[OWW-SC] Fwd: OWW Meeting - Some thoughts

[Jason Kelly]

comments from peter sorger for the retreat.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Peter Sorger <psorger at mit.edu>
Date: Jul 25, 2006 12:49 PM
Subject: OWW Meeting - Some thoughts
To: jasonk at mit.edu, Sri Kosuri <skosuri at mit.edu>, Andrew D Endy <endy at mit.edu>
Cc: Jay Copeland <ajcopeland at gmail.com>, Jeremy Muhlich <jmuhlich at mit.edu>


Sorry I can't make your meeting for OWW. Jay will be there though. For what it
is worth, here some of my thoughts on the questions in the agenda...


Research Laboratory Communities

    * Users have requested private pages on the wiki, for sharing sensitive
information amongst collaborators.
          o Usually we can enable both collaboration and open sharing, but in
this case they butt heads - what is the priority for OWW in this case?
    * Users have requested a distribution of OWW to run locally in their labs
with easy mechanisms to post content to the main OWW site.
          o Is it worth our time to develop tools that are useful to biological
researchers independent of the OWW site?  - YES BUT ONLY IF OWW CAN GET FUNDING
FOR THIS PURPOSE
    * Labs use OWW as their lab/collaboration (syntheticbiology.org) homepage
          o How actively do we encourage this (vs. contributing to the shared
information resources)? I THINK THESE GO HAND IN HAND. I WOULD BE LIBERAL ABOUT
HOME PAGES UNTIL THE CAPACITY OF THE SERVERS ARE STRETCHED. I WOULD HAVE A
POLICY ON REMOVING INACTIVE HOMEPAGES - MAYBE IF NO EDITS IN 12 MONTHS THEN OFF
TO ARCHIVE
                + Is there a way to let these "specialized" collaborations occur
while encouraging/requiring some contribution to shared resources? Should we be
more explicit with rules? i.e. some of your content must contribute to the OWW
community as a whole if you are going to host your site on OWW; you can't be an
independent unit that doesn't "interact" with the rest of the community.
                + Doesn't having content in the OWW domain make the interaction
with the rest of the community automatic? I THINK THIS IS TRUE. RULES WOULD BE
HARD TO POLICE. BETTER TO MAKE PEOPLE WANT TO SHARE THAN FORCE THEM TO
    * Labs unaffialited with biology have requested to be on OWW, up till now we
have rejected their requests.
          o Should we remain solely a biology resource? If so, where is the line
between biology and the rest of science/engineering? AGAIN _ CAN YOU BE LIBERAL
ABOUT THIS? I WOULD CERTAINLY TRY TO INCLUDE MEDICAL GROUPS AND BIO-ENGINEERING
ETC ETC, BUT IN CASE OF NO BIOLOGY LINK THEN I WOULD ENCOURAGE DOWNLOAD AND OWN
SITE. THIS WOULD BE AIDED BY HAVING AN OWW DISTRIBUTION
                + Need to have a clear "definition" of biology to do this. May
need a more formal mechanism (by committee?) to decide who can join. How is
this decided now? HOW ABOUT USING THE DEFIINITIION IN PUBMED? IF YOUR ARTICLES
ARE PUBLISHED IN PUBMED THEN YOU ARE IN.
                + What are the worries about other sciences joining? Is it
because of a scientific culture clash, or is it more pragmatic (like handling
more data than we can)? At the moment, biology is welcoming fresh eyes from a
variety of traditional fields like physics and applied mathematics, so it seems
like limiting participation to biology only will be a fuzzy endeavor.
          o Are ethicists, policy-makers, science reporters, etc, included in
our community? YES - PROBABLY. WORTH THINKING ABOUT WHAT YOU WOULD DO FOR
COMMERCIAL USERS
          o There are currently some non-biology groups and users on the site.
Do we reevaluate the eligibility of all current users on the site to ensure
everyone fits into our community guidelines and remove those who don't? NEED TO
BE CONSISTENT HERE I THINK. JUST MAKE SURE DEFINITION BROAD ENOUGH YOU DON"T
KICK MANY PEOPLE OFF!

[edit]
Shared information resources

    * Users have developed shared information resources pages - such as
protocols, materials, equipment, strains, etc.
          o Users also put up their own versions of protocols, materials, etc,
should we encourage either approach over the other? ENCOURAGE SHARED RESROUCE
AND LOOK INTO POSSIBILITY THAT THESE SHOULD BE CITED - USING A STABLE URL OR
IDENTIFIER!! IF PEOPLE SAW THEIR OWW CONTIRBUTIONS CITED IN STANDARD LITERATURE
THEN YOU WOULD GET A BIG BOOST IN ENTHUSIASM AND WOULD INCENTIVIZE SHARING

[edit]
Education

    * There have been a couple courses taught using OWW. OWW was useful for
course development, increasing student involvement, reusing materials, and
course improvements. Research communities have used some of the course
materials as well.
          o Do we have any restrictions on the type of course that can be hosted
on OWW? Should it be limited to lab courses, biology courses, etc?
          o There are HS Biology Olympiad pages on OWW, should we allow that to
continue?
          o Should we have non-researcher students on the site?
                + Is OWW only a resource for current researchers or is it also a
vehicle to encourage new people to explore/participate in research?

