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Why are some web 2.0 tools not catching on so well among scientists? What meets their needs and what doesn't? Presentation given for an audience of mostly publishers and very few scientists, emphasizing especially how academic (life) scientists interacts with the web (or not...)
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Scientists and web 2.0
Eva AmsenUniversity of Toronto
April 2nd, 2009
Allen Press Emerging Trends in Scholarly Publishing™ Seminar
The internet & science
• Scientists were amongthe first people online.
• Researchers need theinternet 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
Source: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=877
Web 2.0 as distraction
CC-BY-SA Benjamin D. Esham for the Wikimedia Commons
Science talk pre-web-2.0
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 viewsleads to a comment)
http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature05535.html
Commenting on research articles
http://blogs.nature.com/wp/nascent/2008/07/who_leaves_comments_on_scienti_1.htmhttp://blogs.nature.com/wp/nascent/2009/02/commenting_on_scientific_artic.htmll
18% of articles have comments11% of commenters comments more than once
2% of articles have comments8% of commenters comments more than once
“…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 peoplejoin one. Networks become scattered.
There is no default social network for scientists(yet)
http://www.slideshare.net/CameronNeylon/social-networks-for-scientists
“What can I do there?”
Social Bookmarking and Reference Managers
• Sharing links (websitesor papers)
• But is it necessary oruseful?– New tools only useful if
they outdo the currenttools in speed andperformance.
– Must publish, sharing isnot 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 scientistsneed 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”
“blogging can help to get you noticed”
“expands your network of contacts”
“people want to know ’what’s going on’, and if you don’t tell them, someone else will… tell them rubbish, more than likely.”
“useful for educational purposes”
“attract people to apply for postdocs in your group”
http://network.nature.com/people/eva/blog/2009/02/02/bloggers
Scientists on Twitter
http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/100-scientific-twitter-friends
358 “scientwists” as of 31/3/2009, collected by David Bradley @sciencebase
But… Information comes by very fastVery 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 usingweb 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
