Recently I was sitting at café Tryst in Washington D.C. along with Mendeley’s co-founders and a coffee house full of hipsters, Georgetown students, tourists, and a few politicos. In retrospect, perhaps this was the only setting possible to be discussing the future of research and our small part in it. We were surrounded by the common citizens who depend on the outputs of science, but had little to no power in changing its course for their benefit. More pointedly, they had no clue that science is being held back by the very people who are supposed to be advancing it.

We came to the conclusion that technology is finally at a point that if we don’t use it now, then we are holding back the progress of science. And what exactly are we to use technology on? Open science/data/access.

By our own hands

To understand how we (“we” meaning the research community) got here, we have to first briefly remember how the dissemination of science came to be the way it is. (more…)

Killing the advancement of science on the Web is killing the advancement of science as a whole.

A few weeks ago I attended a panel session at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco called, “Making the Web work for science.” (Video wrap-up here) Really, the focus was on how to get scientists to put their data up on the Web. Later that evening, I attended a post-reception gathering and briefly spoke with (name shall remain anonymous), the founder of a very popular social news media site; sites like Mixx, Digg, Reddit, Slashdot, Del.ic.ious, Stumbleupon, etc. I told him what I do and his enthusiastic response was, “Fuck the academic publishing industry!”

Now, perhaps his bold statement was due, in part, to the flow of alcoholic beverages at the event. There is more to it than that, however. He is not a trained scientist, but as the founder of a popular social news site, is very well aware of the state of science on the Interwebs. Like many people (notice the avoidance of the worn phrase ‘members of the public’ as if they are unable to contribute to science), he has a personal interest in the domain, and is trying to figure out how his business can enable scientists.

We have to wonder though, why are things so bad with science on the Web, that even an Internet entrepreneur recognizes the problem? And who or what is responsible for this mess?

Two groups are responsible: Scientists and, as you can tell, Publishers. Let’s start with the bad guys first, and then talk about the even more guilty party of bad guys.

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Last evening I attended a panel discussion entitled, “Making the Web work for Science” hosted by Science Commons. It was held at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco and moderated by Tim O’Reilly. On the panel were Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia; Stephen Friend, MD, PhD President, CEO and a Co-Founder of Sage; and John Wilbanks, VP of Science at Creative Commons.

While I was hoping more would be discussed on modeling the habits of researchers with web tools, the focus on Open Science was still a good conversation. At one point, Dr. Friend mentioned the need to publish negative results. With the ability to inexpensively self-publish and distribute data on the Web, why then, aren’t we seeing more of this?

Trying to answer from my own experience as a researcher, there are at least three reasons, or rather fears:

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