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The Web as a Tool Rather Than a Threat

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidcjones/1422043515

About me.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andypowe11/3915450391

I live in Bath

I work at RAL

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andypowe11/3251538402

I get up in the morning

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattbuck007/3710451826

...and catch a train

...and a bus

Wikimedia Commons Succinate_Dehydrogenase_1YQ3_and_Membrane.png

Wikimedia CommonsMGMT BDNA_1T38.png

I work on...

...and get to do cool stuff

Mixture of small-lab work...

...and big facility experiments

http://www.flickr.com/photos/loty/326761635

Lots of reading...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/amagill/38961674

...meetings...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22819720@N02/2306780847

...too much travel...

...which leads to too much of this

http://flickr.com/photos/cliche/120070310/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/amagill/38961674

http://www.flickr.com/photos/loty/326761635

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattbuck007/3710451826

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andypowe11/3251538402

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22819720@N02/2306780847

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidcjones/1422043515

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laprimadonna/3611292727/

The first step...

...is to admit we have

http://www.flickr.com/photos/schnurrbart/43568532/ CC-BY-SA

0

25,000,000,000

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75,000,000,000

100,000,000,000

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Submissions to Genbank

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Average Capacity of Human Scientist

The human scientist(that’s us)

Does. Not. Scale.

The web scales

Those things you hate about the web?

...these just show how well the web scales

The web is full of pieces of other people’s work

...so why doesn’t this work better for science?

I iz ur bandhangin in

ur gel

Partly the tools...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hinkelstone/1357630710

...size of the community...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/craigcloutier/3818784742

...and attitude

http://flickr.com/photos/zanotti/314391903/ CC-BY

Let’s start with the tools...http://www.flickr.com/photos/flattop341/1085739925

Are there any good web tools for science...?

Literature management

...but this is just aggregation

Where’s the network?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luc/2515255357

Question #1

Does it do something useful?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vrogy/514733529

If it doesn’t. It isn’t.

Question #2

Does it work for your group?

If it doesn’t work here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/respres/2476519142

...then it won’t work here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mararie/3313582639/ CC-BY-SA

Question #3

Is there a community that is useful to you there?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/3746501010

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=stephen_curry+cameronneylon

...and if not are you prepared to build one?

The skill for the 21st century scientist?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/victoriapeckham/164175205

Network wiring and maintenance

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sneddon/2415792655

A lot of the noise...

...is maintaining connections

You have to build it...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luc/2515255357

Founder effects.

But does it work?

An assertion.

I am made aware of every significant document released and every funding opportunity in Europe and North America relating to web based social tools for science, open access publication, and data policies within 48 hours of their release.

Without active searching.

http://friendfeed.com

http://tinyurl.com/dku869

Pulling items from external services via RSS

A shared social net

Sharing the load

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2941559903 CC-BY

http://tinyurl.com/friendfeed-mthk-request

27 January 2009

http://gowers.wordpress.com/

27 January 2009

February 1 2009

http://gowers.wordpress.com/

27 January 2009

February 1 2009

March 10 2009

http://gowers.wordpress.com/ Nature, 15 October 2009

Hundreds of thousands...

http://onschallenge.wikispaces.com/Exp026

http://tinyurl.com/ons-challenge-spreadsheet

http://oru.edu/cccda/sl/descriptorspace/ds.php

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Drexel/165/178/24

200 individual measurements(plus 70 literature values)

20 researchers in four countriesOne undergraduate chemistry class

$6000 funding (for prizes and chemicals)

Beautiful Data O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, research, and conferences. Get the information you need from the experts you trust; visit www.oreilly.com to purchase this book.

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Rapid.

Efficient.

Superficial?

Lost in the stream...

http://flickr.com/photos/jason_burmeister/2053139930 CC-BY

http://flickr.com/photos/virtualsugar/316200555/ CC-BY

But if your objects are not open and available?

The more you publish, the more embedded in the network

Small, specific, examples. Relatively, few big wins

And limited to certain domains

50%

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We are still around here...

...but the network is growing

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50%

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1

So what to do?

What is your problem?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/flattop341/1085739925

Is there a good tool?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/micha2305/2706588290/

Does it suit you/your group?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laffy4k/88836657

Is there a community?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nihilenz/2545518545

Are you willing to build one?

Choose to publish more

This is not going away

Learn to cope.

Threat or opportunity?

Cameron.Neylon@stfc.ac.ukhttp://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopenhttp://slideshare.net/cameronneylonTwitter: @cameronneylonFriendfeed: cameronneylon

Thanks to:Sciencetwists, Friendfeeders, and the wider online community for ideas, criticism, and conversations.

Deepak Singh, Larry Lessig, Andy Powell, and John Wilbanks for presentation inspiration.

Flickr (and in particular @andypowe11) for images