A remarkable commentary appeared today in Nature Chemistry entitled Open Science is a research accelerator. In this commentary Michael Woelfle, Piero Olliaro and Matthew H. Todd describe a case study of an Open Science research project they conducted with the aim devising an alternative method for producing a compound used in treating schistosomiasis (the scientific results of this study are reported in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases). The key aspect of this project making it unique is that the research was conducted in full public view and in real-time on the Internet (at The Synaptic Leap). The key take home message, other than showing that Open Science can be used to successfully solve difficult scientific problems, is that the research was accelerated by being open. Experts identified themselves and collaborations came about that otherwise would not have taken place ultimately resulting in the research proceeding faster than what it otherwise would have done. These are remarkable results. While the putative benefits of Open Science are often discussed (e.g. here, here, here) this is, as far as I know, the first time this type of synergistic benefit arising in Open Science research has been reported in a scientific journal (and a high-ranking one at that).
Much much more could be said about this paper and the outcome of this Open Science experiment and I will likely provide a more in-depth discussion in due time. So with that in mind I’ll keep things short this time and wrap it up quoting Mr. Danger Powers (or at least what he might have said if he would have been a scientist),
“As long as people are doing science with many anonymous contributors while at the same time experimenting with Open Science in a consequence free environment, I’ll be sound as a pound!”
This sort of thing is my bag
This is from the “Mario’s Entangled Bank” blog (http://pineda-krch.com) of Mario Pineda-Krch, a theoretical biologist at the University of Alberta.
Thanks for your comments. Would be interested to hear more. But yes, the reason we really wanted to publish this was because we felt it was a concrete example of how openness can increase the pace of research. Naturally other things, such as reproducibility and data provenance, are important, and there has been, as you say, a lot of discussion of the obvious benefits that openness would bring to science in general. But having research go more effectively/quickly would perhaps be a more direct or selfish motivation for individuals to do open science. We really wanted to describe a citable example, and to try to convey some of the excitement of the process. On the one hand you gain speed, and on the other you lose absolute control.
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