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Call for submissions for a project on The Use and Relevance of Web 2.0 Tools for Researchers

28 October 2008 3 views 10 Comments

The Research Information Network has put out a cal for expressions of interest in running a research project on how Web 2.0 tools are changing scientific practice. The project will be funded up to £90,000. Expressions of interest are due on Monday 3 November (yes next week) and the projects are due to start in January. You can see the call in full here but in outline RIN seeking evidence whether web 2.0 tools are:

• making data easier to share, verify and re-use, or otherwise

facilitating more open scientific practices;

• changing discovery techniques or enhancing the accessibility of

research information;

• changing researchers’ publication and dissemination behaviour,

(for example, due to the ease of publishing work-in-progress and

grey literature);

• changing practices around communicating research findings (for

example through opportunities for iterative processes of feedback,

pre-publishing, or post-publication peer review).

Now we as a community know that there are cases where all of these are occurring and have fairly extensively documented examples. The question is obviously one of the degree of penetration. Again we know this is small – I’m not exactly sure how you would quantify it.

My challenge to you is whether it would be possible to use the tools and community we already have in place to carry out the project? In the past we’ve talked a lot about aggregating project teams and distributed work but the problem has always been that people don’t have the time to spare. We would need to get some help from social scientists on process and design of the investigation but with £90,000 there is easily enough money to pay people properly for their time. Indeed I know there are some people out there freelancing already who are in many ways already working on these issues anyway. So my question is: Are people interested in pursuing this? And if so, what do you think your hourly rate is?

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  • http://www.rin.ac.uk/ Aaron Griffiths

    I’d just like to add, on behalf of the RIN, that we will let all those expressing an interest see who else has expressed interest after the 3 November deadline – so there will be opportunities for teaming up with others in putting together a proposal at that stage as well. Thanks.

  • http://www.rin.ac.uk Aaron Griffiths

    I’d just like to add, on behalf of the RIN, that we will let all those expressing an interest see who else has expressed interest after the 3 November deadline – so there will be opportunities for teaming up with others in putting together a proposal at that stage as well. Thanks.

  • http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:Cameron_Neylon Cameron Neylon

    Aaron, thanks for that – that’s really helpful to know.

  • http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:Cameron_Neylon Cameron Neylon

    Aaron, thanks for that – that’s really helpful to know.

  • Paul

    I would be happy to help bringing in the community in Hong Kong to the survey. but the community here may not be familiar with Web 2.0 tools for research. As for the hourly rate, I have previously done similar surveying work for Elsevier, maybe we can take that as a reference. They recruit some students to be ambassadors for promoting their product (Scopus), the hourly subsidies is $9USD. There is also usability test inviting Post-doc or PI with Scopus experience to join, it’s a 90 minutes session and they offer a $100USD Amazon coupon.

  • Paul

    I would be happy to help bringing in the community in Hong Kong to the survey. but the community here may not be familiar with Web 2.0 tools for research. As for the hourly rate, I have previously done similar surveying work for Elsevier, maybe we can take that as a reference. They recruit some students to be ambassadors for promoting their product (Scopus), the hourly subsidies is $9USD. There is also usability test inviting Post-doc or PI with Scopus experience to join, it’s a 90 minutes session and they offer a $100USD Amazon coupon.

  • http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:Cameron_Neylon Cameron Neylon

    Paul, that could be really useful. Looking at groups who are very unfamiliar would be helpful – we already know a number of examples where the tools aren’t useful. Looking at the process by which people adopt (or don’t adopt) them could be useful as well.

  • http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:Cameron_Neylon Cameron Neylon

    Paul, that could be really useful. Looking at groups who are very unfamiliar would be helpful – we already know a number of examples where the tools aren’t useful. Looking at the process by which people adopt (or don’t adopt) them could be useful as well.

  • http://www.chemspider.com/ ChemSpiderMan

    Cameron..didn’t see this until today. Appologie for not reading fast enough…too busy getting ChemMantis into shape. I am definitely interested in participating and hourly rates all depend on what the nature of the tasks is…development hours? project management hours? sitting in on discussions? blah, blah, blah….so, I’m interested and we can discuss details offline if its not too late.

  • http://www.chemspider.com ChemSpiderMan

    Cameron..didn’t see this until today. Appologie for not reading fast enough…too busy getting ChemMantis into shape. I am definitely interested in participating and hourly rates all depend on what the nature of the tasks is…development hours? project management hours? sitting in on discussions? blah, blah, blah….so, I’m interested and we can discuss details offline if its not too late.