Work. Finish. Publish. Release.

We’ve been talking a lot about “transparency” and what it means for academic work. In fact it’s written into the Academic Affairs Technology Plan under the principle of “openness”, but what does transparency mean, or more important, what does it look like? This question returned a wealth of resources that pointed to individual examples but the most interesting project that demonstrated transparency (to its fullest definition), is the growing movement called “Open Notebook Science.”

The idea behind the project is that the research process, generally guarded and impenetrable until publication time, is made visible and reusable to anyone and everyone. This involves opening your ‘notebook’ and posting data, raw and unfiltered, and research methodology, online. Transparency in this case, according to chemistry professor Dr. Jean-Claude Bradley of Drexel University “facilitates rapid access to existing and new collaborators, as well as exposing our work to the scrutiny of many, which can only make it better.” Though this idea might seem radical it’s not breaking new ground and is actually part of a growing trend in science towards transparency. Certainly not all research is suited for this approach but in cases where data can be shared to move forward related research without compromising intellectual property it can have significant contributions.

How is research shared in a collaborative, public environment? Dr. Bradley explains:

"There is currently a growing movement in science to make research results more accessible, fueled in part by pressure from funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health.

We have found that social software tools such as blogs, wikis and mailing lists can be used very effectively to disseminate active research prior to publication in traditional journals. A wiki can serve as a convenient online laboratory notebook, with each experiment recorded on a new page. Additions and changes to the wiki are easily tracked with its built-in version tracking system. The use of a hosted wiki further affords third-party time stamps to prove who knew what when. The blog component serves as a convenient vehicle to report milestones and discuss project ideas, linking back to specific experimental details in the wiki."

The use of such a system allows other researchers to benefit from information gleaned from “failed” or incomplete experiments. Perhaps of even greater importance, working openly can catalyze the forging of new collaborations that would not otherwise have formed. All of the docking and testing collaborations that we currently have came about as a result of disseminating our results using social software.” (For the full text interview: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/87/8706sci2.html)

Another benefit of the open approach is that as the number of researchers increases, the quality of information returned by internet searches will increase; a direct benefit of the collective intelligence of the entire community of people participating and contributing. While this definition is on one end of the spectrum, it provides an example of how some are approaching transparency.

For more information about Dr. Bradley and the Open Notebook Science, visit the following sites:
E-Learning Blog: http://drexel-coas-elearning.blogspot.com
E-Learning Podcast and Screencast: http://drexel-coas-talks-mp3-podcast.blogspot.com
Open Science Research Blog: http://usefulchem.blogspot.com