Friday, January 11, 2008

Science 2.0

Yet another space that admits to a web 2.0 avatar is Science!

Here's an amazing Scientific American article I came across this morning - Science teachers, please take note! It's called 'Science 2.0: Great New Tool, or Great Risk?' which is not just an article but a web 2.0 "experiment" in "networked journalism", since the article itself will be re-written with views of all those who comment on it. Probing the role of open, collaborative technologies such as blogs and wikis within an inherently "secretive" research communtiy, the issues that the article is urging readers and contributors to look at (in the context of scientific journalism) --

  • What do you think of the article itself? Are there errors? Oversimplifications? Gaps?

  • What do you think of the notion of "Science 2.0?" Will Web 2.0 tools really make science much more productive? Will wikis, blogs and the like be transformative, or will they be just a minor convenience?

  • Science 2.0 is one aspect of a broader Open Science movement, which also includes Open-Access scientific publishing and Open Data practices. How do you think this bigger movement will evolve?

  • Looking at your own scientific field, how real is the suspicion and mistrust mentioned in the article? How much do you and your colleagues worry about getting “scooped”? Do you have first-hand knowledge of a case in which that has actually happened?

  • When young scientists speak out on an open blog or wiki, do they risk hurting their careers?

  • Is "open notebook" science always a good idea? Are there certain aspects of a project that researchers should keep quite, at least until the paper is published?

1 comment:

Jean-Claude Bradley said...

Science 2.0 tools are useful for scientists but also offer up great new opportunities for teaching if educators learn how to use them. Keep up the good work of reporting on these!