Making the Web work for science - SciTechLA

kaitlin thaney
@kaythaney ; @mozillascience
scitechLA / 29 sept. 2013
making the web
work for science

doing good is part of our code

help researchers use the
power of the open web to
change science’s future.

“... up to 70% of research from academic labs
cannot be reproduced, representing an enormous
waste of money and effort.”
- Elizabeth Iorns, Science Exchange

our deﬁnition of
“knowledge” is evolving.
our systems need to follow.

research cycle
idea
experiment
lit review
materials
publish
share results
retest
analyze
collect data

blocking points
idea
experiment
access
attaining
materials
publish
share results
retest
analyze
collect data
(to name a few ...)

types of information
hypothesis/query
protocols
parameters
content
non-digital “stuff”
articles
proceedings
negative results
analysis
code
datasets
models
(added complexity)
prof activities
mentorship
teaching activities

traditions last not because they are
excellent, but because inﬂuential
people are averse to change and
because of the sheer burdens of
transition to a better state ...
“
“
Cass Sunstein

Source: Michener, 2006 Ecoinformatics.

web as a platform
participatory, enabling, open

our systems need to
talk to one another.
learn by doing. teach by showing.

“One worry I have is that, with reviews like this, scientists will be
even more discouraged from publishing their code [...] We need
to get more code out there, not improve how it looks.”

“There’s greater reward,
and more temptation to
bend the rules.”
- David Resnik, bioethicist

shifting practice is hard.
... but not impossible.

63 nations
10,000 scientists
50,000 participants
can we do the same
for open science?

we need to even
(/ elevate) the playing ﬁeld.

“Reliance on
ad-hoc, self-
education
about what’s
possible
doesn’t scale.”
- Selena Decklemann

learn from open source
(culture as well as technology)

current activity:
135 instructors
(30, training)
115 bootcamps
3500 learners

building capacity
“train the trainer”

instill best
(digital,
reproducible)
practice
“research hygiene”

wasted ...
$$$
time
resource
opportunity

in an increasingly digital, data-
driven world, what core skills, tools
do the next-generation need?

operating in isolation
doesn’t scale.

coordination and
collaboration are key.
design for interoperability.
remember the
non-technical challenges.

join us
(and the conversation.)
teach, host, learn.
http://software-carpentry.org
http://wiki.mozilla.org/ScienceLab

questions?
kaitlin@mozillafoundation.org
@kaythaney ; @mozillascience

Making the Web work for science - SciTechLA

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