policy lunchbox - digital science
DESCRIPTION
Given at thTRANSCRIPT
kaitlin thaneypolicy lunchbox, 3 aug 2011charles darwin house, london
digital science and the future of online research
xi. background
technology companypublisher link
london, nyc, tokyo
investment armincubator rolein-house dev
tiered approachbuild to scale
researcher-focused
1. science is changing
1. science is changing(and the research workflow)
research
idea
experiment
lit review
materials
publish
share results
retestanalyze
collect data
blocking points
idea
experiment
lit review
materials
publish
share results
retestanalyze
collect data
(to name a few ... )
types of information
idea
protocolsparameters
content
the non-digital “stuff”
articlesproceedings
share results
retestanalysissynthesis
datasets
(will revisit later)
prof activitiesmentorship
patents
text texttext
roadblocks(to name a few) ...
specialisation of tools (+/-)interoperability
accessibilitydesign decisionsthe “social issue”
2. key constituencies
(3)
machines
researchers
decision makers
machines
researchers
decision makers
...annotation
markupsearch
discovery“behind the
scenes”...
still the starting point
patents are no better(in many cases, worse)
can streamline
name disambiguation
10,11-dihydro-5-methyl-5H-dibenzo[b,e][1,4]diazepin-11-one
(still strains the minds of the best)
machines
researchers
decision makers
CC-BY-2.0 - Plaxco Lab - http://www.flickr.com/photos/34857812@N04/
trackingexpiration
the non-digital
+ordering
processing
protocols parameterscalibration
misc. lit
managing information
different types of “data”
“i invented a folder based system ...”
“i invented a folder based system ...”
“yeah, we had a LIMS. it only ever got used to store photos
from lab nights out.”
why?
experimentation reliance
data moves, grows legs
funder/instit’n pressure
machines
researchers
decision makers
how we measure impact, reputation etc.
data capture(of a different sort)
the “social issue”best practices
behaviour roadblocksdiscipline / researcher specific
paper’s still the currency
imperfect system
“Right now we're going through a Cambrian explosion of metrics.”
- Johan Bollen
Nature 465, 864-866 (2010) | doi:10.1038/465864a
there’s been a drastic spike in terms of sheer volume and type
citation / impact factorh - index
weighted citations (eigenfactor, sjr)“betweenness centrality”
alt-metrics, etc.
difficult to ... harmonise
track /maintain / mapunderstand
(even still measure)
tools for decision makers (research admin / funders)
using technology to spur cultural shift
what do we want on the back of our (science) baseball
cards?
“
“- paul groth (et al.)
Top Trumps
3. the reality
“the future is here ... just not evenly
distributed yet.”- William Gibson
changing understandings,
paradigms
technology can helpdesign decisions are key
plan for the irrational
more efficient researchincrease productivityenable reproducibility
