Hooray for Open Science

Posted on June 5, 2007 by | 4 Comments

Social Science and Humanities bloggers have been doing it for quite a while, but natural scientists have largely been very reluctant to do this. Now, with approval of his PI, Attila Csordas will start posting parts of his Dissertation on his blog. Stem cell research – mmmm, nice! Sure, the actual data may never appear there, but this is a big move forward anyway.
Most useful is the view of Nature that he reprints on his blog on what actually constitutes ‘previously published’ work, i.e., what not to do if you want to have the paper published in their journal. I’d really like to see equivalent statements for some other popular journals as well.
And he also points to a student writing her chemistry Masters Thesis on a wiki.

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4 responses to “Hooray for Open Science”

  1. Olivier's avatar Olivier | June 5, 2007 at 10:04 am |

    Hi,
    Check out http://www.erudix.com
    It is a new collaborative website where students can share their thesis and course notes.
    If you like it, tell it to your friends.
    Thanks for your help,
    Olivier

  2. PonderingFool's avatar PonderingFool | June 5, 2007 at 10:43 am |

    I know some labs like Peter Moore’s have theses up on their lab home pages available for download. I think that is a great way to go for those wanting a finished product. The blog/wiki method I think would be very useful for drafts to be read by advisors, committees, outside readers, etc. in preparing a final draft.

  3. Jonathan Vos Post's avatar Jonathan Vos Post | June 5, 2007 at 12:10 pm |

    Outside of fiction reading for pleasure (last novels read: Carl Hiaasen’s “Strip Tease”, and Neal Asher’s “Brass Man” — third novel featuring Ian Cormac, Polity Agent) my daily reading includes several newspapers, several magazines, several blogs, review copies of new textbooks, and arXiv.
    I read arXiv articles on Physics, Mathematics, Quantitative Biology, Nonlinear Science, Astrophysics — great stuff, with just enough borderline crackpottery mixed with real theory and data to be fun. I usually read enough of PhD dissertations on arXiv to at least get a sense of the research, and maybe publish a 1-page comment someplace such as the Online Journal of Integer Sequences.
    Open Source scientific literature, combined with many Nebula nominated and Hugo nominated works being readable, free, online, have greatly enhanced my daily reading addiction, and perhaps my research and my own fiction writing as well.
    Credit Nature with at least having a stated policy on previously published, while most Universities seem not to. Also, that Nature will start publishing those great 1-page science rfiction stories again!

  4. Jean-Claude Bradley's avatar Jean-Claude Bradley | June 5, 2007 at 1:22 pm |

    As PF mentions, the wiki was in fact a really convenient way to provide feedback to my student and observe the evolution of the document through the history. I was happy that one of her committee members also agreed to use the wiki to provide feedback.
    This was also a great opportunity to cite pages of experiments on the lab wiki and milestone posts on our main blog.