Science in the web age: Joint efforts

Nature has come up with a News Feature in 1 Dec Issue. It argues that
academia is a marketplace of ideas. But many scientists are reluctant
to embrace the latest web tools that would allow them to communicate
their ideas in new ways.


Nature 438, 548-549 (1 December 2005) | doi:10.1038/438548a
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7068/full/438548a.html

Salient Points are:


--web in its first decade was like a big online library, where they
mainly searched for information.

--Today it is undergoing a subtle but profound shift, dubbed Web 2.0,
to become more of a social web.

--The emerging web is largely being shaped by dynamic interactions
between users in real time.

--Social web complements the existing system of peer-reviewed journals.

--Scientists at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) recently started their own wiki, OpenWetWare, to apply the same
approach to sharing lab protocols and data among biology groups
worldwide.

--Yet even the most web-savvy scientists remain unconvinced that blogs
have any useful role in science.

--once scientists come up with some sort of peer-review mechanism for
blogs that increase their credibility, without diminishing their
spontaneity, blogs will take off.