Next Generation Science

Being new to the whole subject of Science 2.0 and online social networking communities for scientists, I am taking a look today at Nature Precedings. But that brings up the matter of classification of such things.

Maybe this isn’t a social network for scientists at all, for it says on its site, “What is Nature Precedings? Nature Precedings is a permanent, citable archive for pre-publication research and preliminary findings. It is a place for researchers to share documents, including presentations, posters, white papers, technical papers, supplementary findings, and non-peer-reviewed manuscripts. It provides a rapid way to share preliminary findings, disseminate emerging results, solicit community feedback, and claim priority over discoveries. It also makes such material easy to archive, share and cite.”

And, “Nature Precedings includes materials from biology, medicine (except clinical trials), chemistry and the earth sciences … We do not include submissions in physics because there is already a service (arXiv.org) for the physical sciences.”

And, “Nature Precedings includes manuscripts, posters, and presentations, submitted in PDF, Word or PowerPoint format.”

And, “We will post submissions in all areas of chemistry, the earth sciences, and biomedicine except for clinical medicine. In particular, we cannot accept submissions describing the results of clinical trials or those making specific therapeutic claims. (More general claims, for example that a certain line of basic research may have clinical potential, are usually acceptable.)”

Whew, that was a lot of copying and pasting! But we might as well get that all established before I commence the actual writing of my own opinions in the rest of this piece.
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Being relatively new to the subject of Science 2.0 and the various social networking services and online research platforms marketed to researchers, today I am poking around 2collab. I first tried to determine what exactly it is — a social network for scientists along the lines of ResearchGATE and BioCrowd for those in the biomedical sciences and industry?

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I have been exploring social networks for scientists lately and I have just been looking at BioCrowd. I like it. I heard about it via a message on one of the groups I belong to in LinkedIn and have noticed that it is one of the media partners of the upcoming E-Patient Connections 2009 conference.

The fact that BioCrowd is helping to put on that conference endeared BioCrowd to me because I am planning to attend and I think it could become a really important gathering given the rise of the patient empowerment/user generated healthcare movement, which really does need a conference of its own in addition to the extensive discussion it receives at the equally useful Health 2.0 conference.
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Prodded by my editor who sent me a press release from July 7th, 2009 from ResearchGATE saying, “ResearchGATE.net is now the largest online network for scientists … the ResearchGATE team is pleased to announce that it has welcomed the 100,000th researcher to its scientific network. This astounding accomplishment bears witness to the real value that researchers derive from the platform and establishes ResearchGATE as the largest online network of its kind … ResearchGATE, which launched just over a year ago, is a platform to help scientists access information as efficiently as possible. It provides scientists with an online hub for collaboration and communication. The site features a powerful new search engine designed to facilitate scientific literature queries, as well as “Science 2.0″ functionality such as a network graph and online research groups.”

Pretty confident tone that. So let’s take a look.
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It never fails to astonish me that companies claim to be in the Web 2.0 vanguard and yet their own Web sites are entirely text-based. For example, take Jumper. It says, “A New Way to share data — Jumper is a Web 2.0 technology. It is a knowledgebase and search engine that fundamentally changes the way life science researchers find and share information.” Well, that sounded enticing and exciting. So, naturally one looks for a screencast or a razz-ma-tazzy video clip illustrating the revolutionary nature of this suite of products. And do you find any such thing? Noooooo. Helloooooo, marketing? Are you there today?

This situation is particularly unfortunate given that on the home page of Jumper are the words, “Eliminate static models.” It is so lame and really inexcusable (if I were a Jumper employee with a strong commitment to Web 2.0 and Science 2.0, I would be furious and mortified) that there is no real evidence of Web 2.0 know-how anywhere on the Jumper site. Jumper seems to exemplify companies that are simply tarring up fairly standard intranet packages with the buzzwords of Science 2.0 and Research 2.0. It could be that Jumper really is innovative and is leveraging the participatory aspects of Web 2.0 in ways that corporate science and biotech firms need. But it is hard to tell. We are simply told on Jumper’s Web site things like, “At Jumper, we understand the fundamental power that a truly collaborative research environment can have for biomedical research. Web 2.0 technology can profoundly impact biomedical research by transforming the means and methods of communication and collaboration.”

And yet, aside from a link to an interview with Data Storage Magazine (not exactly the periodical of choice for Science 2.0 types, but probably reassuring to the old-line IT guys that is the true audience that Jumper is probably hoping to attract with soothing words of reassurance about Web 2.0) there is almost nothing about the management team and the pages about partners seem more about wishful thinking than actual business being transacted.

