A really important post on the OKF open-Science mailing list – start at: http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-science/2011-December/001118.html Here Jenny Molloy posted:
I cam[e] across this story on Nature news (
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/12/could_crowd_sourcing_provide_t.html<http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/12/could_crowd_sourcing_provide_t.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+news%2Frss%2Fnewsblog+%28News+Blog+-+Blog+Posts%29&utm_content=Google+Reader>
).
In an interesting combination of crowd sourcing and open data release,
openSNP encourages users of personal genome services (23andMe, deCode me
etc) to openly publish their results alongside phenotypic data that they
provide to the site. All data is available under a CC0 license, so is
completely compatible with the Open Knowledge Definition and the Panton
Principles. Is there anyone on the list who has been genotyped and would
like to comment on what they think of the idea?
And just now http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-science/2011-December/001121.html (Bastian Greshak) :
Hi,
I'm one of the founders of openSNP and up to now i've been a more or less quiet
reader of this list. But I think I can give some more information about our
project. It is great to see that it gets discussed here.
I've read Misha Angrist's "Here is a human being", so I know about the PGP
and I'm also an avid reader of GU [genomes unzipped
(http://www.genomesunzipped.org/)]. And in a way both were a huge motivation
for our work on openSNP. The PGP is a huge and wonderful project and there
is no problem with their licensing schemes. But the "problem" is that they
don't offer a way to participate for everyone (and up to now they have no
way to filter and easily download the data, a thing that is needed to make the data usable).
Similarly GU does not offer a way to participate for everyone, while those
don't offer phenotypic information which is needed for association studies.
So basically openSNP was born out of the idea that I also wanted to be able
to share my genetic/phenotypic information in order to be able to make it
usable for other scientists.
We think that open science should not only mean that the data itself is shared
under open licenses. But that it should also be possible for everybody to
actively participate in the science. So I think this is a difference between
the PGP, GU and openSNP. Besides this: We are in contact with John Wilbanks
of weconsent and GU, because we also think that it would be a good thing to
use synergetic effects.
For me this is the most important point of Open Science – it belongs to everyone, in the same way that Wikipedia and open Street map belong to everyone. Open Science is more than Open Access, Open Data, Open Standards, Open Notebook Science. It's about the idea that science belongs to all of us.
After all it's all of us who fund science. When we fund public life - the arts, hospitals, schools; there isn't an elite (or there certainly shouldn't be). But science, partly because it's difficult, partly because it's "only done in universities", partly because access to the its output (the literature) is crippled, is remote.
That's changing. Yes, there will always be parts of science that are beyond normal people. *I* have no more access to the Large Hadron Collider than anyone else – I don't understand its purpose, I can't design an experiment, I can't interpret the results. I am rightly not allowed to run clinical trials. But I *can* understand the results. And so can a lot of other people who aren't in universities.
There are many myths about Open Science. I'll debunk some:
-
Ordinary people (including patients) can't understand the literature. This myth has been promoted as an argument against Open Access. If you think it's true I suggest you come to the hackathon and challenge Gilles Frydman or Graham Steel as to whether they and their patient communities can understand the literature. But I would bring protective clothing. -
Open Science means loss of confidentiality. "If all data are recorded on the web then confidentiality is impossible". This is just as puerile. Of course Open Science and Open Data are designed so that patient data, social data, rare species, etc. are kept confidential. -
Ordinary people can't do proper science. The success of GalaxyZoo (galactic objects), Foldit (predicting protein structure), etc. shows that "ordinary" people can make discoveries that are publishable in mainstream scientific literature. It won't happen in all subjects – some require special licences, safety, etc. Others cost a great deal and the days of the enlightenment aristocracy have gone. We don't advocate being Frankensteins. But BioCurious shows that a great deal of modern biology is accessible at low cost and adequate safety. When scientific components become commoditised they become increasingly accessible. -
Ordinary people can't be trusted to make decisions. I don't need to answer this, do I? Ordinary people make decisions everywhere else. Ordinary people fund science (government, charities, etc.). Science belongs to them, not just academia. And we need the enlightenment that ordinary people bring.