Science 2.0?
Monday, March 10, 2008 at 9:26 am UTC by David Crotty permalink
Kind of an odd editorial in the latest issue of Science. The author, computer scientist Ben Schneiderman coins what he apparently thinks is a new term, “Science 2.0″ (I’m sure he might get a few arguments on that), and defines it as the study of human interactions on the internet. It’s a reasonable enough thesis, that these tools make it easier to study how people collaborate (when using these tools), and it will be an interesting subject. I’m not really sure how relevant it is though, to scientists who aren’t studying human interactions. Researchers need to carefully pick and choose tools that are most likely to be fruitful, to add to their research rather than take away from it by demanding their time and effort. And as Jaron Lanier has pointed out, there are some problems where the group-think inherent to social networks and open collaborations can stifle real progress.
Posted in General, Online Tools, Social Software, Web 2.0 | 5 Comments »
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Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 9:11 am UTC
[...] in some lashings of your favourite Science and you’ve got Science 2.0. See also Science -2.0, Science 2.0? and Why Web 2.0 is failing in Biology for where and why Science 2.0 might [...]
Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 8:17 pm UTC
March 2008? We were using wikis, labroots, and jumper last year. hardly seems to be a new concept… yet coining a phrase is everything.
Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 8:23 pm UTC
You’ll note that the phrase was used in the Science article in a completely different context from what you’ve mentioned in your comment, hence it was new at least to a very different field at the time. And if you follow my links, you’ll see use of the term dating to 2006 and earlier.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 7:25 am UTC
Dear David,
We’re doing some interesting things with Web 2.0 tools on Sci-Mate:
http://www.sci-mate.org/wiki/index.php/About_Sci-Mate
It would be great to have a journal like yours interested in publishing a protocol that was prepared and peer-reviewed within a Web 2.0 environment?
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 7:55 am UTC
We’re certainly open to quality protocols, though the method through which they’re generated is of less concern than the usefulness of the assay described. We’d probably still run anything through our usual quality control mechanisms like peer review, but if you’re interested in submitting, please do drop me an e-mail with details.