. Does this mean that text does not constitute information? And that you can't export a table from Word into a spreadsheet? In fact, a Word document is not a graphical representation of anything, and there are those of us who regard words, sentences and paragraphs as primary sources of information.
- Walt Crawford
Binary might be a better word than graphical. I think what he means is that the text in a Word document is not actually stored as text, making the information more difficult to extract, computationally.
- Neil Saunders
Walt: as someone who's drunk the OA koolaid the counter argument would be that you're better off using that research as advertising with the aim that someone will then pay you to do more. But its a classic personal against global thing- by making data available you make it more possible for more people to do effective research, raise profile and bring more money in. Doesn't mean that you personally will get that money.
- Cameron Neylon
Knowledge=People+Information , in other words Information=Data has little meaning without a Person interpreting and making sense of it. Let me know, if you need more references on this.
- joergkurtwegner
Can anyone point me to the post of neilfs on soundbite and any other references, which might be of interest? Fight information fragmentation ;-)
- joergkurtwegner
Simon Hodson of JISC examines how technology and funding policies have changed the ways that researchers share data Tags: opendata Posted by: cwhooker
- Bill Hooker
Love the intro "Scientists would rather share their toothbrush than their data!"
- Jean-Claude Bradley