Even though scientists created this glorious internet you see before you, current scientific practice is still based more on publishing academic papers than sharing ideas online. As one of the more prominent proponents of the open web, Mozilla stepped in to offer a solution with a new open science initiative called Science Lab. It’s designed to bridge the gap between the open web community and researchers so that they can share ideas, tools and best practices on how the web can be used to solve problems and improve research techniques. Led by Kaitlin Thaney, a long-time open science advocate, the Lab will initially focus on bringing digital literacy to the scientific community with the help of Software Carpentry, a program that teaches basic computer skills to researchers. From there, the group hopes to foster a global conversation on how to encourage the use of the web in science. It’s great to see that the internet has a lot more to offer the field than just Foursquare check-ins.
Mozilla Science Lab encourages scientists to share ideas over open web [Engadget]