Use and relevance of web 2.0 resources for researchers

Use and relevance of web 2.0 resources for researchers

European Bioinformatics InstituteMendeleyOpen Knowledge FoundationScience and Technology Facilities Council SPARCUKOLN

1. Executive Summary

The application of Web 2.0 tools to the practice of research is an area with immense promise but where evidence of real value is limited. We have assembled a team with a wide range of experience in developing, using, and critically analysing such services. The team is deeply embedded within the community that utilises and builds these services. However this community remains small and unrepresentative of the research community at large. We are therefore interested in examining both the successes of these approaches as well as reasons for lack of adoption.

We will undertake four main activities to qualitatively and quantitatively analyse the extent of use of Web 2.0 tools in research.

1. First, a literature review and aggregation of research material will be carried out to define the state of the art internationally.

2. Second, qualitative interviews and case studies will be used to identify common themes in successful and unsuccessful applications of Web2.0 approaches and barriers, perceived and real.

3. Along with the literature review, this will form the basis for designing and carrying out the third activity: a large-scale empirical study. The resulting data will be analyzed using a structural equation modeling approach, which will allow us to go beyond a qualitative, anecdotal, or phenomenal understanding. It will enable us to quantify the strength of the effect of each promoter and inhibitor of the adoption of Web 2.0 tools, as well as the relative importance of the factors vis-à-vis each other. This can lead to prescriptions as to which inhibitors to tackle first, and which promoters to focus on. It will also provide empirical evidence as to which degree the use of Web 2.0 tools influences scholarly communication.

4. Fourth, because the self-reported survey is likely to overestimate the use of Web 2.0 tools due to the self-selection bias, we will validate our data externally by undertaking a sampling-based survey. This survey will involve a search for a randomised list of researchers from a range of disciplines and environments, on a range of Web 2.0 services for scientists. As this will systematically underestimate the use of these tools, we will be able to establish the upper and lower boundaries of the actual use of Web 2.0 tools in research.

2. Background

In recent years much has been made of the the potential of Web 2.0 tools, applications and services to transform the way research is performed and disseminated. There are numerous high profile examples of technologies that facilitate effective collaboration and working practices that could

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make the lives of researchers easier - from communication and messenging tools to collaborative authoring, public review and rating sites, from social networking services to community driven tools for resource discovery. Twitter can provide instant updates of what is happening in the lab. Google Docs provides an environment for writing papers that can solve the problems inherent in emailing around documents. Wikis can capture and preserve the collective expertise of a research group. Digg-like mechanisms could replace peer review with social networking sites providing a "social search" mechanism, bringing the research you need to be aware of to your attention as well as the opportunity to find new collaborators, as and when you need them.

There are exemplars showing that all of these approaches are possible, and that they can offer an improvement over traditional approaches. However for every success there are many failures, and scratching beneath the surface, you will find many of the same names re-appearing in these examples. The degree to which these approaches have penetrated general academic practice appears to be extremely limited. Broadly, there are three reasons why this might be the case. First, adoption could simply be expected to be slow as practice in research does not change rapidly, systems need to change, tools need to be built. Second, there may be specific cultural or social reasons why these tools are not appropriate or are perceived as not appropriate. This may be due to the wrong tools being built, or it may be a result of scientists who were brought up in the pre-web age are not able to "get it", requiring a new generation of scientists (the so called "Google Generation") to exploit them effectively. Finally, it is possible that these tools simply do not, on average, work well in research settings.

The overall picture is likely to be complex and a combination of factors. We have therefore elected to apply a model-based approach to disentangle the contribution of these different factors both to uptake, and intention to uptake. We will apply a qualitative approach to identify web applications and services to enable the design of a quantitative survey which will be used to probe the relationships between model components (see methodology).

3. The Team

We have assembled a team with a wide expertise in Web 2.0 technologies and their application to research. The team includes both commercial and academic developers, users and analysts, as well as community and policy advocates. The team is strongly motivated to take a close and critical look at the effectiveness of such tools and inhibiting factors concerning usage in research - as developers, as advocates, and as researchers.

Collectively, the team has a broad range of experience of research 'on the ground' in different domains - from experimental and computational sciences, to the humanities and social sciences. A fine-grained understanding of research environments in different domains will be particularly advantageous when performing interviews and building case studies, and in designing a larger scale empirical study which will allow meaningful inter-disciplinary comparison.

We have a rich perspective on the growth and adoption of new internet technologies in different areas - from policy analysts, funding bodies, commercial developers, government, academia and the technical community. Hence, debates about the adoption, transformational potential, network effects and perceptions of Web 2.0 tools are familiar territory and we are keen to develop a richer, evidence-based picture.

