Cameron Neylon has written an “open letter”:http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen/2008/08/06/an-open-letter-to-the-developers-of-social-network-and-‘web-20’-tools-for-scientists/ to the developers of SciLink and FaceScientist and all the rest of them, pleading for some sort of cooperation.
In the less rarefied atmosphere of the world outside of Science, social networking sites have come and gone or given up to MySpace and Facebook (I’m going to ignore weblogs because they’re not really social sites in this sense). Cameron is concerned that in the MyBook/FaceSpace battle for scientists we’ll be left with nothing. The relatively small size of our (potential) community counts against us being able to support a number of such tools, as Deepak quite rightly “comments”:http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen/2008/08/06/an-open-letter-to-the-developers-of-social-network-and-‘web-20’-tools-for-scientists/#comments.
Cameron plans to email the letter to anyone he can find. So I suggest that you leave a “comment”:http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen/2008/08/06/an-open-letter-to-the-developers-of-social-network-and-‘web-20’-tools-for-scientists/ if you (think you) know who it would be good to bully encourage.
Giving the nature of science; specialization, I would think that specialized networking sites are the key.
Hence the aim to have a global network for scientists is probably not really going to work.
Let’s just look at one of the tools for networking for scientists right now: conferences. They are highly specialized regarding the general topic, subdivided into specialized sessions, often running in parallel to each other.
Networking in science is done in small circles.
Well now, I disagree.
How specialized do you want? Biologists in one corner, physicists in another (sorry if I’m being unfair to chemists)?
But biology is a huge field, so maybe we should separate the reciprocal space cadets from the biochemists from the cell biologists? Which would mean as a structural molecular cell biologist I’d have to sign up to three different sites. The breakthrough I’m on the verge of making (Really. Any day now) is going to come about because I’ve managed — the old-fashioned way — to talk to people from pretty disparate fields.
I should perhaps add that the idea of a single über site with (sub-)discipline-oriented ‘rooms’ should not be beyond the ken of anyone with half a computational degree.
I agree with both of you. I definitely prefer attending physical conferences with people in my field – but my definition of “my field” encompasses a wide variety of approaches (stem cell biology / developmental biology).
However, I do think that (a) site with the best features of the multiplicity of sites out there – or with portable modules that you can bring along with and not have to set up a new network everywhere you lurk – would be ideal. It doesn’t mean that little specialized communities wouldn’t arise within that setting for everyday interaction, but one would share the same tools as people in other disciplines and could easily find/contact them if, for example, you were a physicist wanting to model blood turbulence at the brachiocephalic artery junction over time and you wanted to contact a developmental biologist to learn about the anatomy of that region in the tadpole.
However, what I forgot to add onto my comment to Cameron, is that there is not a lot of incentive for a developer to throw in the towel, or even to talk to the competitor. Everyone wants to be the next breakthrough network site for scientists, and to propose tools that no one else has. Everyone also hopes to convince scientists that they really should adopt a particular tool they haven’t yet used – witness PDF reprint or image organization software. I do think that unfortunately, Cam’s gesture is doomed to failure, but you never know…
I just came back from the Evo-devo meeting in Ghent. Evo-devo is already a specialization, but even within this specialization there were obvious smaller networking circles.
While it was interesting to listen to plant evo-devo talks it really doesn’t has much benefit to actually network with them. That said during diner I ended up at a table with plant people and we had a fun time, and even discussed science, but there will not be a collaboration ever. The systems are just too different.
A useful network is more restricted even, although I could see myself participate in an Evo-devo network on the internet.
My next presentation will be on a tooth meeting and this is another specialization. Most of the people there actually have no interest whatsoever in the evo-devo work presented at the previous conference. I was there because I do evo-devo work on teeth (partially). So for me personally there was overlap. Most people at the next meeting would prefer a network that solely deals with the ‘biology’ of teeth.
Each individual researcher therefore has an interested in only a small collection of research topics professionally. Of course, many people have a broad interest and love reading about many different science topics, but from a professional perspective social networks tend to be rather small.
@Mark, Yes, but your personal “tooth” network will not the same with respect to either people or subjects as your neighbor’s at lunch at that tooth conference. There will only be some overlap. Isn’t it better to be able to draw on a large community to constitute your individual, smaller circle, rather than have to try to coax someone from an evo-devo website over to meet with a person on an osteogenesis group on another website? That is, the collection of research topics which define your personal interest is also reflected in the uniqueness of the small (or maybe not so small) circle of people with whom you want to either just chat or actively collaborate. Larger websites allow you to take just the bits you want, and customize your own interface.
… as well as giving you the option of expanding your horizons.
It’s a truism to say that despite ever-increasing specialization, really interesting stuff comes from the boundaries between those specialization.
Isn’t it better to be able to draw on a large community to constitute your individual, smaller circle, rather than have to try to coax someone from an evo-devo website over to meet with a person on an osteogenesis group on another website?
I would answer no, since a large community would not generate enough specialized interest and hence would be a waste of my time.
I don’t read an osteogenesis journal for the same reason. The amount of effort put in is not corresponding to the possible reward. I love reading Nature of course, but I skip most parts and luckily Henry Gee loves evo-devo so there is often something even very interesting to read.
With a separate evo-devo and a osteogenesis network you could easily hop when in need of an osteogenesis expert, or vice versa.
It’s a truism to say that despite ever-increasing specialization, really interesting stuff comes from the boundaries between those specialization.
Evo-devo is already on the boundary of specializations. You meet people from many different kind of disciplines, backgrounds, and interest.
