Science2.0 or "How happy is a researcher discovering the existence of Yet Another Social Network for Science?"

arXiv.org Science2.0

Science2.0, or ”How happy is a researcher discovering the existence of Yet Another Social Network for Science?”
Paolo Massa
FBK - Trento, Italy
[email_address]
http://gnuband.org
License: Creative Commons (see last slide for details)

<me> research in computer science since 2000 fbk.eu, unitn.it blogging since 2003 http://gnuband.org blogging on Nature (wow?) http://network.nature.com/blogs/user/paolo-massa/ 2.0 enthusiast ” I tried all of 2.0 things” ;-) </me>

<where> Fondazione Bruno Kessler – Centro Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica (ex IRST) Trento, Italy ~200 researchers Site: http://cit.fbk.eu

<where> Fondazione Bruno Kessler – Centro Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica (ex IRST) Trento ~200 researchers http://cit.fbk.eu Come to visit me and give a talk! </where> ADD PHOTO OF TRENTINO! Come to visit me and give a talk! </where>

OUTLINE
What is research and what a researcher does
Research2.0 examples
Why researchers didn't embrace 2.0?

Prepared for sci.bzaar.net (May 17th, 2008 – Milan)
In time of hysteria2.0 and enthusiasm2.0, let me play the Devil's advocate.
Q: ”How happy is a researcher discovering the existence of Yet Another Social Network for Science?”

What is research and how it changed

Slides 15 th Century: One person can make major contributions to many areas of science Mankind’s Knowledge Human Brain use contribute Amount of knowledge one brain can mange Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) (slide borrowed from Katy Borner)

Human Brain use contribute (slide borrowed from Katy Borner) 20 th Century: One person can make major contributions to a few areas of science Albert Einstein (1879-1955 ) Mankind’s Knowledge Amount of knowledge one brain can mange

Human Brain use contribute (slide borrowed from Katy Borner) Mankind’s Knowledge Amount of knowledge one brain can mange 21 th Century: One person can make major contributions to a specific area of science

Human Brains use contribute (slide borrowed from Katy Borner) Mankind’s Knowledge Amount of knowledge one brain can mange 21 th Century: One person can make major contributions to a specific area of science

Human Brains use contribute A brain network !!! But until we have brain interfaces (brainlogging?!?), a social network would do it. Mankind’s Knowledge Amount of knowledge one brain can mange 21 th Century: One person can make major contributions to a specific area of science

So yes, social networks do make sense for research
(amplify single brain contribution)
We are smarter than me
The Wisdom of Crowds
Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations
And research is sharing and collaboration by definition!

So why researchers didn't jump on the bandwagon of collaboration2.0?

A researcher's day (7/7) (and also an example of how not to make a slide! ;)
Research:
- Reading journals
- Checking for conferences and deadlines
- Think about ideas
- Check what collaborators are doing
- Check what students are doing
- Write one or two papers and submit them
- Go to conferences and workshops
- Organize conferences and workshops
- Review papers
- Emails
- Browsing
Burocracy
Projects:
- Try to acquire new projects
-- look for partners
-- look for funds
-- write project proposals
- Manage acquired projects
-- find people to work
-- monitor what they are doing them
-- write reports
-- go to projects meetings
Teaching:
- think and prepare lectures (slides)
- give lecture
- prepare exam, give exam, correct exam

According to the university, the duties of professors are 50% administration, 50% teaching, 50% research. Order is relevant.
Moshe Vardi
(found in Fabio Massacci homepage at http://www.ing.unitn.it/~massacci/ )
But who's got time these days?

Am I successful?
How is a researcher evaluated?
Rewards (such as funding or tenure) given based on:
(1) publications, preferably first-author, preferably in so-called high-impact journals;
(2) citations, in the same journals and
(3) previous rewards - “demonstrated ability in securing funding”.

So, "Uh, Yet Another Social Network for knowledge and ideas sharing!”
” Wow, I was so waiting for it!"
... not really!

