This project wants to establish a new way of scientific publishing and data handling to improve scientific workflow and save taxpayers' money.
The tool to be created will combine several existing concepts 'to meet the demand for automatic information-sharing between scientists in universities and institutes around the world', the original aim behind the birth of the World Wide Web.
For a critical discussion about todays publishing practice see 'How The Digital Revolution Can Fix Scientific Publishing And Speed Up Discoveries'
Please feel free to contribute over the issues. This project is all about collaborating!
Copyright (c) 2016 Mervin Seiberlich. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
Why should todays publishing practice be replaced:
- Scientific workflow inefficient
- Cost (submission/paywalls)
- Delays
- Anonymity of peer reviewers
- Subjective selection
- Ineffective search for results
- Lack of available research data
- Limited machine-readability
- No failures published
- Possible censorship
There are things every newcomer to a field has to learn. And quite often some experiments are done independently over and over again due to the lack of a decent available transcript. The time wasted could be used for new research.
There are many impressive examples coming out of the open-source community that show how to work efficiently together - fitting each to a certain task. By combining the strengths of these approaches a joint science-net for researchers would enable collaboration in a drastically more efficient way. With the help of modern computational approaches such a science-net would enable the creation of an intelligent database capable of quick search, combining data for meta-studies and giving an overview of cutting edge research.
What we need:
- A tool to collaborate efficiently
- A systematical process of transcription
- Intelligent databases
- Scientific exchange, productivity and competition
- Reputation and proof of own workforce
- Knowledge conservation (transcript)
The heart of the science-web journal will be an interactive wiki or dynamic lab book (a good name has yet to be found). It will be the daily tool of the scientist, providing aplatform to insert data, evaluate them and to note down results. Combining strengths of the wiki-concept known from Wikipedia, jupyter notebook, version control like git and the use of an intelligent database (see discussion) would enable a highly efficient workflow. It will be flexible enough to allow the user a broadband choice of different text editors and data analyzing languages/tools but standardized enough to ensure fluent collaborating. The recommended data analyzing language will be Python due to its richness as a fully developed programming language, large community and open-source nature.
A fundamental part of science is the process of transcribing inforamtion. It could be simplified by systematically connecting its different stages into an integrated net, with particular benifits for education. Starting from interactive wiki-books, students could read upwards the 'tree of knowledge' to their field of interest till they reach the cutting-edge research.
To ensure security and privacy each scientist has an off-line database and personal interactive wiki.
The first level of collaboration is within the workgroup. An intranet, hosted by the universities, provides an interactive workgroup-wiki and servers for structured data and drafts.
When the group thinks something is ready to be published, it releases it into the university intranet and the libre open access net. The publication is on behalf of the University or Institute to encourage high-quality publications. A peer-review from outsides can be requested.
Useful in daily life due to interactive wiki, database and easy search
(Open access and open source)