Science 2.0 -- Is Open Access Science the Future

Science 2.0 generally refers to new practices of scientists who post raw experimental results, nascent theories, claims of discovery and draft papers on the Web for others to see and comment on.
Proponents say these “open access” practices make scientific progress more collaborative and therefore more productive.
Critics say scientists who put preliminary findings online risk having others copy or exploit the work to gain credit or even patents.
Despite pros and cons, Science 2.0 sites are beginning to proliferate; one notable example is the OpenWetWare project started by biological engi­neers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The first generation of World Wide Web capabilities rapidly transformed retailing and information search. More recent attributes such as blogging, tagging and social networking, dubbed Web 2.0, have just as quickly expanded people’s ability not just to consume online information but to publish it, edit it and collaborate about it—forcing such old-line institutions as journalism, marketing and even politicking to adopt whole new ways of thinking and operating.
Science could be next. A small but growing number of researchers (and not just the younger ones) have begun to carry out their work via the wide-open tools of Web 2.0. And although their efforts are still too scattered to be called a movement—yet—their experiences to date suggest that this kind of Web-based “Science 2.0” is not only more collegial than traditional science but considerably more productive.
“Science happens not just because of people doing experiments but because they’re discussing those experiments,” explains Christopher Surridge, managing editor of the Web-based journal Public Library of Science On-Line Edition (www.plosone.org). Critiquing, suggesting, sharing ideas and data—this communication is the heart of science, the most powerful tool ever invented for correcting errors, building on colleagues’ work and fashioning new knowledge. Although the classic peer-reviewed paper is important, says Surridge, who publishes a lot of them, “they’re effectively just snapshots of what the authors have done and thought at this moment in time. They are not collaborative beyond that, except for rudimentary mechanisms such as citations and letters to the editor.”
Web 2.0 technologies open up a much richer dialogue, says Bill Hooker, a postdoctoral cancer researcher at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Portland, Ore., and author of a three-part survey on open-science efforts that appeared at 3 Quarks Daily (www.3quarksdaily.com), where a group of bloggers write about science and culture. “To me, opening up my lab notebook means giving people a window into what I’m doing every day,” Hooker says. “That’s an immense leap forward in clarity. In a paper, I can see what you’ve done. But I don’t know how many things you tried that didn’t work. It’s those little details that become clear with an open [online] notebook but are obscured by every other communication mechanism we have. It makes science more efficient.” That jump in efficiency, in turn, could greatly benefit society, in everything from faster drug development to greater national competitiveness.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=science-2-point-0
http://openwetware.org/wiki/Science_2.0

LOCKSS:preserve today’s web-published materials for tomorrow’s readers.

LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) is an international non-profit community initiative that provides tools and support so libraries can easily and cost-effectively preserve today’s web-published materials for tomorrow’s readers.
Libraries inform and educate citizens and provide critical support to democratic societies by acting as memory organizations. The memory of a library is its collections; therefore in order for a library to be a memory organization it must build collections. LOCKSS helps libraries stay relevant by building collections even as an increasing portion of today’s content is born digitally and published on the web.
LOCKSS replicates the traditional model of libraries keeping physical copies of books, journals, etc. in their collections, making it possible for libraries to house copies of digital materials long-term. Hundreds of publishers and libraries around the world have joined the LOCKSS community and are working together to ensure that libraries continue their important social memory role.
The ACM award-winning LOCKSS technology is open source, peer-to-peer, decentralized digital preservation infrastructure. LOCKSS preserves all formats and genres of web-published content. The intellectual content, which includes the historical context (the look and feel), is preserved. LOCKSS is OAIS-compliant; the software migrates content forward in time; and the bits and bytes are continually audited and repaired. Content preserved by libraries through LOCKSS becomes a part of their collection, and they have perpetual access to 100% of the titles preserved in their LOCKSS Box.

YouTube video: "Why Libraries Should Join LOCKSS"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POJf38RzihA (part 1) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKr1Adc8tnA (part 2).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wdcnXrQkaI
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOE_Jw23cVg)