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4. Key Deliverables

The key deliverables for the project will be:• Literature review • Transcripts, record and analysis of qualitative interviews • Design of model for quantitative survey • Results and analysis of quantitative survey• Anonymised data and analysis of "adoption sampling" survey of service penetration• Summary report and website to present data and findings

Moving forward we propose publishing the report and associated material on a website with recommendations and summaries of key findings catered to different stakeholders, including researchers, institutions, funders, software developers, service providers, librarians, information professionals and publishers. In the longer term we anticipate this could act as a central point of reference for parties interested in utilising or developing Web 2.0 tools for research.

There have been numerous surveys on Web 2.0 and its usage and relevance in different domains, from education to library and archives. The JISC funded SPIRE project is a relatively recent example of British funded research in this area. Our project would go beyond this kind of work in that we hope to develop a compelling and dynamic evidence base that could be explored and contributed to - giving a thorough and up-to-date overview of existing usage of Web 2.0 tools (by harnessing existing networks, communities and publicity channels), as well as giving a representative picture of UK research as a whole (overcoming selection bias with survey incentives and adoption sampling).

5. Theoretical background and model development

The overarching theoretical framework for this study will be the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT, Venkatesh et al. 2003). The UTAUT was designed to explain the Behavioral Intentions to use and the Use Behavior of information systems. The theory holds that four key constructs are direct determinants of usage intention and behaviour:

• Performance Expectancy: The degree to which an individual believes that using the system will help him or her to attain gains in job performance.

• Effort Expectancy: The degree of effort an individual associates with the use of the system. • Social Influence: The degree to which an individual perceives that important others believe

he or she should use the information system. • Facilitating Conditions: The degree to which an individual believes that an organizational

and technical infrastructure exists to support use of the system.

The effect of these four key constructs on usage intention and behaviour is moderated by Gender, Age, Experience (with the system), and Voluntariness of Use, i.e. these moderating variables specify when the effects of the key constructs on the dependent variables will be weaker or stronger (Baron and Kenny 1984).

The UTAUT was developed through a review and empirical consolidation of eight models which had previously been employed to explain information systems usage. It is most closely related to the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975) and its extension, the Theory of Planned

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Behaviour (Ajzen 1991). These are two of the leading theories of action in the social sciences, which form the theoretical basis of over 800 studies published in the PsycINFO and Medline databases (Francis et al. 2004).

In a longitudinal study which applied the UTAUT to research software adoption in the financial services industry and customer service management software adoption in the retail electronics industry, the R² of Behavioral Intentions and Use Behaviour reached .77 and .53, respectively (Venkatesh et al. 2003). That is, the model was able to explain 77% and 55% of the statistical variance of these dependent variables, which indicates a very good model fit and external (predictive) validity of the theory.

By itself, the UTAUT will form the basis for understanding the reasons, facilitating conditions and inhibitors of adoption of Web 2.0 tools for researchers. However, in order to also understand the implications for scholarly communication, the model needs to be extended. Thus, the Use Behaviour of Web 2.0 tools for researchers is hypothesized to influence Sharing and Re-Use Behaviour of scientific data, Discovery Techniques of scientific data and literature, Publication Behaviour, and Research Findings Communication Behaviour.

6. Model operationalization

In order to operationalize the constructs and adapt the theory’s measurement model to the context of the present study, we will perform triangulation, i.e. a qualitative enquiry which incorporates three different viewpoints and methods.

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Use and relevance of web 2.0 resources for researchers

First, we will draw on the combined expertise of the research team. The team members, who are active researchers in the humanities, and the natural, social and library sciences, as well as practitioners and promoters of Open Science, digital curators and architects of Web 2.0 tools for researchers, will have in-depth exploratory discussions on the meaning of each of the constructs in the model to achieve a common understanding of them. Second, we will review existing literature, weblog postings, essays and online discussion on Web 2.0 tools for researchers, with specific attention paid to reasons for and inhibitors to adoption, and implications for scholarly communication behaviour. Third, we will conduct a limited number of semi-structured, qualitative interviews with members of our target group. Interviewees will be selected to represent a heterogeneous spread across disciplines, affiliations (academic, corporate, government, ...) and other demographic criteria.