[edit]
Publishing

    * John is using OWW to allow for feedback on submitted abstracts, others
have posted lab notebooks, preliminary results, drafts of papers for
publication, etc.
          o Do we want to encourage the development of OWW as an alternative
publishing platform? I WOULD BE CAREFUL HERE - LOTS OF OPEN SOURCE PUBLICATION
EFFORTS ARE UNDERWAY AND IT WILL BE HARD TO COMPETE. YOU WOULD DEFINITELY NEED
TO START CHARGING $$ IF YOU WANTED THIS> ALSO, FEEDBACK NEEDS TO BE CONTAINED
SO YOU DO NOT GET PERSONAL ATTACKS/SLANDER
                + Does OWW want to serve as a tool/resource to aid in the
traditional publication process (i.e. post preliminary results, drafts, etc.
with the aim that they will eventually lead to a publication in a journal), or
does OWW want to promote a new publication model? The latter could mean that
results and 'articles' posted and developed on OWW could serve as the end
publication - one that can be read and commented, and ever perhaps edited by
the whole community. Or maybe OWW is the apropriate place to discuss and figure
out what an alternative publishing model is. AGAIN, I THINK THIS WOULD BE A
DISTRACTION FOR AN EFFORT THAT NEEDS TO FOCUS ON WHAT IT IS ALREADY DOING
WELL!!
                + If we do this, are we responsible for figuring out how this
may or may not impact publication of similar material in more traditional
formats? i.e. Does OWW have a responsibility to its users to inform them of
what publication/ownership rights they may be giving up by posting things on
the site? NO - USERS ARE RESPONDISBLE FOR FIGURING THIS OUT

[edit]
Meta

    * Are we restricting ourselves by defining a mission itself. Currently, we
allow almost everything that has to do with biology on the site. This has
allowed us to take advantage of opportunities that individuals have started,
and usurp them into the larger mission of OWW. However, it also puts us in a
dillemma when we have to consider where to pool our resources to make
improvements. What do people think?  STAY AWAY FROM PUBLISHING. FOCUS ON HOME
PAGES, PEOPLE, PROTOCOLS, IGEM etc FOR NOW



[edit]
Problems

    * No agreed upon mechanism for making official decisions
    * No clear spokesperson to interact with press, 3rd parties, etc.
    * How best to involve new (non-local) people in leadership of the site. HOST
QUARTERLY WEB_ENABLED MEETINGS> SEE WHO PARTCIPATES

[edit]
Options

    * How do people feel about setting in place an organizational structure for
next 6 months based on the current adhoc leadership. This will give them
explicit authority, rather than the current implicit approach. Secondly, all
major decisions not directly related to the sub-positions will be made by
majority vote of the steering committee. TO be clear the sub-positions are:
YES - THIS IS GOOD APPROACH, MAKE IT ONE YEAR

   1. SC Coordinator - organizes SC meetings
   2. SC Secretary - takes meeting notes, organizes the SC wiki area
   3. Site administration team (may need leader) - keeps site infrastructure
functioning and updated
   4. Spokesperson - talks to cold calling 3rd parties - individuals would still
be able to setup new interactions independent of the spokesperson, e.g. reshma
talking to OCW

    * During the next 6 months a group will be responsible for defining the
long-term organizational structure and it would be voted on by the SC in
December. or if we have time we can figure all this out today :).

THREE OTHER ISSUES:

1. IF YOU EVER WANT FEDERAL MONEY YOU NEED TO CLEARLY ACKNOLEDGE SUPPORT IN LINK
AT PORTAL PAGE> I KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE THAT THIS IS EXAMINED CAREFULLY>
ULTIMATELY< NIH ETC HAVE MADE EVERTHING DONE SO FAR POSSIBLE

2. YOU MAY NEED A POLICY ON ADVERTISING -= ie NON! - ESPECIALLY WHEN COMMERCIAL
ORGANIZATIONS BECOME AWARE OF IMPACT. PEOPLE WILL WANT TO SELL ANTIBODIES
THROUGH THE SITE I BET.

3. YOU COULD CONSIDER TRYING TO RAISE MONEY FROM USERS ALONG THE LINES OF FREELY
DOWNLOADABLE SOFTWARE THAT ASKS FOR PAYMENT AFTER SOME TIME> THIS WOULD
CERTAINLY MAKE SENSE FOR LABS WITH HOME PAGES ON YOUR SITE> IF YOU USE A PAYPAL
SORT OF PAYMENT SYSTEM YOU CAN GET AUDITED BALANCES AUTOMATICALLY AND AVOID ANY
HASTLE WITH CREDIT CARDS ETC.

--
Peter Sorger
Room 68-371 MIT
77 Mass Ave
Cambridge MA 02139
617-252-1648
617-253-8550
Admin Assistant: Haley Salinas
Haley_Salinas at hms.harvard.edu