[open-science] OKF: What shall I say at the Open Science Summit in Berkeley

[Michael Nielsen]

On Wed, 7 Jul 2010, Cameron Neylon wrote:

>
>> Not to spoil the 5 petals idea, but there is also what I've taken to
>> calling open community --- the idea that science can potentially benefit
>> from the input of people who traditionally would be called non-scientists.
>> The Galaxy Zoo project is an outstanding example.
>
> If you really want to overload the analogy I would see this as the
> complement of advocacy, returning back to the centre from the 'outside'. The
> sun providing the energy for the whole process.
>
> What you're describing is an attitude, an openess even, to ideas and
> contributions regardless of their source. It's not just community, or amazon
> turk style clicking, building forums, or valuing research done by
> non-professionals, but also funding of different types.
>
> I'd still see this consistent with the 'petals' as defined and measurable
> activities, and the "core" and the "outside/sun" representing attitudes that
> as you say will drive the adoption and development of the activities...

I agree with what you say about the importance of attitude, but I think 
open community is about more than just attitude.  There's a well-defined 
question that can be asked of any scientific project: does the project 
offer substantive ways for non-professionals to contribute to the science, 
and encourage that involvement?

The answer to this question is, of course, no, for nearly all scientific 
projects.  Even for many open science projects the answer is no.  For 
example, the Cornell arXiv erects considerable barriers to contributions 
by people who aren't academics or have a close association with academics. 
Those barriers aren't insurmountable, but they're there. By contrast, 
projects such as Galaxy Zoo, the open dinosaur project, and even the 
Polymath Project all quite explicitly offer realistic and substantive ways 
for non-professionals to contribute.

Michael
http://michaelnielsen.org