The insights generated by this triangulation will be used as a pre-test of the internal validity of our theoretical model, to find ways to quantify the Scholarly Communication measures, and finally to formulate the wording of the scale items of the measurement model. For example, as a result of this triangulation, Performance Expectancy could be a multi-item construct measured as a perceived gain (or decrease) in scholarly merit, and as a perceived improvement in access to high-quality information; Facilitating Conditions could be a multi-item construct measured as the perceived support and training by the researcher’s library, and the financial cost of use of these tools, and the IT budget available to the researcher.

7. Empirical study and quantitative analysis

Following the model operationalization, we will conduct a large-scale empirical study. The rationale for doing this is that it will enable us to perform statistical analysis of the collected data. Using a structural equation modeling approach (described further below) will allow us to go beyond a qualitative, anecdotal, or phenomenal understanding. It will enable us to quantify the strength of the effect of each promoter, inhibitor and facilitator of the adoption of Web 2.0 tools, as well as the relative importance of the factors vis-à-vis each other. This can lead to prescriptions as to which inhibitors to tackle first, and which promoters and facilitators to focus on. It will also provide empirical evidence as to which degree the use of Web 2.0 tools influences scholarly communication.

The study design will be online-survey based and cross-sectional. In general, a longitudinal study design would be preferable to a cross-sectional one for studies like these, as it would measure the intra-individual changes in the independent variables and their effects on the dependent variables over time, instead of differences between respondents and the effects of these differences. A longitudinal design would thus be better at ruling out the effects of “hidden moderator variables” that could account for the differences between respondents in a cross-sectional design. However, based on our experience, we feel that the time frame for the empirical study of (at most) six months is realistically not long enough to capture not only significant changes in the respondents’ attitude towards and use of Web 2.0 tools, but also the effects of these changes on long-term variables like publication and communication behavior. Thus, the aforementioned qualitative triangulation will be even more important to detect potential hidden variables before conducting the empirical survey. Following on from the current study the team will investigate the feasibility of carrying out such a longitudinal study based on the results of the current programme.

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Use and relevance of web 2.0 resources for researchers

The sampling technique will be a stratified random sample, with participants randomly filtered to achieve representative quotas for different academic disciplines, age groups, gender, and affiliations. Using appropriate incentives will be instrumental in securing a sufficient response rate. Moreover, the wording for the survey invitations will have to be general enough (and not refer specifically to “Web 2.0 tools for researchers”) so as not to create a self-selection bias, in which researchers who are a priori more interested in these tools than the average researcher are strongly overrepresented in the sample. To control for such a self-selection bias, we will perform a second “adoption sampling” study: We will select a smaller, random representative sample of researchers who have not participated in the survey, and search for these people on the Web 2.0 resources included in the study to obtain a real-world measure of adoption. Due to people not using their real name on these services, or electing to keep their profile hidden, this “adoption sampling” approach will systematically underestimate the “true” adoption, whereas the “self-reported usage” will systematically overestimate the “true” adoption. Together, these two data points will help to establish a minimum vs. maximum extent of use. They will also provide a rich data base for descriptive statistics on the demographics, disciplines, and subject areas of the researchers who use these Web 2.0 tools.

The relationship between the constructs in our extended UTAUT model will then be analysed using structural equation modeling techniques. Specifically, we will be using Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis (Fornell and Cha 1994; Chin 1998). PLS allows a simultaneous testing of hypotheses, taking indirect and moderating model effects into account. When compared to covariance-based structural equation modeling approaches such as LISREL and AMOS, PLS enables single-item measurement as well as multi-item measurement and the modeling of constructs as either reflective or formative. As a distribution-free method, PLS has fewer constraints and statistical specifications than covariance-based techniques.

The model will then also be calculated for sub-samples, divided by different classes of Web 2.0 tools. This means that we can pinpoint the promoters, inhibitors, and facilitating conditions for specific Web 2.0 tools (e.g. only social networks, or only folksonomy/tagging/literature management tools), and the effect of only these tools on scholarly communication behaviour vis-à-vis other tools.

References

● Ajzen, Icek (1991), "The Theory of Planned Behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179-211.

● Baron, Reuben M. and David A. Kenny (1986), “The Moderator-Mediator Variable Distinction in Social Psychological Research: Conceptual, Strategic, and Statistical Considerations,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51 (December), 1173-1182.

● Chin, Wynne W. (1998), "The Partial Least Squares Approach for Structural Equation Modeling," in Modern Methods for Business Research, George A. Marcoulides ed. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 295-336.

● Fishbein, Martin and Icek Ajzen (1975), Belief, Attitude, Intention and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

● Fornell, Claes and Jaesung Cha (1994), “Partial Least Squares,” in Advanced Methods of Marketing Research, Richard P. Bagozzi, ed. Cambridge: Blackwell, 52–78.

