making the web work for science - scitechla

kaitlin thaney@kaythaney ; @mozillascience

scitechLA / 29 sept. 2013

making the web work for science

(0)

doing good is part of our code

help researchers use the power of the open web to change science’s future.

(1)

what is “open science”?

“... up to 70% of research from academic labs cannot be reproduced, representing an enormous

waste of money and effort.”- Elizabeth Iorns, Science Exchange

our definition of “knowledge” is evolving.

our systems need to follow.

research cycleidea

experiment

lit review

materials

publish

share resultsretest

analyze

collect data

blocking pointsidea

experiment

access

attaining materials

publish

share resultsretest

analyze

collect data

(to name a few ...)

types of informationhypothesis/query

protocolsparameters

content

non-digital “stuff”

articlesproceedings

negative results

analysiscode

datasetsmodels

(added complexity)

prof activitiesmentorship

teaching activities

traditions last not because they are excellent, but because influential people are averse to change and because of the sheer burdens of

transition to a better state ...

“

“Cass Sunstein

Source: Michener, 2006 Ecoinformatics.

web as a platform participatory, enabling, open

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our systems need to talk to one another.

learn by doing. teach by showing.

“One worry I have is that, with reviews like this, scientists will be even more discouraged from publishing their code [...] We need to get more code out there, not improve how it looks.”

“There’s greater reward, and more temptation to

bend the rules.”- David Resnik, bioethicist

(3)

shifting practice is hard.... but not impossible.

63 nations 10,000 scientists

50,000 participants

can we do the same for open science?

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we need to even (/ elevate) the playing field.

facing a digital skills gap

“Reliance on ad-hoc, self-

education about what’s

possible doesn’t scale.”

- Selena Decklemann

learn from open source(culture as well as technology)

current activity:135 instructors

(30, training)115 bootcamps3500 learners

building capacity“train the trainer”

instill best (digital,

reproducible) practice

“research hygiene”

wasted ...$$$time

resourceopportunity

in an increasingly digital, data-driven world, what core skills, tools

do the next-generation need?

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operating in isolation doesn’t scale.

coordination and collaboration are key.

design for interoperability.

remember the non-technical challenges.

join us (and the conversation.)

teach, host, learn.http://software-carpentry.org

http://wiki.mozilla.org/ScienceLab

questions?

kaitlin@mozillafoundation.org@kaythaney ; @mozillascience