Issues with YASN4Science
More contacts to keep up with
More content to keep up with
Time spent there is not recognized
My ideas are published by someone else

Research2.0 examples
1) Generic social network for science
2) Early publication/spreading systems
3) DIY self-publishing
4) Collaborative wikipedia-like knowledge banks
5) Social bookmarking for science

Example: network.nature.com
(forums, blogs, faces,...)
Threats:
- my contribution not recognized
- my ideas stolen

Example: network.nature.com
(forums, blogs, faces,...)
Threats:
- my contribution not recognized
- my ideas stolen
Opportunity: recognize work (associate a journal!)
JoVE.com : Journal of Visualized Experiments

1.1) Specific social network for science
Give it a purpose!!!
Example: myexperiment.org
Goal: Make reproduction of experiments easier!!!
Example: NatureJobs, Scilinks (”linkedin” for scientists)
Goal: finding jobs or finding candidates for job

2) Early publication/spreading systems
precedings.nature.com
failure?: "what if people still my ideas before I publish them in a traditional paper?")
arxiv.org
tipping point reached: "gives an (accepted) way of claiming priority on ideas, better than keeping it secret, physicists struggle to put their ideas out on arxiv as soon as possible", already citable)
arXiv.org

3) DIY self-publishing (blog!)
You write electronic documents anyway, open a blog and writing a post pasting your paper is easy, still requires some techiness.
Could blogging more harmful to a career than helpful? http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/10/11/bloggers
Personal experience: few citations I got (and invitation to speak and visit) via my blog. Also journalists read your blog (found via search engines).

3) DIY self-publishing (slides, videos)
... also for slides, experiments, ...
- slides on slideshare.net
easy to do it -> works
- videos on youtube, videolectures.net, scivee, ...

4) Social bookmarking for science
Examples: citeulike.org,
connotea.org,
bibsonomy.org
Like del.icio.us but for scientific papers
Threat: I get in my RSS reader 25 new papers tagged as ”trust” per day!!! -> too much content!!! I was much happy before!!! At least I didn't know!!!

5) Collaborative knowledge banks
Example: openwetware.org
Wiki for biology, editable only by biology scholars
Most successful example of Science2.0!
Eat your own dog food : started/used by 2 MIT centres!
Tipping point reached : Now if you are not there, you don't exist.
Wiki dynamics : from users to contributor!

So, what is the reason for lack of adoption of Web2.0 tools by researchers?

Research1.0 (email) and Research 0.1 (physical meetings) tools work well enough!!!
Spreading
1.0: papers in conferences and journals
2.0: posts in blogs
Collaboration, networking, contact
1.0: email and conferences
2.0: social networking sites
Find best resources:
1.0: journals (peer-reviewed! broken but still somehow working)
2.0: digg-like, citeulike, popular, ... (community!)

Summary
Researchers already have 1.0 and 0.1 tools that work well enough
2.0 tools:
- require a lot of time (in addition!) and don't seem to offer too much in addition
- no attribution for work , risk of "losing" ideas,
- no need for even more contacts
- no need for even more content

How happy is a researcher discovering the existence of Yet Another Social Network for Science?
Not too much ... ;-)

Thank you!
Questions?

Interesting discussions to follow
”Why web2.0 is failing in biology”
http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/02/14/why-web-20-is-failing-in-biology/
”A panel of science web publishers said scientists had consistently shunned wikis, tagging, and social networks, and have even proven reticent to leave”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/11/sxsw_science_web_2/

License of the presentation
These slides are released under
Creative Comamons
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5
You are free:
* to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
* to make derivative works
* to make commercial use of the work
Under the following conditions:
Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one.
* For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.
* Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above.
More info at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/

http://numerosybosques.blogspot.com	180
http://www.gnuband.org	26
http://numerosybosques.blogspot.com.es	24
http://sci.bzaar.net	16
http://www.slideshare.net	10
http://paper.li	4
http://1876534381.nvmodules.netvibes.com	1
http://209.85.129.132	1
https://mandev2.blackboard.com	1
http://www.parasaber.com.br	1
http://numerosybosques.blogspot.com&_=1326455472015 HTTP	1

Science2.0 or "How happy is a researcher discovering the existence of Yet Another Social Network for Science?"

by Paolo Massa on May 20, 2008

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

11 Embeds 265

Statistics

Science2.0 or "How happy is a researcher discovering the existence of Yet Another Social Network for Science?" — Presentation Transcript