Collaboration: bringing NN members together: topic
This is a public forum
How should we encourage collaboration?
Bob O'Hara
Friday, 28 March 2008 07:38 UTC
I thought is would be worth having a tread for meta-discussions, about how to arrange collaborations, and what sort of systems could be used. Things like what you should tell people when you’re looking for collaboration. Or what sort of systems could Nature Networks provide to help (ha! they’re going to love that!)
It’s worth quoting Pedro Beltrao’s comment, because he raised the issue, and has been thinking about this for longer:
I think I have suggested this before but this thread looks like a good place to repeat. It it would be great if Nature Network had some way to more easily find collaborators. Each person could define the set of topics/tools/time we would be willing to provide and when someone placed a call for collaboration on their profile it would be propagated to right people.
We could also think of the opposite case that happens a lot in bioinformatics. Computational predictions should be tested as often as possible and in some cases testing the predictions would take almost no extra time for someone with the right reagents in hand.
OK, folks. Your turn!
Updated 28 March 2008 07:39 UTC
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Replies
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We just had a discussion about Is Web 2.0 failing in Biology?. A marketplace for scientific collaboration on Nature Network would be a wonderful Web 2.0 feature that would prove this argument wrong. This forum is a good start, but we probably need some improvements in the Nature Network software:
- skills we are willing to offer in our user profile, searchable
- skills we are looking for, again in the user profile, searchable
- location information as part of the search function
- a place for public or private discussion of these skills. Either if a short discussion is all that is needed, or as a starting point for a longer collaboration
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HI Martin and Bob,
One place to start is using the tags to label yourself on your profile, that would be a quick fix. Separating skills out into offered and wanted is a great idea.
The more feedback we get the better we can make NN
thanks
Gavin (one of the people who designed NN) -
Gavin – yes, the tags are a good idea! At the moment I think we should see how this evolves, before asking you to add anything else on.
Something else that may be worth emphasising is that there are a lot of groups and fora on NN that where people looking for collaboration or help can post. The ones I’m following seem to be rather quiet.
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