How will the web change the practice of science in the next 25 years?
Network peer-review via the web and enhanced data crunching power are two of the defining changes recently bestowed upon 21st century science. While the term Science 2.0, like Web 2.0, means different things to different people, many appeal to transparency as its defining characteristic. In fact, results of the European Commission’s public consultation on Science 2.0 published in May 2015 reveal that stakeholders voted to replace Science 2.0 with open science in any further proceedings of the Commission.
Yet, Science 2.0 holds in store many other new issues for researchers to confront, such as changes in the style and means of collaborating and obtaining funding. Sophisticated algorithms now allow scientists to produce and analyse data in new and faster ways. In addition, the web has opened up ways for citizens to interface with various stages of the scientific process-from funding to data production.
But the overarching question of whether the web will accelerate research and innovation in the next 25 years still remains to be answered. Nonetheness, Science 2.0, in its many connotations, has great potential to establish a more reliable scientific process, with greater transparency and accountability. And that alone is an exciting prospect.
A Call for Transparency
So how should the scientific process evolve towards greater transparency? Experts agree different disciplines must have different standards for openness. “There is no one-size-fits-all,” says Eva Méndez, an associate professor of library and information science at Carlos III University of Madrid in Spain, who was involved in the Commission’s Science 2.0 consultation. Today, calls for greater transparency have progressed more smoothly in fields like high-energy physics than in biomedicine because of the relatively extreme competition pervading the latter, adds Caroline Lynn Kamerlin, who is chair for Young Academy Europe (YAE)-a pan-European bottom-up initiative of a dynamic group of recognised European young scientists-and who also took part in the Commission’s consultation.
Download a free PDF version of the article and spread it!Regardless of discipline, all agree any move towards greater transparency in the scientific process has a higher potential for success if it comes from the top-down. Policy makers, publishers and funders first need to create incentives for scientists to be more open, says Kamerlin who is also associate professor of structural biology at Uppsala University in Sweden. Kamerlin remains skeptical about using force to further greater transparency though; especially in cutthroat fields like biomedicine. “It’s an invitation for data-vandalism,” she says.
But the research process has already started becoming more transparent. Today open journals provide access to papers free-of-charge-as it is the authors of the work who bear the cost of publication. Multiple publishers now also encourage-or even require-researchers to publish their raw data with their findings. With the publication of raw data, cases of fraud or simple mistakes can be caught before publication and researchers can more easily replicate or reuse the data in future studies, experts say. To test this idea, the European Commission has implemented a pilot action for open access to raw data under Horizon 2020.
Nothing left private
Greater transparency may eventually find its way into the earliest stages of the scientific process as well; through documents outlining the step-by-step formulation of a scientific theory or experiment. In the future, open laboratory notebooks may allow anyone-including the public, companies and other scientists-access to researchers’ daily notes.
But open lab notebooks might be a thing of the far future, though not because of any failure in technological advancement. Any researcher could easily publish his or her notes to the web today, but worries about intellectual property and patenting laws might prevent them from doing so, says Thomas Crouzier, an advocate of open science in every sense of the term, who is also a French assistant professor of biomaterials. Crouzier says he will probably not force members of his new lab at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden to share their notes with the world just yet.
Still, he argues implementing open lab notebooks would have advantages, if the culture of science and industry was different. “You could have a little helper that figures out where you’re having difficulties [in an experiment] and how you could be helped by others; perhaps by selling you a service or connecting you with colleagues,” says Crouzier.
However, the idea of an open lab notebook is a bit too Orwellian for Kamerlin. But she also admits the next generation of scientists-who are digital natives-might not feel that way. Since young people today grow up “sharing every aspect of their lives” on the web, they will probably be “more prone to sharing every aspect of their scientific lives” as well, she adds.
Better credit, altered peer-review
Any step towards greater openness “has to be coupled with a system that clearly identifies authorship,” Crouzier emphasises. Others stakeholders involved in the Commission’s consultation concur. “I think one of the biggest changes will be the way scientists get credit for their research,” adds Méndez.
Today a scientist’s worth is mainly based on the number of papers he or she publishes in peer-review journals, which are ranked by impact factor. But Méndez argues scientists need “mechanisms to legitimise alternative ways of communicating research.” For example, via blogs, tweets or discussions on social media networks for scientists such as Mendeley or ResearchGate.
Besides, if researchers had more exposure to the complex, “sociological factors that influence their world”- perhaps through connecting to the wider public through a blog — they might realise “relying upon simple, singular forms of evaluation” will remain problematic, adds Brian Wynne, a professor of science and technology studies at Lancaster University in the UK.