Next Generation Science

As 2009 comes to a close, I would like to thank you for your readership. Just shy of one year ago, NGS launched with the goal of examining emerging technologies — including Web 2.0 — and their impact on the scientific method, researchers and the general public. Our aim was to explore The Future of Science and to create a space to discuss Science 2.0: the use of blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, folksonomies (tagging), RSS, podcasts and other approaches to participate in conversation and information flow as it pertains to science. We believe these technologies are particularly important as research moves online and becomes connected, since scientists rely on communication and information flow to share and advance knowledge.

Next Generation Science consists of two web sites:

• The Next Generation Science blog (a.k.a. NGS)
• The Next Generation Science Registry

Each site has a different purpose. Here at NGS, we focus on emerging technologies and tomorrow’s science (if you’re interested in contributing, please let us know). Just last week, we introduced the NGS FriendFeed Sciencebot, which will post weekly updates on science-related FriendFeed posts that are particularly interesting; watch for the topic FriendFeed Science Focus. Together with our quasi-monthly Science Spotlight series, we hope to disseminate interesting and useful science resources beyond what is authored here on NGS. Lastly, the Next Generation Science Registry is a digital compendium of science and technology resources.

There are several ways to connect with Next Generation Science, including email or RSS feed, Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook. If you have an internet-enabled cell phone, Next Generation Science can also be accessed via the mobile web.

Most popular articles for 2009

We’ve calculated the most popular articles for 2009 using two measures, either by the highest number of page views for the year (shown in blue) or by the average number of page views (shown in white and calculated as the number of page views/number of days posted).

Top 6 articles by page view

1. Science Spotlight – March 24th, 2009
   (article #16, 6,073 page views)
2. The Open Laboratory: Interview with Bora Zivkovic
   (article #32; 3,398 page views)
3. GoPubMed: Interview with Michael Alvers
   (article #24; 3,279 page views)
4. Content Intelligence: The Future of Search
   (article #19; 3,046 page views)
5. Connotea: Saving References Made Simple
   (article #14; 2,371 page views)
6. ResearchBlogging.org: Interview with Dave Munger
   (article #3; 2,095 page views)

Top 10 articles by average page views/day

1. Focusing on Science via FriendFeed
   (article #63; average: 65 page views/day)
2. BioKM: Cloud-based Research Knowledge Management
   (article #58; average: 34 page views/day)
3. The End of Impact Factors as a Measure of Research Quality
   (article #51; average: 26 page views/day)
4. FriendFeed Science Focus: this week
   (article #64; average: 22 page views/day)
5. Science Spotlight – March 24th, 2009
   (article #16; average: 22 page views/day)
6. The Open Laboratory: Interview with Bora Zivkovic
   (article #32; average: 21 page views/day)
7. Open Source Science Commons
   (article #49; average: 19 page views/day)
8. 2009 Top 10 Innovations in the Life Sciences
   (article #59; average: 16 page views/day)
9. GoPubMed: Interview with Michael Alvers
   (article #24; average: 14 page views/day)
10. ALSUntangled: Interview with Richard Bedlack
    (article #45; average: 14 page views/day)

Thanks for reading and all the best in the coming year!

My social network on FriendFeed (user: wjjessen) has a clear science focus, which I find especially useful for reading about open access, all types of science resources and the latest science news & research. In particular, the aggregation of scientists in the FriendFeed rooms The Life Scientists and Science 2.0 constantly provide and discuss a plethora of valuable resources and information I haven’t found in other online social networks.

I thought it would be useful to link to those FriendFeed posts that were particularly interesting here on NGS, not only to serve as an external archive but also to help disseminate the links, resources and discussions. To that end, I’ve modified Bob Hitching’s plugin Fresh From FriendFeed and Twitter to regularly check for science posts that myself and others have “liked” and link to them from NGS. I’m still tweaking the hacks, but it appears to be working as I intended (we’ll see what happens this week with multiple posts).

The NGS FriendFeed Sciencebot will post weekly updates on science under the topic FriendFeed Science Focus.

UPDATE: January 8th, 2010 I think I’ve worked out the URL bug. Instead of simply numbering posts, each post title and URL will have a unique date stamp based on the week number.

Last month, Hope started her own blog to showcase science. She’s now writing full time over at Significant Science, where she will discuss interesting, significant developments in science and medicine, as well as articles and interviews on topics such as Science 2.0, Medicine 2.0, Health 2.0, Open Science, the e-patient movement and participatory medicine.

We wish Hope the best on her new venture!

We’d like to welcome the newest writer to Next Generation Science, Graham Steel.

Graham is a dedicated supporter of Open Access. He has several years of experience obtaining and sharing information between researchers, patients and most recently research journals.

In April 1999, his brother Richard was diagnosed with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), the most common type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) found in humans. vCJD is an incurable degenerative neurological disorder that is invariably fatal. Richard died later that same year at the age of 33.

Graham joined the committee of the Human Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) Foundation on a voluntary basis in September 2001 and became a Trustee as of 2003 after the Foundation became a Charity. Graham left the organization in October 2005 and co-founded the CJD Alliance, an independently run organization involved in transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD).

