This document discusses uncensoring open science in chemistry. It outlines that while some disciplines like physics have embraced open access publishing, chemistry has been slow to change. The document examines reasons why chemists may be hesitant to publish outside traditional journals, like concerns about career impacts and intellectual property theft. It then presents some technical solutions like using provenance and electronic lab notebooks to address trust and ownership issues. Finally, it discusses how social theories around knowledge management, game theory and epistemology could help promote a more open access culture in chemistry.

1. Uncensoring Open
Science?
Richard William Fyson
Web Science DTC [1]
29th March 2012

2. Outline
• Introduction – what is Web Science...and what is my
research about?
• Chemist’s Point of View – why has academic publishing
changed so little in Chemistry
• Technical Solutions – a look at some technological
developments that may help
• Social Solutions – sociological theories and practices which
may show how to get the best results
• Conclusion
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3. Introduction
• Web Science is an interdisciplinary subject, using both
technological developments and social theories in research.
• Uncensoring Open Science asks why some disciplines, such
as chemistry are not embracing open access publishing
unlike other, similar disciplines, such as physics.
• Modern experimental methods produce vast amounts of
data – much goes unpublished and what is published may
not be in the most appropriate format.
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4. Technical Social
Epistemology
Knowledge
Management
Game Theory
HCI
Provenance
Semantic
Web
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5. Chemists’ Points of View
• Publishing work outside a journal...
– may be bad for your career and reputation
– may make yourself vulnerable to IP theft
– may result in poor quality or inaccurate research
• Chemists also see the benefits...
– access to more data in more appropriate formats
– makes experiments more repeatable
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6. Technical Solution - Provenance
• Provenance can provide both trust in the data’s accuracy
and ownership.
• A directed acyclic graph can be used to represent all of the
actions, compounds and people that have been involved in
the data’s lifecycle.
• Provenance can be either prospective (looking forward) or
retrospective (looking back).
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7. Technical Solution
• Electronic Lab Notebooks and
Semantic Web make recording
provenance possible.
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http://blog.labguru.com/bench-meet-tablet/
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/orechem/

8. Social Solution
• Game theory can be used to help predict what actions
people may take.
• Knowledge management theories can be used to promote
different cultures in the research environment.
• Epistemology can be used to examine the different
approaches of academic disciplines and identify what
components may contribute to an open access culture.
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9. Conclusion
• The Web allows for lots of scientific data to be published
online for all to see and use.
• But there are various reasons as to why researchers may not
be keen for this to happen.
• Technological solutions to some of these problems exist,
but may not be enough to convince researchers.
• Therefore social theories help explain the consequences of
introducing new technologies.
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