Open Notebook Science
Research in Real-Time
by anthony salvagno
research.iheartanthony.com

how is science traditionally
carried out?

closed & isolated
ideas results
and the outcome...

...is peer review publication
writing
formatting
acceptance
inaccessible
limited

peer review is designed to weed out
misinformation...
...but now there are so many journals
scientists will eventually get published.

What is the alternative?

open science
open access
outreach
data methods
public
access
reinventing
discovery citizen
science

open notebook science
“ ...the practice of making the entire
primary record of a research project
publicly available online as it is
recorded.
”
and that record includes...

project inception,
project intro in notebook

plannning,
project plan on mindmeister

protocols,
how to seal a sample

equipment,
equipment list with links to sources

data,
tobacco seed growth in heavy water
via google docs and figshare

and conclusions.
recap of trial 4 from tobacco seed
growth experiment

what are the
Key aspects of
Open notebook science?

repeatability
transparency
provenance
communication

What’s in it For me?

lots of
publications
measurable
impact
open notebook
science
real-time
peer review warm fuzzies
and (outreach)
collaboration

What’s the catch?

can you still publish in a journal?
will my notebook be around when I’m dead?
how many people are doing this?
would anyone even read my notebook
and comment in it?

right now the ons community is small
and diverse
this makes it hard to understand how
collaboration and peer review would
work in this environment
so...

Physics 308L Junior lab:
the ons case study
2012juniorlab.iheartanthony.com

12 students 2 groups
(mon & wed)
electronics lab

the rules:
1
pick any notebook platform
2
must read and comment in
each others’ notebooks
3
“cheat” when able

results (still in progress):
prefer electronic notebook format
benefitted from collaboration
had to be encouraged to “cheat”
found it useful
learned how to use collaborative
tools for science

What’s next for open
notebook science?

the bottom up approach:
teach students the benefits of ons
convince professors that going
open isn’t a sacrifice
find and propogate ons success
stories
reu/igert training specifically for
open science

the top down approach:
help develop open science tools
fix archival issues
find the ideal open notebook
platform
require open access for funding

The End

busting science open
iheartanthony, do you?