It’s a rich, rich source of information and interaction. But it’s doing my head in. That’s why Jim Hendler’s blog post last Friday hit home so well. His piece is about finding the time to blog, which itself is an issue for me. But if I add to that the distraction of Twitter, the problem is compounded. I keep thinking back to Richard Hamming’s remarks about sustaining that 10% extra effort in your science so as to reap long-term benefits in progress and productivity. And I wonder if blogging and twittering has soaked up that time from my schedule. I think it might have.
Since the reason for the variable degree of success of online social tools for scientists is largely attributed to the lack of participation, I think a great way to pull in participation by scientists would be to offer that kind of value up-front. You give it a paper or set of papers, and it tells you the ones you need to read next, or perhaps the ones you’ve missed. My crazy idea was that a recommendation system for the scientific literature, using expert-scored literature to find relevant related papers, could do for papers what Flickr has done for photos.
The University of Florida, Cornell University and a handful of other schools have been awarded $12.2 million to build a social/collaborative network for scientists and researchers. The idea is to make it easier to find research and like-minded researchers in an effort to speed new discoveries.
Those who attempt to regain control of communications face outcry. Certain corners of the Internet have been erupting in argument in the past weeks following an announcement by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York that it will henceforth require scientists who blog to ask the permission of presenters before firing up computers or mobile phones and publicizing their findings.
"free, social networking site that enables scientists, engineers, and other technical professionals to connect, collaborate with ... world-wide scientific communication and incorporates the newest social networking technologies." - "Yet another Facebook for Scientists that I am unlikely to use." http://tinyurl.com/55ngbf