Scientists and web 2.0
Eva Amsen
University of Toronto
April 2nd, 2009
Allen Press Emerging Trends in Scholarly Publishing™ Seminar

The internet & science
• Scientists were among
the first people online.
• Researchers need the
internet to:
– Look for papers
– E-mail colleagues
– Order materials
– Search databases
– Submit papers

The internet as distraction
Source: http://www.ashersarlin.com/archives/2004/09/honestly_who_co.php

Web 2.0 as distraction
Source: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=877

Science talk pre-web-2.0
CC-BY-SA Benjamin D. Esham for the Wikimedia Commons

Not everybody participates
…and 90% of content is by 1% of users!
http://www.90-9-1.com

Engaging scientists online :
• Commenting on (published) research articles
– “open peer review”
– Commenting on published articles
• Social networks for scientists
• Social bookmarks and reference managers
• Blogs
– Science blogs
– Microblogging (Twitter)

Commenting on research articles
• Nature’s “open peer review” trial (2006)
– 5% of invited authors participated (71 papers)
– Half of the papers received no comments
– Total of 92 comments on the remaining half
– 5600 page views per week (0.1% of page views
leads to a comment)
http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature05535.html

Commenting on research articles
18% of articles have comments 2% of articles have comments
11% of commenters comments more than once 8% of commenters comments more than once
http://blogs.nature.com/wp/nascent/2008/07/who_leaves_comments_on_scienti_1.htm
http://blogs.nature.com/wp/nascent/2009/02/commenting_on_scientific_artic.htmll

“…at a conference the most important things
happen in the coffee break”
- Hans Ulrich Obrist
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge244.html

Social Networks for Scientists
• Scientists already have social networks:
– Department
– Labs on same floor
– Colleagues in same field
• Conferences
• Publication and peer review
• Why not move all that online?

There are many social networks for scientists!
Too many?
Not everyone joins all networks, some people
join one. Networks become scattered.
There is no default social network for scientists
(yet)
“What can I do there?”
http://www.slideshare.net/CameronNeylon/social-networks-for-scientists

Social Bookmarking and Reference Managers
• Sharing links (websites
or papers)
• But is it necessary or
useful?
– New tools only useful if
they outdo the current
tools in speed and
performance.
– Must publish, sharing is
not required for job
More: http://network.nature.com/people/eva/blog/2008/08/19/how-to-get-scientists-to-adopt-web-2-0-technologies

Science Blogs
A science blog is a blog about science,
or about being a scientist

The science blogosphere…

Why would senior scientists
need to blog?
“can humanize scientists and science for the public”
“convince other scientists that the web is a
useful, important tool for their work”
“can help scientists stay current with the field”
“increase the visibility of science blogs”
“would give blogging more respectability” “expands your network of contacts”
“blogging can help to get you noticed”
“people want to know ’what’s going on’, “useful for educational purposes”
and if you don’t tell them, someone else will…
tell them rubbish, more than likely.”
“attract people to apply for postdocs in your group”
http://network.nature.com/people/eva/blog/2009/02/02/bloggers

Scientists on Twitter
358 “scientwists” as of 31/3/2009, collected by David Bradley @sciencebase
http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/100-scientific-twitter-friends

But… Information comes by very fast
Very little of what others say is of professional interest to me
(And very little of what I say is of professional interest to anyone!)
More reasons why scientists won’t use Twitter:
http://nachiket.wordpress.com/2009/02/15/why-scientists-wont-use-twitter/

Why scientists don’t like web 2.0
• Image of web 2.0
• Lack of familiarity with new tools
• Lack of time
• (Perceived) lack of personal/career benefits
• Fear of being scooped or losing job

Why scientists do like web 2.0
Source: http://www.ashersarlin.com/archives/2004/09/honestly_who_co.php

How to get more scientists using
web 2.0 tools?
• Do we really need to?
– Does it save time?
– Does it make work easier/better?
– Can it be used passively? (90-9-1)
– Peer pressure: Is everyone using it?

More info
• Everything I used (and more) is here:
http://bit.ly/onlinescience
• Especially note:
Science 2.0: Social Not Working transcript:
http://bit.ly/socialnotworking

Contact information
Eva Amsen
eva.amsen@utoronto.ca
http://claimid.com/easternblot