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Now about that filter…

12 September 2010 3 Comments

A talk given in two slightly different forms at the NFAIS annual meeting 2010 (where I followed Clay Shirkey, hence the title) and at the Society for General Microbiology in Edinburgh in March. In the first case the talk was part of a panel of presentations intended to give the view of “scholars” to the information professionals. In the second it was part of a session looking at the application of web based tools to research and education.

Now, about that filter..

Abstract (NFAIS meeting): There was more scientific information generated in the past five years than has previously existed, and scientists are simply not coping. Despite the fact that the web was built to enable the communication of data and information between scientists the scientific community has been very slow in exploiting its full capabilities. I will discuss the development and state of the art of collaborative communication and filtering tools and their use by the scientific research community. The reasons for the lack of penetration and resistance to change will be discussed along with the outlines of what a fully functional system would like and most importantly the way this would enable more effective and efficient research.

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3 Comments »

  • Quick Links | A Blog Around The Clock said:

    […] Now about that filter… ( how cool to give a talk right after Clay Shirky and riff off…) […]

    # 16 September 2010 at 4:03 pm
  • Lykkja said:

    Very interesting slide show. But I wonder where you found out that there was more scientific information generated in the past five years than has previously existed? I would like to know more about that. I have followed your blog for a while and I mostly read with interest what you are writing.

    PÃ¥l Lykkja, Norway

    # 23 September 2010 at 8:32 am
  • Cameron Neylon said:

    Hi Lykkja, Good point. So there are some estimates out there on total information generated over the past X years and most of these are now out of date. I refer to a couple in this paper. Now strictly these don’t refer to scientific data but if you take recent astronomy plus the LHC, plus gene sequence data, I’d be pretty comfortable with that assertion. I’d take even money that there was more gene sequence data generated last year than there was data generated in all the years before that actually. Now exactly what the numbers are I’m less sure but it would be interesting to see an up to date estimate.

    # 24 September 2010 at 9:08 am