Science 2.0 -- Is Open Access Science the Future?

Is posting raw results online, for all to see, a great tool or a great risk?

Highlighted by detarmstrong

Science could be next. A small but growing number of researchers (and not just the younger ones) have begun to carry out their work via the wide-open tools of Web 2.0. And although their efforts are still too scattered to be called a movement—yet—their experiences to date suggest that this kind of Web-based “Science 2.0” is not only more collegial than traditional science but considerably more productive.

Highlighted by benjamin

“Science happens not just because of people doing experiments but because they’re discussing those experiments,” explains Christopher Surridge, managing editor of the Web-based journal Public Library of Science On-Line Edition (www.plosone.org). Critiquing, suggesting, sharing ideas and data—this communication is the heart of science, the most powerful tool ever invented for correcting errors, building on colleagues’ work and fashioning new knowledge. Although the classic peer-reviewed paper is important, says Surridge, who publishes a lot of them, “they’re effectively just snapshots of what the authors have done and thought at this moment in time. They are not collaborative beyond that, except for rudimentary mechanisms such as citations and letters to the editor.”

Highlighted by knobas

Of course, many scientists remain wary of such openness—especially in the hypercompetitive biomedical fields, where patents, promotion and tenure can hinge on being the first to publish a new discovery. For these practitioners, Science 2.0 seems dangerous: putting your serious work out on blogs and social networks feels like an open invitation to have your lab notebooks vandalized—or, worse, your best ideas stolen and published by a rival.

To advocates, however, an atmosphere of openness makes science more productive. “When you do your work online, out in the open,” Hooker says, “you quickly find that you’re not competing with other scientists anymore but cooperating with them.”

Highlighted by benjamin

In a paper, I can see what you’ve done. But I don’t know how many things you tried that didn’t work. It’s those little details that become clear with an open [online] notebook but are obscured by every other communication mechanism we have. It makes science more efficient.”

Highlighted by knobas

In principle, Surridge says, scientists should find a transition to Web 2.0 perfectly natural. After all, since the time of Galileo and Newton, scientists have built up their knowledge about the world by “crowdsourcing” the contributions of many researchers and then refining that knowledge through open debate. “Web 2.0 fits so perfectly with the way science works. It’s not whether the transition will happen but how fast,” Surridge says.

Highlighted by benjamin

Of course, many scientists remain wary of such openness—especially in the hypercompetitive biomedical fields, where patents, promotion and tenure can hinge on being the first to publish a new discovery. For these practitioners, Science 2.0 seems dangerous: putting your serious work out on blogs and social networks feels like an open invitation to have your lab notebooks vandalized—or, worse, your best ideas stolen and published by a rival.

Highlighted by knobas

Ironically, though, the Web provides better protection than the traditional journal system, Bradley maintains. Every change on a wiki gets a time stamp, “so if someone actually did try to scoop you, it would be very easy to prove your priority—and to embarrass them. I think that’s really what is going to drive open science: the fear factor. If you wait for the journals, your work won’t appear for another six to nine months. But with open science, your claim to priority is out there right away.”

Highlighted by benjamin

Although wikis are gaining, scientists have been strikingly slow to embrace one of the most popular Web 2.0 applications: Web logging, or blogging.

“It’s so antithetical to the way scientists are trained,” Duke University geneticist Huntington F. Willard said at the January 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference, one of the first big gatherings devoted to this topic. The whole point of blogging is getting ideas out there quickly, even at the risk of being wrong or incomplete. “But to a scientist, that’s a tough jump to make,” Willard says. “When we publish things, by and large, we’ve gone through a very long process of drafting a paper and getting it peer-reviewed. Every word is carefully chosen, because it’s going to stay there for all time. No one wants to read, ‘Contrary to the result of Willard and his colleagues....’”

Nevertheless, Willard favors blogging. As a frequent author of newspaper op-ed pieces, he feels that scientists should make their voices heard in every responsible way. Because most blogs allow outsiders to comment on the individual posts, they have proved to be a good medium for brainstorming and discussions.

Highlighted by benjamin

“The peer-reviewed paper is the cornerstone of jobs and promotion,” PLoS ONE’s Surridge says. “Scientists don’t blog because they get no credit” for that.

Highlighted by benjamin

Some universities may be coming around, too. In a landmark vote in February, the faculty at Harvard’s College of Arts and Sciences approved a system in which the college would post finished papers in an online repository, available free to all. Authors would still hold copyright and could still publish the papers in traditional journals.

Highlighted by benjamin