Graham is also one the founding members of the CJD International Support Alliance (CJDISA), which is made up of a number of organizations from around the world:

• CJD Foundation, U.S.
• CJD Insight – for familial CJD support, U.S.
• CJD Support Group Network, Australia
• CJD Alliance, U.K.
• CJD Support Network, U.K.
• CJD Support Network, Japan
• Associazione Italiana Encefalopatie da Prioni (A.I.En.P.), Italy

In July 2006, Graham was elected as CJDISA Information Resource Manager.

Graham brings to Next Generation Science interests in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and motor neuron disease (MND), glycobiology and neuroscience. He has devoted much time to learning more about transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) and so-called Prion disease, the current and emerging rationale of treatment issues and early diagnostic methodologies, and seeking and maintaining contact with researchers around the world.

You can follow Graham on Twitter @McDawg. You can also follow all the NGS writers on the Next Generation Science Twitter account @NextGenScience.

Welcome to the team Graham!

novo|seek is an information extraction system developed by the Spanish IT company Bioalma for searching published knowledge in biomedical literature. Last month, I had the opportunity to talk in depth about novo|seek with Ramón Alonso-Allende, the Marketing and Business Development Director at Bioalma.

I first heard about novo|seek earlier this year through the editor of AltSearchEngines.com, Charles Knight. I then began to see references to it on Twitter and posts by it in The Life Scientists room on FriendFeed. I tried out novo|seek and wrote a glowing review for AltSearchEngines. I then spoke with Ramón Alonso-Allende by phone, he in Madrid and me in my home in Oregon. During the course of our interview he said some fascinating things that are included below.

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We’d like to welcome the newest writer to Next Generation Science, Eric Oosenbrug.

Eric comes to us from the Open Learning project, which serves as a hub of ideas and brings together educational materials available free on the Internet. Open Learning is specifically focused on the intersection of science, technology and society, and the interaction of those subjects with our rapidly evolving information society.

Eric brings to Next Generation Science a keen interest in Science, Technology & Society (STS), and Web 2.0. His interests revolve mainly around science education, knowledge media, the philosophy of science and the emerging subspecialty of neuroethics. Eric is a master’s student in the History & Theory of Psychology program at York University in Toronto.

You can follow Eric on Twitter @eric_o. You can also follow all the NGS writers on the Next Generation Science Twitter account @NextGenScience.

Welcome to the team Eric!

The Internet has dramatically changed our lives, reshaping business, entertainment and communications. A more recent transformation with Web 2.0 technologies — blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, folksonomies (tagging), RSS, podcasts and other approaches to participate in conversation and information flow — has reshaped a once static web into one that is dynamic, enabling people to create, publish and collaborate with others.

We think this is particularly important in the area of science, which relies on communication and information flow to share and advance knowledge.

Christopher Surridge, managing editor of the interactive, open-access, peer-reviewed online journal PLoS ONE said [1]:

Science happens not just because of people doing experiments but because they’re discussing those experiments. [Although classic, peer-reviewed papers are important], they’re effectively just snapshots of what the authors have done and thought at this moment in time. They are not collaborative beyond that, except for rudimentary mechanisms such as citations and letters to the editor.

Web 2.0 technologies hold the potential to dramatically transform science. Indeed, scientists who embrace Web 2.0 practices will be able to discuss data and digitize conversations, permitting many, many more participants than were involved in the past. “Science 2.0,” the use of blogs, RSS, wikis, social bookmarks, podcasts and other Web 2.0 technologies, presents information in ways that promote conversation and make it easier for researchers to connect, communicate and collaborate.

Next Generation Science was established to examine these emerging technologies, including but not limited to Web 2.0, and their impact on the scientific method, researchers and the general public.

• What aspects of science are presently affected by Web 2.0?
• How are Web 2.0 technologies changing the scientific method?
• How are scientists currently leveraging blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 technologies?
• How is public education of science affected by scientists writing about research?

The intent of Next Generation Science is to create a website to explore these questions, review new ideas, revisit existing commentary and to truly be a space for researchers, scientists, physicians, medical educators, patient advocates, developers, entrepreneurs, ethicists, informaticians, technologists, policy analysts and critical thinkers to discuss the future of science.

This website is itself a Web 2.0 technology (a blog) and we’re incorporating recent conversation from the FriendFeed Science 2.0 room (a Web 2.0 website that aggregates feeds and consolidates updates from social media/networking websites, social bookmarking websites, blogs and micro-blogging updates) in the sidebar. Our companion site, the Next Generation Science Registry, is a collection of science and technology resources that are discussed here or that we and other researchers find useful. The registry’s new additions RSS feed is mashed up with the blog feed.

Our hope is that Next Generation Science serve as a resource to advance new ideas, methods and technologies for obtaining and conveying scientific information, enabling those involved in research time to pursue science and discovery.

Are you interested in the future of science? Let us know. We welcome contributors that share our interest in the future of science. Please email us or use the contact form.

Welcome to Next Generation Science

References

1. Science 2.0 — Is Open Access Science the Future? Scientific American. 2008 Apr.