● Francis, Jillian J. Martin P. Eccles, Marie Johnston, Anne Walker, Jeremy Grimshaw, Robbie Foy, Eileef F.S. Kaner, Liz Smith, and Debbie Bonetti (2004), Constructing Questionnaires

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Based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour: A Manual for Health Services Researchers. University of Newcastle.

● Venkatesh, Visvanath, Michael G. Morris, Gordon B. Davis and Fred D. Davis (2003), “User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward a Unified View”, Management Information Systems Quarterly, 27 (September), 425-478.

8. Management

For logistical reasons the project will be managed by Mendeley Ltd who will provide the financial arrangements and act as the contracting party for the research programme. The remainder of the team will be managed via subcontracts from Mendeley to the relevant person or organisation.

The project is both multisite and multidisciplinary and will require communication and transfer of data and analysis between research workers on several sites. Data integrity and management will be a key aspect of the project and we have extensive expertise in this area. The investigators and research workers will meet three times over the course of the project and group meetings will be held monthly via video conference. Progress towards specific objectives on the full project plan (see work plan) will be the basis for monitoring the status of the project. Progress will be monitored by short written reports presented at the monthly meetings and made public on the website as part of the record of the project (see above).

Day to day communication will be managed via a (public) messenging stream that will additionally provide part of the record of the conduct of the project. A Friendfeed (www.friendfeed.com) will be used to aggregate messages, material, and documents relevant to the project as it proceeds and this material will then be re-aggregated to the project website.

9. Risk Assessment

The main areas of risk fall into three categories: technical or logistical inability of the team to deliver the project on time or within budget (management failure); insufficient collection of data due to poor uptake on the main survey or difficulties in obtaining subjects for the qualitative interviews (recruitment failure); a risk of not providing sufficient new insights due to repeating or complementing previous work in the area (scope failure).

Management failure: We have budgeted a significant sum for researcher time on this project as that will be the key resource required to deliver effectively and on time. We have also explicitly included a budget line to buy out a proportion of CN’s time for project management and coordination. CN has significant experience in managing multidisciplinary and multi-site projects. Strong reporting and communication protocols are envisaged as well as scheduled face to face meetings throughout the project. In addition an advantage of carrying out the project “in the open” is that the material collected will still remain available if the project fails for unforeseen circumstances. The key researchers (JG, VH, NH) are all available for significant blocks of time within the next six months.

Recruitment failure: A significant challenge in obtaining survey data on penetration of services is recruiting a sufficient number of survey subjects who do not use these services. By definition they will be difficult to contact via our existing set of contacts. It is for this reasons that we have budgeted a significant sum for survey incentives and prizes. This constitutes a small sum for each

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survey participant (in the form of online vouchers) as well as a small number of relatively high value prizes. We will mitigate the risks by using access to institutional and subject based mailing lists, personal contacts at a range of levels, as well as utilising available social network services. The team is deeply embedded within the community that utilises and builds these web services. This provides us with contact both with advocates and successful users and with sceptics. We will use all of these contacts to obtain the best possible set of survey and interview participants.

Scope failure: We will conduct an in depth “due diligence” literature survey as the first part of the research programme. This will provide a much greater depth of understanding of previous work that has been carried out. The team is well versed in the current literature but not yet at sufficient depth to fully optimise the research programme to provide complementary outcomes. Nonetheless our proposed programme is unique in a number of ways. We will focus on the UK research community. Our programme is based around a structural equation modelling approach over a wide range of research disciplines. Most previous work, both in the UK and internationally has been qualitative, and focussed on a specific discipline or even department. The proposed sampling survey will, to our knowledge, be unique, as well the collection of case studies. Further we plan to engage the community in commentary through the website which will provide an ongoing and unique resource in the longer term. As noted, the preferred methodology to address the questions posed would be a longitudinal study. The team will actively seek funding to enable us to continue the project so as to carry out such a study.

10. Budget

We estimate that we would require £70,000 in order to complete the project as planned. This is £20,000 less than the proposed budget.

