Category Archives: Conferences

Impact of Electronic Notebooks on Science

Amazing and historic artifacts of science

This is sorely due and highly outdated (for internet standards), but I wanted to share this with the world anyway. Back in June I attended the Science at Risk workshop at the Library of Congress. The workshop brought to light the different aspects of how science is achieved via the internet and I was asked to speak on behalf of open notebook science.

On day 1 of the Workshop, we were provided a special manuscript viewing of some of the most historic and treasured scientific documents that is in possession of the Library of Congress. Check it out below, and feel free to ask me questions about the images in the comment section!

#Scio13 Electronic and Open Notebook Session – Background to ONS

If you are going to ScienceOnline 2013 and are interested in attending the Electronic and Open Lab Notebook Session then there are some things you need to know about open notebooks. Luckily I’ve been writing about open notebook science for a while and have been compiling useful information for the benefit of everyone. Feel free to peruse my articles on the subject and be ready to bring some interesting thoughts to SciO13.

About ONS (the introduction)

The Impacts of ONS

As usual feel free to leave comments below, or bring your comments to ScienceOnline 2013. Or better yet, contribute some thoughts on twitter and make sure you @mention me (@Thescienceofant) and my co-moderator Kristen Briney (@brineydeep4) and tag it #scio13.

Open Notebook Science – SACNAS Poster

I finished my poster for SACNAS on Friday and it is getting printed today. You can check it out via Slideshare and/or figshare depending on your preference. I’ve made it downloadable via both links, but the figshare one won’t alter the original file so I would download from there. Anyways here it is:

#Scio13: A Collection of all the Open Notebooks in the World

One of the things that I hope to achieve at ScienceOnline 2013 is to be more aware of who else is doing ONS. We are such a small community right now that it is important that we collect and curate a list of all the open notebooks around the planet. I don’t mind curating this list, but I need help!

And you can help!

If you have an open notebook, or know of one please link to it here in the comments.

Why would we want a list of open notebooks?

Well as open notebook scientists we should stick together. Having easy access to other notebooks allows us to share our experiences with each other. Plus it would be fun to keep track of what others are doing and read about interesting science in real-time! Also having a maintained network of open notebooks would allow other scientists to easily follow current work in real-time. Another reason for having a network of open notebooks is to encourage others to join the movement. Hopefully through sheer numbers others can see that we are a collective force of excellent scientists and who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?

SACNAS 2012 Poster Planning

I’m in an interesting predicament right now. I have two powers: (1) scientific thought and (2) artistic interpretation. As the great Uncle Ben says, “With great power comes great responsibility,” and I have the unique ability to deliver an informative poster with great aesthetic appeal. But what should I make my poster look like?

So here I sit. My poster is already mapped out, and I just need to figure out a useful design for my poster. I’ve been thinking of a couple of choices:

  1. SketchNote Style – artistically speaking this would be awesome, but from an information digestion perspective this may be overwhelming. Maybe I’ll hand draw an alternative design and give that away to someone.
  2. ONS Talk Style – this would maintain the same style as my presentations of the same theme.
  3. Theme Tree
  4. Mindmap Style – but prettier (embedded below)

At this point, I think a MindMap or the ONS Style would be most appropriate. I’m going to dwell on this a bit more before getting to work on the design (and I’ll get to work on the content in the process). In the mean time, check out the mindmap via the link above or the embed below!


Create your own mind maps at MindMeister

Planning for #scio13 – The impact of electronic/open notebooks on science #opennotebookscience

I’m starting this thread for anyone to comment on to drop some ideas about what we should all talk about when it comes to electronic and open notebook science. I have some goals for the session that I’ll jot down below, and I hope you all share what you’re goals for the session are. If you can come to ScienceOnline 2013 I hope you’ll come talk with us, and if not then I hope you’ll join the conversation on twitter. Either way, share your thoughts on the future of ONS below!

The impact of electronic and open notebooks on science: session at #SciO13.

It looks like I’ll be co-moderating a sequel to my Scio12 presentation on Open Notebook Science. This year I’ll be joined by Kristin Briney who is a Chemist by training and has become fascinated with electronic notebooks and the technical aspects of such and is now an Informational Librarian (I met so many of those in the past year, they’ve become my favorite people!). She also makes beautiful things!

We’ll be leading a discussion on electronic and open notebooks. We’ll start with the basics of electronic/open notebook platforms and delve into the more philosophical questions I’ve been asking for the past few months. Hopefully we’ll have time to hear about the Physics Lab I taught, which was an experiment in an open notebook community, and about the IGERT grant I co-wrote to train future open notebook scientists (and progress of the grant up to that point). And I’m sure Kristin has been/will be up to some amazing things by then too.

Here is a description of the session:

Publication hasn’t changed much in the last few centuries. In fact the biggest change is publishers switching to an open access model in the last 10 years! As science becomes more electronic, access to that information should be more attainable, but with the current state of publishing that information is locked down. Electronic, online, and open laboratory notebooks could be the key that pushes science to adopt a more open model of publication. By sharing experimental details in real-time the scientific process can be enhanced greatly by allowing access to raw data, detailed methods, and even experiment planning. We discuss the technical and philosophical merits of maintaining electronic/open notebooks. On the technical side we will discuss available tools and current best practices and confront issues of data management and long term archiving. Philosophically we debate the role that open notebooks may play in converting traditional scientists to adopting open access models, and the potential broader impacts they may have on the public perception of science. We hope to leave with better ideas of how to face challenges that electronic/open notebook scientists may face technologically, culturally, and professionally.

Leading up to the conference we’ll be asking a bunch of questions to get the conversation started online. Here are some things we have in mind:

  • How can we convince scientists to make the transition to open/electronic lab notebooks?
  • What are the best platforms for electronic and online lab notebooks?
  • What are the long term implications of keeping an open/electronic notebook?
  • What are the responsibilities of keeping an open notebook?
  • How do scientists deal with terms of service/ownership of research notes when sharing online or storing them in the cloud?
  • How do researchers manage their first electronic notebooks to ensure information retention as lab notebooks evolve?
  • Why are scientists so slow to embrace the open model?
  • Should scientists consider notebooks as a source of outreach?
  • Can open notebooks become an alternative source of publication?
  • Should electronic notebooks be treated the same way as the shared data which they contain?
  • Would a network of open/electronic notebooks provide better access to information, ease issues with storage/archiving, and create a greater sense of (open) community?

Feel free to get the conversation started here in the comments or any other post I write under the Scio13 category (accessible via the sidebar to the right). I hope to see a lot of you at Scio13 and in our session. We have a lot to talk about!

Open Notebook Science Presentation 2: UNM Biomedical Symposium

Back in April I presented “Open Notebook Science: Research in Real-Time” at the New Mexico Graduate and Professional Student Conference. Well as part of my plan to take over the world open notebook science to the next level I’m presenting a poster on ONS at SACNAS and in preparation for that I’ve amended my NMGPSC presentation to present at the UNM Biomedical Research Symposium tomorrow (Friday August 10, 2012). Check it out: