Science Intelligence and InfoPros

“Here at Comprendia, we’ve never advocated that Facebook should be recreated for scientists, as there are 700,000+ life science graduates in the US already using the application,* and they are likely already connected there to lab mates and colleagues. Rather, we should broaden our idea of the ‘social network’ to include any online community of scientists, not just those which are similar to Facebook. The value of social networks for scientists lies in faster access to information relevant to their research and the communities that are made more available by new tools. Here are 6 successful examples which can be used to understand scientific social communities. (…)

1. Facebook Pages & LinkedIn Groups. Scientists have used mailing lists and forums for years. Facebook pages and LinkedIn groups are a ’2.0′ version of them with the benefits of centralization and easier access to participants. Life science companies, most notably Life Technologies, have fostered social networks in the form of Facebook pages centered on a topic.
2. Twitter Hashtags. Scientists use Twitter to share scientific blog posts and news, to find friends and colleagues around a topic or event, and sometimes to vent about their situation. Hashtags, which are text identifiers for status updates on a topic, allow a Twitter social network to form around it…
3. ScienceOnline
4. True Social Networks. (…) ResearchGate’s has 1.4 million users, as we know that scientists don’t have time for frivolous endeavors, especially when they’re under the watchful eye of their Principal Investigator. As we noted in our post a year ago, there has to be a value for them to participate, and the successful ones center around research publications. BiomedExperts, CiteULike, ResearchBlogging, andResearchGate had the highest traffic in our quick study, and they all rely heavily on publications. I like to say that PubMed was the first social network for scientists.
5. Publication Sharing/Open Access. Related to the last point is a subject that requires its own mention as it transverses from proper social networks to desktop applications, Twitter, and even a movement to make research publications more accessible.Mendeley is the rock star of the publication sharing/open access genre, boasting 1.77 million users who are sharing 169 million publications. When we speak with life scientists at conferences or client visits, we often hear about the application even from those who are not strong believers in social media. Additionally, these applications have whetted scientists’ appetites for more open access to publications
6. Blogs.  “blogs were one of the first forms of social media for scientists.”  Blog aggregators such as ResearchBlogging orScienceSeeker feature hundreds of blogs and likely a comparable number of communities focused around individual research topics.

Nothing new, but a good paper:

“Science, medicine and healthcare have always been collaborative but in recent years this has intensified. The web both encourages powerful networks and makes them easier to explore – whether networks of co-authorship between key opinion leaders, citations between scientific papers or interactions between patients on specialised social networks. 

The web has given us the tools to connect and collaborate. For good or ill, influence nowadays is not always defined by knowledge, experience and authority, but also by how connected and engaged you are.

The importance of networks in healthcare and medicine will only increase. (…)

So what can pharma do to ensure it thrives in this environment?

First of all, it must understand the networks. Listening and profiling exercises can identify where conversations are taking place, what content resonates and how it is being shared.Crucially, there is a need to map the relationships between actors in the network, not just the actors themselves. (…)

But listening is not enough. Pharma must engage, embedding itself in networks and communicating honestly, ethically and as an equal. A strong presence will ensure that a brand’s voice is heard, as will checking that all the touchpoints discovered during the research phase are addressed. (…)

This new, highly networked era is a huge opportunity for pharma – an opportunity to get closer to customers and become a bigger part of their lives. But it’s much more than that. It’s also the best feedback loop we could ever wish for, giving us a chance to understand the impact of our actions on those who matter most – healthcare practitioners and their patients.”

Lamb, Andrew. Rethinking influence in a networked world. PMLive, Published on 2nd of March 2012.
http://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/rethinking_influence_in_a_networked_world_389326

By Mark Drapeau, in the Huffington Post, about Research Gate, and the social networks for Scientists in general.

“A “Facebook for Scientists”? It may sound silly, or redundant, but it’s becoming more of a reality. Maybe. (…)

ResearchGate has already convinced roughly 1.4 million researchers to become members and begin sharing. On it, you can search your email accounts to find people you know, read PDF documents of research papers, and chat with others about why a particular lab technique isn’t working for you. Reportedly, the service is appealing to young researchers in their 20′s.

None of this is particularly original. There have long been scientists on Facebook and LinkedIn and connecting via other websites like Scienceblogs. There have long been stores of PDF documents online, and searchable databases of them (particularly if you work at a university). There have long been job boards where you might find your next gig. And there have long been discussion boards or similar places where you could ask questions about lab techniques or which conference to attend this year. (…)

But the ecosystem seems even worse, because many others have tried and failed, or tried and not necessarily caught on, or tried and are much more like “science publication management software” than a social network where people openly share. They have names like Academia.edu, Laboratree, Mendeley, myExperiment, and Epernicus. (…)

The scientific community fundamentally operates under the notion that a peer-reviewed research paper published in a traditional research journal is the discrete end-product of a series of experiments aimed at testing one or more hypotheses. Anyone who has actually been a laboratory scientist knows that this is a complete farse; I need not even elaborate on why. Nevertheless, publishing such papers is the primary yardstick by which you are judged as a grad student, postdoctoral fellow, and professor, even at the more senior levels. On top of that, the same exact research published in a “good” journal vs. an “okay” journal is somehow emotionally different to the reader. The only reason why is perceived prestige of some publications vs. others regardless of actual long-term value of the research. (…)

These are two-fold. One, a culture of secrecy whereby the more “secret” information (vs. community / shared information) is perceived as more valuable. Two, a culture of discrete publications (vs. living knowledge and data sets) whereby people are primarily judged by traditional processes dating back, in the case of science, a couple hundred years. And while there are some well-intentioned, smart people discussing Science 2.0 and what it would take for that to happen, it is in my opinion extremely unlikely that the entire system of how academic science operates in the U.S. will change within the venture capital-backed funding cycle of one of the science social networking companies like ResearchGate. (…)

Drapeau, Mark. Social Networks for Scientists Won’t Work. The Huffington Post, 17th of February 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-drapeau/social-networks-for-scientists_b_1282692.html

Or at least one social-technology tool in 2011, has shown a McKinsey study in November 2011.

Some findings:

• Companies are improving their mastery of social technologies, using them to enhance operations and exploit new market opportunities…
• Executives say that their companies are using them to increase their agility and to manage organizational complexity. Many believe that if organizational barriers to the use of social technologies diminish, they could form the core of entirely new business processes that may radically improve performance.
• Organizations use social tools for internal purposes but have also increased among those that use them for communicating with customers or for integration with partners and suppliers
• The most used tool is Social network (50%), followed by blogs (41%), vidéo (38%) and microblogging which stay marginal (23%)
• Adoption by Industries : HighTech, Telecom, 86% ; … ; Pharma, 74% ; … ; Energy: 62%

Again with ScoopIt!, an excellent curation page by MyScienceWork…

http://www.scoop.it/t/scientific-social-network

According a recent study, mentioned by iHealth Beat:

• Nearly 66% of surveyed practicing physicians never have received an online social network “friend” request from a patient or a patient’s family member
• 68% of survey respondents did not think it was ethically acceptable to interact with patients
• 48.7% of respondents were pessimistic about the ability of online social networks to improve doctor-patient communication
• 79% said they had concerns about maintaining patient confidentiality

  Source: Journal of General Internal Medicine: “The Patient-Doctor Relationship and Online Social Networks: Results of a National Survey”

  Read more: http://www.ihealthbeat.org/data-points/2011/have-physicians-medical-students-received-a-friend-request-from-patients-or-their-family.aspx#ixzz1SUKMLVGq

The Web 2.0 business case for public libraries: round-up and interviews in this new book published by Chandos…

Berube, Linda. Do you Web 2.0? Public libraries and social networking. Cambridge: Chandos, 162 p. ISBN 1 84334 436 X
Table of Contents

For Medscape, Social networking belongs to the 10 most cool and useful medical gadgets.

“Facebook has captured the imagination of the world, claiming 500 million active users, half of whom log in on any given day. You can be sure that plenty of physicians are among those masses. But where do you go when you want to discuss medicine or simply connect with other doctors?

LinkedIn, a business-focused networking site, has at least 100 million users worldwide, but there are several social and professional networking sites just for healthcare professionals, some of which offer secure communications suitable for colleagues who already know each other to discuss specific cases. (Medscape’s discussion boards are popular landing spots for physicians).

For patients, there’s an emerging field called participatory medicine. A group called the Society for Participatory Medicine defines it as “a cooperative  model of healthcare that encourages and expects active involvement by all connected parties (patients, caregivers, healthcare professionals, etc.) as integral to the full continuum of care.” Patients facing serious health challenges have been flocking to sites such as Organized Wisdom and PatientsLikeMe.

Neil Versel. 10 Totally Cool and Incredibly Useful Medical Gadgets and Apps. Medscape News Today, Posted: 05/18/2011
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/742609

“In the early days, social tools (blogs, wikis and the like) tended to be called social networking or social computing but as these tools entered the corporate realm, the dominant name became social media. (…)

With so many terms, it is all a little confusing: social tools, social software, social computing, social networking, social media, social marketing, social KM, Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0.

In summary, taking a simplistic, tools centred view:

• Social computing or social software is the technology;
• Social tools are both technology tools, such as blogs and wikis and soft tools, such as after-action reviews and knowledge cafés;
• Social marketing is about using social tools for business development;
• Social media is about using social tools for a marketing or communication purpose;
• Social networking is about using social tools to network;
• Social KM is about using social tools for a KM purpose, such as knowledge sharing or collaboration; and
• Social business is also known as Enterprise 2.

Gurteen, David. Making sense. Inside Knowledge, Online: posted 1 Mar 2011 in Volume 14 Issue 5
http://www.ikmagazine.com/display.asp?articleid=70DE7ED5-9500-46D9-A53D-96AFBAE91EB3