At the evo-devo meeting in ghent you went from a paleontologist looking at the Cambrian explosion, to a miRNA molecular biologist basically looking at the same problem. Add theoretical biologists, computer models, straightforward developmental biology, classic evolutionary approaches, and you end up with a potpourri of interdisciplinary research.
@Mark I agree that there is a strong argument for many services, each of which do one thing very well, but what I would like to see is a federated system which enables connections and data to flow freely.
Say for instance you suddenly find you need to talk to someone about the physical chemistry of calcium and how it relates to the proteomic profile of your organism at a specific time. If all the physical chemists are over on Facebook and the proteomics people on Research Gate, while the molecular biologists are playing in Nature Network then the connection never gets made.
Any pre-existing network will by definition fail to make new connections. But equally I think it is well established that ‘if you build it, they won’t come’. You have to seed these networks effectively with people who already have interesting content to share, and here existing networks are very important.
Evo-devo is already on the boundary of specializations.
You can say that again. </cheapshot>
And here was me thinking we were straying rather close to the release of calcium from intracellular stores 🙂
I tend to fall on the side of the argument where social networks are more important for smaller, niche communities than for uniting the broad swath of science. It’s still unclear whether it’s better to set up those niches in a bigger pond, or to let each have its own pond.
That said, I think one has to look at the business models of the companies involved before asking them to work together. I can’t speak for most sites, but I did meet with one of the founders of SciLink. Their business is based on analyzing hiring trends for companies. What you see on the public site is only a small fraction of the data they’ve collected. Most companies don’t make their entries public. But they do pay to have SciLink analyze their personnel, giving them a better idea of who works for them, where they came from, and where they should concentrate their hiring efforts. From what I can tell, they’re trying to be more “Linked-In” than they are “Myspace” and are emphasizing social networks for scientists for job hunting and recruitment, rather than for chatting and collaborating. At least that was the impression I got from our meeting with them. I get the feeling the other stuff on the site is just window dressing.
Perhaps Cameron should send his letter to Nature Jobs and see if they’d be willing to open things up with SciLink, as they seem a closer fit than some of the other social networking sites.
I’m a fan of network portability, we had hcard and xfn on the site and inadvertently removed them a while back, we’ll bring it back again. Opening up NN to allow invites in and out is something we’ve discussed internally.
I was at the Social Graph Foo Camp in February, I know the importance of making this work. There is a lot coming in the next few months.
I think you can have both portability and closed networks – its a question of thinking of it as a platform rather than a website. One of the web2 services that I think was the most successful (but I need to find out more about it) was eMinerals. This was a collaboration site set up for a specific project where people shared documents, data, etc. That meant there was a preformed network, with important content ready made, which meant people actually used it.
If you have a platform (like WordPress or many others) you can install on your own system or use a hosted service. All the wordpress installations can talk to each other in particularly (limited) ways and developers can build plugins that work on all of them (well excepting upgrade issues).
I think this is a model that could conceivably work. A platform that can be hosted or under your own control depending on skill and resources through which you can communicate with other services and installations.
The standards and technologies for exchange between different social networking sites already exist (OpenSocial, OpenID, Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, etc.) or are evolving. Of course we need more standards that are specific to science social networking. But all the new and not so new science social networking sites could start by supporting what is available today (e.g. Connotea supporting OpenID). We already had discussions about Nature Network supporting an API standard (e.g. here or here).
If I wanted to start an Web 2.0 application for scientists today, I wouldn’t really be interested in starting from scratch – with user management, layout decisions, and all that standard stuff that has nothing to do with science. Rather, I would build the functionality that I care about and connect to an existing social networking site. And I would use the network that provides the best tools, currently probably a race between Google and Facebook. But nobody stops you to interact with more than one social networking site.
Martin, very much agree. Also I think there will be more consolidation in this general area as well. As Euan said on the Friendfeed thread the social graph is going to happen, so get with the program. I would go along with this but I’m not sure its clear exactly what it will look like yet. Having said that its perhaps an opportunity for the science community to lead rather than follow. Although see Euan’s other comment at Friendfeeed ‘Double checking the social network portability issue. Is it really very hard? Answer is yes, definitely. Bad idea to do anything unilateral.‘
Maybe the answer doesn’t lie within technology, but within necessity?
Currently there isn’t really a need to use social network sites. Similar to email not taking off immediately after its invention, technology needs time to pervade a culture. A certain amount of people need to be convinced of its necessity, and moreover, see participation in social networks as a valid and productive use of your precious time before it can start taking off.
Maybe people need to hear from their peers how it helped them with their work. But currently I haven’t yet heard a single person talk about how beneficial social networks are for science.
In fact, the old guard even seems to be quite hostile towards social network sites. Any social internet activity is often seen as a waste of time (or even any internet activity – people need to work in the lab). I see a lot of people use software such facebook at work, but it is mostly to communicate with friends, not with peers, although often friends are peers. But yet they do not communicate on science.
And I actually didn’t realize that it could be useful to participate in NN till I actually started doing it.
I think you’re strongly making Cameron’s “need to lead, not follow” argument for him.
Now, before everyone gets on board, is the time to influence the direction this takes.
(And to answer the other question — we need to do this because the next generation of potential scientists will have grown up with this sort of interaction as second nature.)
I actually have been spreading the word that people should join NN.
So far no success.
I think that we need some of booth, small and closed an open and wide networks. I’m thinking in small-word networks achitecture.
It’s quite impossible to make my teacher read NN, but I can talk with him about it and make him work in our own wiki 🙂 (pass= .granos. ) Once our own network is working, we just need a translator to some (xml) standar to export all our data to a bigger place.
I just wanted you know we have a wiki 🙂 thanks to NN