• Tasks and personnel:• Project co-ordinator (1 day/month for 8 months) - £2k • Communications and publicity - £3k• Literature review (1 month) - £9k • Qualitative survey preparation and analysis (1 month) - £10k• Planning and execution of quantitative survey (1.5 months) - £10k • Analysis of quantitative survey (1 month) - £8k • Sampling survey (0.5 months) - £4k • Project write up (1 month)- £9k

• Survey incentives/prizes - £5k • Travel and accommodation for co-ordination meetings - £5k • Web hosting - £3k • Printing - £2k• Total: £70k

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11. Team CVs

Cameron Neylon

Senior Scientist, Biomolecular Sciences, Science and Technology Facilities Council

Blog: http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopenOnline: http://openwetware.org/wiki/Users:Cameron_Neylon

Cameron Neylon (STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) is a biophysicist, an internationally recognised advocate of open practices in research and a developer and critic of web based tools for supporting research. After undergraduate studies in metabolic biochemistry he pursued a PhD in molecular biology and protein biophysics, at the Research School of Chemistry ANU, before continuing work as a molecular biologist within the Chemistry Department at Bath. In 2001 he took up the position of Lecturer in Combinatorial Chemistry at the University of Southampton and in 2005 he commenced a joint appointment (80%) as Senior Scientist in Biomolecular Sciences at the ISIS Pulsed Neutron and Muon Facility. Dr Neylon has extensive experience of managing and coordinating multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary projects on a range of scales.

Through involvement in the developement of web based electronic laboratory recording systems Dr Neylon has become a well known advocate and speaker on the subject of web based tools in research, and an advocate of Open Access publication and Open Science more generally. His research group is working towards making the entirety of their research record available online, as it is recorded. He has given four invited talks at international meetings in the area in the past twelve months.

Relevant online and non-peer reviewed material

1. Bradley JC, Neylon C, Data on Display: An interview by Katherine Sanderson, Nature, 455(7211), 273, 2008 - An interview recorded following a talk at Nature Publishing Group that appeared in Nature in October 2008

2. Wu S, Neylon C, Open Science: Tools, approaches, and implications. Available from Nature Precedings <http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/npre.2008.1633.1> (2008)

3. Neylon C, A personal view of Open Science. Available at Science in the Open <http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen/2008/09/30/a-personal-view-of-open-science-part-i/> (2008) - A four part essay

4. Neylon C, Science in the open or How I learned to stop worrying and love my blog, Science in the 21st Century, Perimeter Institute, Waterloo, September 2008, Perimeter Institute Seminar Archive #08090038 <http://pirsa.org/08090038/>

Peer-reviewed publications

1. Guppy M, Abas L, Neylon C, Whisson ME, Whitham S, Pethick DW, Niu X, Fuel choices by human platelets in human plasma, Eur. J. Biochem. 244, 1997, 161-167

2. Neylon C, Brown SE, Kralicek AV, Miles CS, Love CA, Dixon NE, Interaction of the Escherichia coli Replication Terminator Protein (Tus) with DNA: A Model derived from DNA-binding studies of mutant proteins by surface plasmon resonance, Biochemistry, 39,

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2000, 11989-11999 3. Wood RJ, Pascoe DD, Brown ZK, Medlicott EM, Kriek M, Neylon C, Roach PL, Optimised

conjugation of a fluorescent label to proteins via intein mediated activation and ligation, Bioconjugate Chemistry, 15, 2004, 366-372

4. Neylon C, Chemical and biochemical strategies for the randomisation of protein encoding DNA sequences: Library construction methods for directed evolution, Nucleic Acids Research, 32, 2004, 1448-1459

5. Neylon C, Kralicek AV, Hill TM, Dixon NE, Replication termination in E. coli: Structure and anti-helicase activity of the Tus-Ter complex, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, 69, 2005, 501-526

6. Kriek M, Clark IP, Parker AW, Neylon C, Roach PL, Simple setup for Raman Spectroscopy of microvolume frozen samples, Review of Scientific Instruments, 76, 2005, 104301-104303

7. Whiteford N, Haslam N, Weber G, Prügel-Bennett A, Essex JW, Roach PL, Bradley M, Neylon C, An analysis of the feasibility of short read sequencing, Nucleic Acids Research, 33, 2005, e171

8. Weber G, Whiteford N, Haslam N, Prügel-Bennett A, Essex JW, Neylon C, Thermal equivalence of DNA duplexes without calculating melting temperature, Nature Physics, 2, 2006, 55-59

9. Mulcair M, Schaffer P, Cross HFC, Neylon C, Hill TM, and Dixon NE, A Molecular Mousetrap Determines Polarity of Termination of DNA Replication. Cell, 125, 2006, 1309-1319.

