Open Collaboration Between Scientists, Communities and the Unknown

Session leaders: Ariel Waldman, Natalie Villalobos

Description:
How to bridge science communities, facilitate authentic contributions, addressing online/social web and offine identity, and peer/public perception, etc. Tapping into non-science and unknown communities and prospects.

Attendees (add your name here if you came in for all/part): Shirley Wu, Dr. Kiki Sanford, Tantek Çelik, Kishore Hari, John Cumbers, Aaron Rowe, Jamie McQuay, Brian Malow, Sean Mooney, Mac Cowell

Skepticisms:
- is it possible?
- motivation/cultural barrier
- enrollment
- innovation
- incentivizing
- translation
- self-organizing community of science
- data portability
- signal/noise
- access to experts/framework
- show usefulness at each level
- how to get them involved - science as a day job vs. passion
- commitment to existing communities
- fear of being "wrong"
- plug-in to existing communities
- experts versus "obsessives" - counter-productive "trolls"
- are scientists interested in social networks

Example communities discussed:
- GalaxyZoo - successful open community
- Signtific Lab - uses a "game" structure to generate momentum

Ways to Tackle:
- wikis
- "game" platforms
- promote outlying ideas to generate fresh content/momentum
- data portability
- project-centric
- offline "hackdays" when possible
- demonstrate norms

Natalie's Discussion Notes