[OWW-SC] At this lab, everyone is required to maintain a science blog

[Julius B. Lucks]

Hey Mac,

I actually met Rosie over the summer at the SMBE meeting in Halifax.   
Over. Dinner we actually chatted about OWW, so she knows about it, but  
I think it was before we had blogs.

I'll contact her soon about this. Incidentally she is well connected  
in the science blogging community, so might know others who are  
interested.

Cheers,

Julius

Please Reply to julius at younglucks.com

On Dec 5, 2007, at 11:41 PM, Mackenzie Cowell <macowell at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> BoingBoing.net picked up on a post at ScienceBlogs.com about an  
> evolutionary biologist who not only keeps a blog, but also requires  
> all of the members of her lab to keep blogs on a semi-weekly basis  
> about their work as well.
>
> We should find out if she knows about OWW and if her lab and any  
> others she knows about might be interested in switching their blogs  
> from blogspot to OWW-blogs.
>
> -Mac
>
>
> Here's the post:
> Anyway, it turns out that Rosie makes it a requirement for her lab  
> members to maintain a blog. This was primarily to act as an appendum  
> lab book, and a place to reflect on the experiments carried out  
> recently.
> Chatting with her, she was quite excited by the prospect of such a  
> thing becoming common practice. She noted a number of side benefits  
> to the process:
>
> 1. It allows her, as a supervisor, to remotely keep track on what's  
> going on. Think of it as preface material before the lab meeting, or  
> the one on ones.
>
> 2. She's convinced that with the public facade to the posting, folks  
> in her lab tend to conceptualize more fully what the experiments and  
> data could signify. In doing so, there's a great opportunity for  
> blogging to help clarify the experiments necessary to move the  
> research projects forward.
>
> 3. Scientists are not necessarily noted for their writing skills.  
> Which is too bad, because that ability tends to come in very handy  
> in the fine art of preparing grants. Here, you have a platform where  
> you can work the "practice makes perfect" angle.
>
> 4. Depending on the tact of the blogger, you may inadvertently end  
> up with a significant amount of draft material for that thesis or  
> paper you going to have to write later.
>
> Then, of course, Rosie got into the whole issue of open access. In  
> that, her efforts to promote science blogging in her lab, could  
> possibly be thought of as a powerful exercise in scientific  
> communication. Imagine a scenario where facets of the standard "lab  
> book" are offered for public viewing.
>
> This means that things like negative data, serendipity findings  
> (things that don't normally get published) have a chance to be  
> publicly aired, which only adds to the body of scientific knowledge.  
> And what about unpublished data? How open is that? For instance,  
> Rosie herself has no qualms in presenting her grant proposals, even  
> before competition deadlines.
>
> Mind you, her lab happens to focus on a research area that is not  
> too competitive, so the relative merits of what her lab's blogging  
> is obviously subjected to this important nuance.
>
> Still, it's interesting to imagine a scenario where what Rosie's lab  
> does is common practice. i.e. what if NIH, NSERC, NSF, CIHR made it  
> explicit in their funding structure.
>
> Anyway, I've got two questions to throw at readers:
>
> 1. Is this a rare occurrence? I heard that boinformaticians might do  
> this sort of thing, although it would still be primarily in the  
> context of a private set-up.
>
> 2. What do you think? Is it a good idea, and if so, do you think you  
> could convince your whole lab to follow suit?
>
>
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