10.Cavalli G, Banu S, Ranasinghe RT, Broder GR, Martins HFP, Neylon C, Morgan H, Bradley M, Roach PL, Multistep synthesis on SU-8: Combining microfabrication and solid-phase chemistry on a single material. Journal of Combinatorial Chemistry, 9, 2007, 462-472

11.Chan L, Cross HF, She JK, Cavalli G, Martins HFP, Neylon C, Covalent attachment of proteins to solid supports and surfaces via Sortase-mediated ligation, PLoS ONE 2(11), 2007, e1164 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001164

12.Neylon C, Small angle neutron and X-ray scattering in structural biology: Recent examples from the literature, European Biophysics Journal, 37(5), 2008, 531-541

13.Broder GR, Ranasinghe RT, She JK, Banu S, Birtwell SW, Cavalli G, Galitonov GS, Holmes D, Martins HFP, Neylon C, Zheludev N, Roach PL, Morgan H, Diffractive micro-barcodes for encoding of biomolecules in multiplexed assays, Analytical Chemistry 80(6), 2008, 1902-9

14.Whiteford N, Haslam NJ, Weber G, Prügel-Bennett A, Essex JW, Neylon C, Visualising the repeat structure of genomic sequences, Complex Systems 17(4), 2008, 381-398

15.Haslam NJ, Whiteford NE, Weber G, Prügel-Bennett A, Essex JW, Neylon C, Optimal Probe Length Varies for Targets with High Sequence Variation: Implications for Probe Library Design for Resequencing Highly Variable Genes, PLoS ONE 3(6), 2008, e2500 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002500

16.Teixeira SCM et al., New sources and instrumentation for neutrons in biology. Chemical Physics 345(2-3), 2008, 133-151

17.Telling MTF, Neylon C, Kilcoyne SH, Arrighi V, An-harmonic behaviour in the multi-subunit protein apoferritin as revealed by quasi-elastic neutron scattering, J Phys Chem B, 112(35), 2008, 10873-8

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Victor Henning

Founder & Director, MendeleyDoctoral Student, Bauhaus-University of Weimar

Blog: http://www.mendeley.com/blogOnline: http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/victor-henning

Victor Henning is an empirical social scientist and a co-founder of Mendeley, a Web 2.0 tool for researchers. After completing his MBA in 2004, he became a lecturer and doctoral student at the School of Media at the Bauhaus-University of Weimar. His PhD research on the role of emotions in decision-making was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Foundation of the German Economy (SDW). In July 2005, for a paper studying the antecedents and consequences of file-sharing technology adoption for the film industry, he won the Best Conference Paper Award at the largest academic conference in the field of marketing, the AMA's Summer Conference in San Francisco.

Since 2007 he is also the co-founder and director of Mendeley, a combined cross-platform desktop software and website which helps researchers manage and share research papers. Information on research paper usage and tagging is anonymously aggregated on Mendeley Web to create an open, semantic database of research papers, research statistics, and (in the future) reading recommendations. Mendeley is funded by some of the key personnel who built Skype and Last.fm. Victor Henning's main responsibility at Mendeley is the conceptual design of the entire application, as well as keeping close contact with interdisciplinary academic communities to better understand its requirements for software/web tools. As such, he has been invited to give talks at international academic conferences and institutions such as Princeton University, Cornell University, New York University, University of Bath, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Relevant peer-reviewed publications:

1. Henning V, Reichelt J, Mendeley - A Last.fm for Research?, Proceedings of the 4th IEEE International Conference on e-Science, 2008, Indianapolis: IEEE. | A paper discussing the potential implications of Web 2.0 tools like Mendeley on research collaborations, open databases, and reputation metrics in science.

2. Henning V, Hennig-Thurau T, The Theory of Reasoned Action: Does it Lack Emotion?, Enhancing Knowledge Development in Marketing: Proceedings of the 2008 AMA Summer Educators' Conference, 2008, Chicago: American Marketing Association. | A survey-based cross-sectional empirical study proposing extensions to the Theory of Reasoned Action, on which the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (the theoretical framework proposed for the present study) is based.

3. Hennig-Thurau V, Henning V, Sattler H, Consumer File Sharing of Motion Pictures, Journal of Marketing, 71(October), 2008, 1-18. | A survey-based longitudinal empirical study of the antecedents and consequences of file-sharing adoption, using a Partial Least Squares structural equation model similar to the one proposed in this study. Published as the Lead Article of the journal issue.

Other peer-reviewed publications

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1. Hennig-Thurau T, Henning V, Sattler H, Eggers F, Houston M, The Last Picture Show? Timing and Order of Movie Distribution Channels, Journal of Marketing, 71(October), 2008, 63-83.

2. Henning V, The Role of Anticipated Emotions in Hedonic Consumptionm, Cognition and Emotion in Economic Decision Making, 2007, Rovereto: Università degli Studi di Trento.

