OpenWetWare:Strategic Opportunities

Mission, Vision, and Strategic Goals

The mission of OWW is to support open sharing of research, education, publication, and discussion in biological sciences and engineering. We promote and support collaborations among researchers, students, and others who are working towards these goals. We believe that open sharing of research improves the quality and pace of scientific and engineering research.

We envision OpenWetWare as a platform upon which communities of researchers, not limited by geography or secrecy but by interests and abilities, can gather to openly share their work.

Strategic Goals:

1. Lower the technical barriers to sharing and dissemination of knowledge in biological research

Scientific and engineering research have strong traditions of publishing research. However, the pace of publishing research (often 6-12 months) has lagged the pace of research. Moreover, much of the information generated in the course of research fails to get captured in research articles (the traditional mechanism for sharing research). Thus, we advocate new, faster timescale publishing mediums like OpenWetWare that can capture biological knowledge as it is generated to complement the existing scientific publishing mechanisms. We are always seeking new tools and technologies that reduce the frustration of conducting research, and that make open sharing of research easier.

2. Build a community of researchers in biology and biological engineering that values, practices, and innovates the open sharing of information

Peer review is a fundamental part of biological research. We use it to assess papers for publication, talks to be presented at conferences, grant proposals for funding and job hiring and promotion. Thus, an important part of our mission to promote the open sharing of research is building a community that recognizes and values that sharing.

3. Integrate OpenWetWare-based information into existing and future reward structures in research

Ultimately, for the open sharing and digitization of research to be standard practice in scientific research, it will need to be integrated into existing reward structures in science. Researchers need to "receive credit" when they make their protocols, datasets, model files etc. freely available to others. We consider this to be a critical but long-term goal of OpenWetWare.

How do we accomplish our goals?

OpenWetWare is a brave new world for many researchers, so building some of our communities, tools, and services along structures that are familiar to them will increase our chances of gaining and holding new users.

I believe the first two axes to explore are: Cultivating and empowering the community, and building tools and services along the research pipeline.

Strategies/Opportunities in the Research Pipeline

Background and brainstorming ideas are at OpenWetWare:strategy.