Science 2.0
Science 2.0: Great New Tool or Great Risk?
"To me, opening up my lab notebook means giving people a window into what I'm doing every day. 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 open notebook, but are obscured by every other communication mechanism we have. It makes science more efficient." -- Bill Hooker, a postdoctoral cancer researcher at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Portland, Ore
Under Bradley's radically transparent "open notebook" approach, as he calls it, everything goes online: experimental protocols, successful outcomes, failed attempts, even discussions of papers being prepared for publication. "A simple wiki makes an almost perfect lab notebook," he declares. The time-stamps on every entry not only establish priority, but allow anyone to track the contributions of every person, even in a large collaboration.
-- Drexel University chemist Jean-Claude Bradley, who created his independent laboratory wiki, UsefulChem in 2005
