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Scientific American has a nicely done article on open-access science -- broadly defined to include not only less-restricted journals but also wikis, blogging, and other online collaboration. I've been thinking lately about the idea of extracting small bits of knowledge that might otherwise dissipate into the ether. Along those lines, some MIT biologists-in-training are compiling and sharing those useful nuggets through a project called OpenWetWare:
[T]hey discovered that the wiki was also a convenient place to post what they were learning about lab techniques: manipulating DNA, getting cell cultures to grow. "A lot of the how-to gets passed around as lore in biology labs and never makes it into the protocol manuals," says Jason Kelly, a graduate student who now sits on the OpenWetWare steering committee... [W]henever a student or postdoc managed to stumble through a new protocol, he or she would write down what was learned on a wiki page. Others would then add whatever tricks they had gleaned. The information was very useful to the labs' members, notes M.I.T. grad student and steering-committee member Reshma Shetty, but "that information also became available around the world."
Also interesting is the discussion about how digital collaboration is coming to be a necessary part of a successful scientific career in the way that publishing and conference presentations have long been.
May. 8, '08
open-access, science, wikis
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