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<font size=3>[Forwarding from Christopher Dyer. --Peter
Suber.]<br><br>
<br>
Scientists should benefit when their knowledge is openly applied and
developed by other members of the research and development industry.
However, in practice researchers generally fail to realise these
benefits, and so focus their efforts on publishing information in
exclusive journals and patenting otherwise valuable technology. The
Sci-Mate is an entirely new approach that uses Web 2.0 software to ensure
that researchers benefit from the broader application and ongoing
development of their ideas.<br><br>
Because publication is so important to researchers, the Sci-Mate contains
software that makes it relatively easy for scientists to collaboratively
assemble high impact publications. Open access wiki software allows
individual researchers to place highly specialised knowledge into a
pre-existing context in such a way so as to increase the value of both
their contribution and the value of the pre-existing information. With
academics in mind, the “Wiki-Mate” records authorship, assigns copyright,
defines licenses, manages editing, and includes custom software for an
interactive peer-review process. This pre-publishing environment will be
further streamlined to include one-click submission of peer-reviewed
articles for open access or 'traditional' publication when an appropriate
publishing partner/solution is identified. The benefits for the
researcher are to increase the number and impact of their publications,
while decreasing the amount of time and effort otherwise required to
prepare low impact articles on isolated results. Meanwhile, such
knowledge is made instantly available in a format that is more accessible
to the broader community.<br><br>
A separate tool, based on similar principles, allows researchers to
exchange any item of interest to researchers through software a bit like
eBay (but without auctions and a necessary commercial focus). Unlike in
the materials and methods section of most results focused publications,
the full potential of the underlying technology can be described along
with the conditions under which supply will be considered. This provides
open access to many valuable research tools, such as antibodies,
plasmids, hardware, assay services, etc, that would otherwise be ignored
by other developers desperately seeking such solutions. Once listed on
the site, the software then makes it very easy (compared to 1-to-1
emails) for owners to answer questions, evaluate requests and safely
distribute material towards productive collaborations. To protect IP
following exchange, the software provides extensive records, reports and
data-flows to researchers, administrative staff and other controlling
interests without any additional work for the researcher. This
dramatically simplifies the distribution of even commercial items to
other researchers, and technology transfer to industry. The same software
can be used to list jobs, courses, grants, seminars, conferences and
other matters of interest to the research community, which can be easily
sorted and searched by interested users.<br><br>
In addition to these major tools, co-operation is further facilitated by
a discussion forum and networking tools, and space is provided for
software developers to embed additional services of value to the research
community.<br><br>
The Sci-Mate is a community project that is intended to be owned,
controlled and administrated by its members according to the social and
democratic principles of Web 2.0.<br><br>
Dr Christopher Dyer<br>
Peterstaler Strasse 200,<br>
69118 Heidelberg, Germany<br>
Ph: +49 6221 139569<br>
Mob: +49 173 8969 382<br>
Email: Dyer@sci-mate.org<br>
URL:
<a href="http://www.sci-mate.org/wiki/index.php/About_Sci-Mate" eudora="autourl">
http://www.sci-mate.org/wiki/index.php/About_Sci-Mate<br>
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