3. Hennig-Thurau H, Henning V, Sattler H, Eggers F, Houston M, Optimizing the Sequential Distribution Model for Motion Pictures, Enhancing Knowledge Development in Marketing: Proceedings of the 2006 AMA Summer Educators’ Conference, 2006, Chicago: American Marketing Association.

4. Henning V, Hennig-Thurau T, Consumer file sharing of motion pictures: Consequences and Determinants, Enhancing Knowledge Development in Marketing: Proceedings of the 2005 AMA Summer Educators’ Conference. 2005, Chicago: American Marketing Association.

5. Henning H, Alpar A, Public aid mechanisms in feature film production: the EU MEDIA Plus Programme, Media, Culture & Society, 27(2), 2005, 229-250.

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Use and relevance of web 2.0 resources for researchers

Liz Lyon

Director of UKOLN, University of Bath

Online: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/e.j.lyon/

Liz Lyon is Director at UKOLN where she supports the development and implementation of the Information Environment, promoting synergies between digital libraries and e-Research. She has led the eBank UK project, and is a partner in the eCrystals Federation. She is also Associate Director (Community Development), UK Digital Curation Centre, in which UKOLN is a partner.

Liz published the direction-setting Report "Dealing with Data" in 2007, which has been used to advance the digital repository development agenda within the JISC Capital programme (2006-2009), and to assist in the co-ordination of research data repositories and to inform an emerging Vision and Roadmap.

In May 2008, she co-authored the Scaling Up Report, which presents the results of a JISC-funded scoping study to assess the feasibility of a federated model for data repositories in the domain of crystallography.

Liz is a member of the ESRC Research Resources Board, the Thomson Scientific Strategic Advisory Board and the US National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for CyberInfrastructure.

Her academic background was in Biological Sciences and she has a doctorate in cellular biochemistry.

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Niall Haslam

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, EMBL Heidelberg

Niall Haslam is computational biologist, involved in making software tools for biologists. Currently he is employed by the European ProteomeBinders project to create a resource for the selection of epitopes for the design of binding reagents against the human proteome. He has contributed to the development of an ontology to describe protein affinity reagents (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ontology-lookup/browse.do?ontName=PAR), this work is currently under review in the Human Proteomics Organisation's document review process before final admission into the Proteomic Standards Initiative. Niall trained as a biologist with a degree in Human Genetics from Nottingham. After a year working in the pharmaceutical company Galen, he took a Masters in Bioinformatics at Exeter University. There he completed a project, with Chris Southan (then at Oxford Glycosciences) working on DNA sequence databases, trying to discover sequences published in patent databases but not found in the more common sequence databases. After his Masters, Niall worked on his PhD in the University of Southampton on DNA sequencing. The project focused on the potential of novel sequencing methods to uncover variation in highly variable genomes. Since the end of 2006 Niall has been working at the EMBL Heidelberg.

At the EMBL Heidelberg, in the group of Toby Gibson, Niall has worked on the use of webservices and other internet based technologies to provide multiple sources of information for researchers in a single resource. As a software developer, Niall has been interested in the potential of these new technologies to share information in a more open manner. Through this Niall has gained an insight into the requirements of the developer community for the next generation of scientific data sharing tools.

Peer-reviewed publications:

1. An Analysis of the Feasibility of Short Read Sequencing, N. E.Whiteford, N. Haslam, G. Weber, A. Prügel-Bennett, J. W. Essex, P. L. Roach, M. Bradley and C. Neylon, 2005 Nuc. Acids. Res. 33 19 e171

2. Thermal Equivalence of DNA Duplexes Without Melting Temperature Calculation, G. Weber, N. Haslam, N. Whiteford, A. Prügel-Bennett, J. W. Essex and C. Neylon 2006, Nat. Phys. 2:55–59

3. Optimal probe length varies for targets with high sequence variation: Implications for probe library design for resequencing highly variable genes N. Haslam, N. Whiteford, G.Weber, A. Prügel-Bennett, J. W. Essex and C. Neylon, 2008, PLoS One, 3(6):e2500

4. A Novel Method for Whole Genome Repeat Visualisation, N. E.Whiteford, N. Haslam, G. Weber, A. Pr¨ugel-Bennett, J. W. Essex and C. Neylon, 2008, Journal of Complex Systems 17 4:381–398

5. Understanding eukaryotic linear motifs and their role in cell signaling and regulation. Diella, F., Haslam, N., Chica, C., Budd, A., Michael,S., Brown, N.P., Trave, G. and Gibson, T.J. 2008 Front Biosci. May 1;13:6580-603.

