The UKOLN Institutional Web Managers Workshop is running in Aberdeen from 22-24 July and I am giving a talk discussing the impact of Web2.0 tools on science. My main theme will be the that the main cultural reasons for lack of uptake relate to the fear of losing control over data and ideas. Web2.0 tools rely absolutely on the willingness of people to make useful material available. In science this material is data, ideas, protocols, and analyses. Prior to publication most scientists are very sceptical of making their hard earned data available – but without this the benefits that we know can be achieved through network effects, re-use of data, and critical analysis of data and analysis, will not be seen. The key to benefiting from web based technologies is adopting more open practices.
The video below is a screencast of a shorter version of the talk intended to give people the opportunity to make comments, ask questions, or offer suggestions. I wanted to keep it short so there are relatively few examples in there – there will be much more in the full talk. For those who can’t make it to Aberdeen I am told that the talks are expected to be live videocast and I will provide a URL as soon as I can. If this works I am also intending to try and respond to comments and questions via FriendFeed or Twitter in real time. This may be foolhardy but we’ll see how it goes. Web2 is supposed to be about real time interaction after all!
I don’t seem to be able to embed the video but you can find it here.
