NIH and Social Networking
Jean-Paul Boucher
Wednesday, 15 October 2008 14:12 UTC
Hey, folks,
I am a techie geek that has worked at the NIH for over 10 years (mostly for CIT, but also for several ICs) and the entire reason I go to work is to find and implement technology solutions that will directly impact the medical and scientific research mission of the organization.
Social tools like this one have the possibility to radically transform the way NIH does its business, from direct expertise and material finding between labs (“has anyone used algae for X protocol before?”) to even cross-disciplinary research team collaboration.
So, the question I pose to our brand new group here:
What kind of “collaboration” do you WANT NIH to be able to do?
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Replies
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I thought I’d mention the social networking group, set up by the British Libarary here. We’ve had several discussions there that might be of interest to this group.
There is also a Nature Protocols discussion forum, which is relevant to your question about refining and sharing protocols.
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User removed
NIH is known for medical and behavioral research. The second one is more important though least understood from societal and scientific sides. An approach that connects the sensitive brains from entire world, in this direction, would certainly place NIH to a new height.
Regards
Dr. R. Dayal Yadav
Director – Research
Study Group DIM. IUI -
In the short term, it would just be nice if much more NIH researchers and their collaborators would join this group. Not sure how to accomplish that. Some motivation is needed. For example, I am a fellow (postdoct) and will need a more permanent job in a few years, so I try to engage in as many networking venues/activities as possible. But for a more established researcher, why join? Which is somewhat of a problem for us fellows if the people hiring are not here.
When enough people have joined, then we can ask each other about protocols, reagents, collaborations, jobs, etc.
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Absolutely it would be wonderful to get more NIHers into this group. We are very lucky that we have such a wonderful connection like Maxine Clarke already interested as she has informed the Nature.com folks of our thoughts and they will be posting this group and our discussion on the main web site this weekend. Hopefully that will engage more NIH staff, alumni and engaged scientists to join in and see what we can use this forum for. One issue for us is that, of course, most NIHers focus their identity on their institute, not the organization as a whole. There are about 10 people on Nature.com that have “NIH” in their profiles, but a vast larger amount that have NIEHS or NIMH or NCI, so it will be slightly more difficult to utilize the “top down” request for participation.
As I see it, there are several possibilities for the NIH to use social networking tools for collaboration:
1. Outreach: Communicate within the organization and to the scientific community at large about what NIH staff are up to and see if there are any comments/assistance that can be garnered that way. I think the NASA CoLab is a great example of this process (http://colab.arc.nasa.gov/). That is a public forum and it would be up to the individual to ensure all appropriate sensitivities are followed towards publicly sharing research information.
2. Basic Internal Support: the whole “anyone in Building 50 have a 25ml beaker?” or “looking for a new position in the bioinformatics field”. The question for this level of social communications is “should it be private?” I am not sure that kind of communication, as innocuous as it might be, should be on a public forum like this.
3. Full Cross-Organizational Collaboration: Has anyone heard of A-Space? It is a classified social tool that the Director of National Intelligence has implemented for all the 16 separate intelligence organizations to communicate analyst to analyst finally so that the NSA and CIA and FBI can share information (this is the publicly available information on the system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_intelligence_community_A-Space)). Why can’t researchers do the same thing? It is a significant cultural, organizational, and even philosophical shift to be sure, but the benefits to the population as a whole could be immense. However, this type of system would almost certainly not be publicly hosted or available.
So, before we get too much of a groundswell of people and thoughts for what this group in particular should be focused on, I was trying to determine what would be the best use of NIH’s resources around social networking. I certainly welcome all thoughts and opinions and truly hope we can make this work for everyone.
Sorry for getting on my soapbox, but this is very important to me.
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Jean-Paul, you may find the FriendFeed room scienceapps of interest.
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Anonymous
sounds good
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We have a whole host of new group members and I truly value your input on how you would want to engage (both as internal NIH staff as well as the majority of you that are interested in the NIH and its efforts externally) via these Web 2.0 environments. Please send in comments. Thanks!
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I like the idea of an A space collaborative for NIH, this has tremendous potential.
Collaboration at all levels strengthens unity if it is done in a way that is supportive of the system in place. What about adding an informal mentoring process where NIH hopefuls or would be grant writers could join up with experienced people and learn the ropes. It would benefit NIH as it could enhance the quality of grants/apps, increase good will, generate new blood and funds and reduce well meaning efforts going to the wrong departments and/or the circular file? This could also provide NIH with practical feedback of where people get lost in the process.
This way people who are bitter because thier grants got rejected and have no intention of building except for their own purposes or people who have nothing to build but can write grants according to the system would not cloud the mindset of future applicants and this could save trouble down the road in a positive non threatening way.
I am really excited about this group. I am new to all this and look forward to learning more and contributing as time goes on.
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