One of the problems that seems to plague business is that it doesn’t quite get that much of Science 2.0 takes place out of the stifling intranet world and that it is probably not feasible to try to make intranets something that they have been shown incapable of becoming: freewheeling fora for vigorous discussion of potentially transformative developments. Yes, data should be rendered findable and exchange thereof facilitated. But prose on a Web site doesn’t make that happen.

I never will understand why tech firms don’t feature screencasts. LabRoots has one. It is such a no-brainer. Basic, basic, basic. Never make potential customers have to email you for more info if you can grab their attention with a 3-minute screencast.

UPDATE: March 28, 2009

Jumper posts open-source version 2 code for download.

We read a lot about Science 2.0 and social networking in the sciences. But where is much of this activity taking place and how are the traditional players in sci/tech publishing adapting to this new world? Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is by far the leader in this sphere and is running rings around Elsevier and Springer.

NPG has an advantage over Elsevier and Springer in that it has a much more extensive line-up of magazine-like publications (e.g. Nature) than its rivals. Granted, Elsevier’s The Lancet is somewhat of that category, but Elsevier on the whole lacks the flash of the Nature publications. Springer may be facing the reality of the open access world more nimbly than Elsevier but has nothing comparable to NPG’s community sites. NPG has bench depth of journalists used to speed.

I have been looking at two examples of NPG’s forays into Science 2.0: the Nature Network and Nature Precedings. This article will discuss the Nature Network.

Here is a bit from its site: “Nature Network is the professional networking website for scientists around the world. Think of it as the online meeting place where you and your fellow scientists can gather, share and discuss ideas, and keep in touch …. Nature Network is completely free … We recognize that the web is a powerful medium not just for disseminating scientific information, but also for building communities and providing an interactive forum for the exchange of ideas.”
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I am only just entering the world of social networking in the sciences and learning my way (as we all are, really) around Science 2.0. Scientist Solutions is, to my way of thinking, an interesting example of the power of free.

Here’s how I discovered Scientist Solutions:

I help edit the free health sciences grants and scholarship listing service, ScanGrants. Periodically, I  Google the term “ScanGrants” in the hope of discovering that it has  been added to the database listings of yet another medical or academic  library, or office of research administration at a university somewhere.

While doing this one night, I came across a link to ScanGrants in Scientist Solutions. A member of Scientist Solutions had linked to “Request for Applications: Basic & Clinical Research in Autism,” which was a grant announcement I had found at the site of the foundation, Autism Speaks. I was pleased — here was an example of a scientist alerting his peers to a grant opportunity that I had myself found in much the same way — by surfing the Web and sharing what I found.

This is classic Web 2.0. That is to say, carrying on conversation and decentralized control of information flow. These technologies enable researchers who may not have access to expensive proprietary funding databases such as Community of Science to learn about grants. By spreading around news of funding opportunities, it also increases the likelihood that foundations will be able to draw upon a larger pool of qualified applicants.

With online communities, it is often difficult to determine who’s running the show. Case in point: the About Us details of Scientist Solutions are sketchy. There isn’t any in depth information on the management team. I had to do quite a bit of digging to determine (via a LinkedIn profile) that the president of Scientist Solutions is Joseph “Rusty” Bishop, that he is a research scientist at University of California, San Diego, that his goal is, “To facilitate communication between bench scientists and life science manufacturers to speed the process of scientific discovery” and that his specialty is, “… bridging entrepreneurship and bench science.” Given the impressive list of sponsors of Scientist Solutions, I would say he’s pretty good at that.

I wanted to see in what category the link to ScanGrants had been placed in. I found the category, Funding Available and was able to set up an email alert. Indeed, it was so easy that it was set up before I had fully decided to go that far. There is also good RSS functionality.

Joseph Bishop posted a rather useful item about a lifesciences grant from Corning. But when I tried to view details about Mr. Bishop, there was hardly any information. The same holds true with the other members of Scientist Solutions. Given that one driving aims of Science 2.0 is interconnectedness and social solidarity, the paucity of detail about each member is a problem. I have just popped over to Nature Network and was able to click on the picture of various bloggers and moderators and get very detailed profiles. For example, Maxine Clarke’s profile provides a good deal of information: “I am an editor at Nature, the scientific journal. I also run Nature Publishing Group’s authors’ and reviewers’ website, Nautilus (the blog for authors), Peer to Peer (the blog about peer review) and a Nature Network blog archiving my From the Blogosphere weekly column in Nature. I am one of the editors answering Network users’ questions on the Ask The Editor forum.”

