Humans in Science

Through a series of links and the cogitation that Richard’s post awoke in my under-rested brain, I came to this thoughtful essay by David Crotty on why some of the tools that ought to be helping scientists, don’t really help much. Yet.

I am particularly receptive to David’s argument as to why a wikified lab website does not catch on with most scientists. None of my lab mates wants to bother, and I don’t have the time to build the entire site single-handedly. What do they not want to bother with?

• learning wiki (or html, or any other) markup – despite what I consider some enormous advantages
• writing or retyping lab protocols – I insist here, but it’s always pulling teeth and is always done in Word
• updating information in writing that they can get orally from the other end of the bench from one another or by the phone from me
• potentially revealing scoopable information to other competitor labs (despite the fact that no one can really directly compete with us anyhow on most of our subjects)

David wrote:

For the lab notebook–which is easier, going to the lab’s shared drive, grabbing a Word document used to keep the protocols and annotating as needed, or going to the Wiki site, creating an account, signing in and editing there? Add in the worries of publicly exposing that Wiki to both annoying trolls (easily fixed, but annoying nonetheless), and more importantly, to competing labs. Factor in the need for someone to monitor and do upkeep on the Wiki. How is the Wiki any better than the Word document for an average lab member? Why should they spend the time and effort in learning something new if the payoff is not going to be significant?

Given that I can hardly get them to type up the protocols to begin with, you see my problem. This is one thing I was going to go to Science Blogging 2008 to discuss in person with other users of scientific networking tools. I’m not sure my presence is indispensable, but I’m looking into how to make arrangements.

Connotea, even I don’t bother with. And for exactly the reasons David brings up. No added value for the effort invested. I’m keen on Endnote when I write articles, and have been since version 2 in Berkeley. [Yikes! I see they've sold to Thomson Scientific, purveyors of the infamous impact factor that is (mis)used for nearly every scientific hiring decision in the world.] And the first comment here is a relevant comparison of the (dis)advantages of each. Otherwise, I use the “E-mail this article to a colleague” button all publishers now have when I do diffuse an interesting link. Perhaps I will upgrade and try to use Endnote to organize my many PDFs, too. Mostly I can find them, though, so I might want to invest my time elsewhere.

Some more institutional support and guidance for science-containing lab websites and the ability to use so-called Web 2.0 tools* would be more than welcome from the INSERM, which seems to spend inordinate amounts of energy on an elaborate public interface administrative website and none in developing a standardized template for its unit websites.

* Web 2.0, according to Wikipedia, “refers to a supposed second-generation of Internet-based services – such as social networking sites, ‘wikis’, communication tools, … – that emphasise online collaboration and sharing among users.” – from here.

Posted on Monday, May 26th, 2008 at 4:51 am Categorized as:General

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