6. Thermal equivalence of DNA duplexes for probe design. Gerald Weber, Niall Haslam, Jonathan W. Essex and Cameron Neylon. 2008 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter in press.

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Use and relevance of web 2.0 resources for researchers

Gavin Baker

Outreach Fellow, The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition

Blog: http://www.gavinbaker.com/

Gavin Baker is an Outreach Fellow at SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), an international alliance of academic and research libraries dedicated to promoting openness in the scholarly communications system. He is also Assistant Editor of Open Access News, Peter Suber's comprehensive blog covering the Open Access movement.

He holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Florida.

Relevant online and non-peer reviewed material:

1. Baker G, "Public Science", Science Progress, 28 January 2008 <http://www.scienceprogress.org/2008/01/public-science/>

2. SPARC, The Right to Research, January 2008 <http://www.arl.org/sparc/bm%7Edoc/rr2008_pages.pdf>

3. Baker G, "How students use the scholarly communication system", College & Research Libraries News, November 2007 <http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/crlnews/2007/nov/Student_activism.cfm>

4. Baker G, "Open Access Journal Literature is an Open Educational Resource", Terra Incognita - A Penn State World Campus Blog, 5 September 2007. <http://blog.worldcampus.psu.edu/index.php/2007/09/05/open-access-journal/>

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Use and relevance of web 2.0 resources for researchers

Jonathan Gray

Operations Manager, The Open Knowledge Foundation Research Student, Royal Holloway

Blog: http://blog.okfn.org

Jonathan Gray is Operations Manager at the Open Knowledge Foundation - which is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2004 and dedicated to promoting open knowledge in all its forms. It is a European leader in this field and prominent on the international stage.

He studied Philosophy at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, Social Sciences at the Open University and is currently doing research in the German department at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has a background in the library sector. As well as being invited to speak at numerous events, he recently sat on the programme committees of I-SEMANTICS '08, Graz and Linked Data on the Web (LDOW2008), Beijing, and is currently on the programme committee for the First Open Source GIS UK Conference, University of Nottingham. He is co-ordinating the EU-funded 4th COMMUNIA Workshop on "Accessing, Using and Reusing Public Sector Content and Data".

He has run several domain specific workshops on how people find and re-use the material they work with, specifically looking at CKAN - an open-source, community driven tool for resource discovery developed by the Open Knowledge Foundation. More generally he has a strong interest in how new internet technologies are being integrated into the existing work patterns of researchers and practitioners in different fields. He has participated in the EU COST Action 32, "Open Scholarly Communities on the Web" which is dedicated to creating a research infrastructure for humanities scholarship on the Web and he is currently involved in setting up a new open-access journal based at Oxford University as part of the eContentplus Discovery project. He recently co-ordinated a series of informal, inter-disciplinary workshops looking at best-of-breed visualisation technologies and their applications - from genomics to modelling medieval bookbinding techniques.

Relevant online and non-peer reviewed material:

1. Gray J, Pollock R, Walsh J, "Open Knowledge: Promises and Challenges", from 1st COMMUNIA Workshop, Torino, January 2008, <http://cms.communia-project.eu/node/58>

2. Documentation of Workshop on Finding and Re-using Open Scientific Resources <http://blog.okfn.org/2008/11/12/after-the-workshop-on-open-scientific-resources/>

3. Documentation of Workshop on Finding and Re-using Public Information <http://blog.okfn.org/2008/11/04/after-the-workshop-on-public-information/>

Peer reviewed publications:

1. Gray J, Hamann, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein on the language of philosophers, Northwestern University Press, Forthcoming (2009)

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12. Project Plan

Task December January February March April May June July August

Organisational tasks Negotiate project plan and details with sponsor

Qualitative data collection

and analysis

Begin qualitative discussions within group, building

on internal expertise

Comprehensive literature review based on internal

group discussions

Aggregate and compare existing survey data

Prepare qualitative interviews

Carry out in-depth qualitative interviews

Commence writing up in-depth interviews and create

illustrative case studies

Quantitative data collection

and analysis

Plan survey recruitment process and optimisation

Carry out "adoption sampling" study on Web 2.0

sites for researchers

Create measurement model for cross-sectional survey, based on qualitative interviews and literature

review

Run survey over three to four weeks (depending on response rates)

Statistical analysis of survey results

Results and publication

Finalise analysis, manuscript write-up and

submission to RIN

Jointly prepare publication and dissemination of

results