There is potential with Scientist Solutions. Those in research administration and headhunters in pharma might be interested in a firm advertising on the funding page, NaviGRANT, whose website offers an inside look at the ferocious world of grants in the sciences and an intriguing look at the skullduggery and stealth and poaching that goes on in certain fields in need of the best and brightest.

It is interesting to compare Scientist Solutions with LabRoots.

LabRoots has a much slicker interface and to me, the key advantage of a slick screencast. Gotta have one of those! Scientists are busy people and social networking takes time rather than, in most instances, saving it. Screencasts can sell a potential user on a site.

The search engine on Scientist Solutions is mediocre and the site is pretty thin on many things the Web 2.0 generation expects: video clips, podcasts, etc. It is basically a discussion board and not terribly vibrant in that respect. For example, the funding page is posted to only sporadically and it is not easy to determine what fora topics there are. The audience seems most interested in the nuts and bolts of lab work, as opposed to the deep think pieces on the Nature Network.

But more power to entrepreneurs in Science 2.0. Anyone who can line up sponsors in this miserable economic climate as Mr. Bishop has done is one skillful guy. I was particularly impressed that within a few minutes of my comment on his post about the Corning lifescience grant I received a private message from him about my comment. That is a pretty impressive level of involvement from the head of site to a new user. It is heartening that there are entrepreneurs working to render science a real-time endeavor and not one mired in the antiquated world of science dominated by the timetables of tenure committees and academic publishers. Keep up the good work, Mr. Bishop.

LabRoots is worth a look for those interested in social networking in the sciences. It is far better and more active than ResearchGATE.

Here’s how LabRoots defines itself: “LabRoots is a free, social networking site that enables scientists, engineers, and other technical professionals to connect, collaborate with, and learn from each other.”

One thing I found questionable was the rather free and easy use of the term, “… experts in that field.” For instance, we are told that “Each discipline or focus area of the LabRoots site is moderated by experts in that field. These moderators come from all over the world and more than 90% of them have PhDs.”

Now read the profile of one of the moderators:

“Michael Downey B.S., Michael is currently in his second year at the University of Virginia. He is pursuing a double major in Anthropology and Environmental Thought and Practice, as well as a minor in Environmental Science …”

Thus, Mr. Downey appears to have one bachelor’s degree and is now again an undergraduate. He may be a capable, brilliant young man, but he is nevertheless an undergraduate. I don’t think, except in the rarest of circumstances, that most scientists would accept the characterization of undergrads as experts in a field save perhaps software development or something comparably technical. That may be unfair, but it is nevertheless the case. “Expert” connotes gravitas and undergrads don’t exude that, as a rule.

Also, it is not a promising sign of the vitality and sustainability of a social networking site if most of the comments are provided by people somehow connected with the community in an official capacity. For instance, in the Q&A Forum on the quite interesting question, “Medical Research for 2009 — What’s Hottest?” there are five responses; two of them are by me as an experiment on my part. The fact that I inadvertently entered the same response twice shows that there are user-friendliness problems in the commenting section of LabRoots. All of the other answers have been provided by moderators (which is not necessarily a bad thing given that it demonstrates some interest by the proprietors and volunteer or paid staff of a social community in the goings-on in their own fora), save one by the President of LabRoots, Greg Cruikshank.

I checked out Mr. Cruikshank’s own page and wanted to read the article he listed on social networking in the sciences. But I received an error on that one. Not so good if there are quality control problems and link rot on the President’s profile page.

It was often unclear to me how things worked on the site. Take the “Publications” pages for example. It was not clear what the criteria were for inclusion and the links, rather than enabling a user to download a PDF of the paper in question (which is how I interpreted the wording “Click here for complete publication …”), in most cases took me either to PubMed or the toll access page of the article publisher. The Publications feature definitely needs overhauling.

My biggest wish is an alphabetical list of the groups. You can search by discipline but not alphabetically. The Clinical/Health/Medicine category has 10 groups, the largest of which in terms of membership is Molecular Diagnostics with 24 Members. Many groups have one to four members.

One wonders if Science 2.0 can be run on a for-profit basis (though the commercially-run Sermo seems to be making a go of it for physicians in mainstream medicine patient care matters) or whether it can be sustained only by volunteer models, a la Wikipedia. It is hard to see companies such as this making it. There just isn’t much oomph here or anything that sends the blood racing and the brain a buzz. I poked around for purposes of this article, but other than that not much going on here. Good effort, though. Scientists do need to talk to each other. But they probably need to do so via their own professional organizations and in an organic fashion, not within frameworks that work better for patient communities than for serious scientists.