CZ:Biology Week/PLoS

One way to initiate some repetitive interaction between CZ and more traditional venues of scholarly communication like science journals would be a community page article in PLoS Biology (an Open Access journal, and perhaps the most widely read one in biology) describing the concept of Biology Week to a life science audience. The author guidelines for this are here, and previous examples of such community pages include

• The Costs of Exclusion: Recognizing a Role for Local Communities in Biodiversity Conservation,
• CAMERA: A Community Resource for Metagenomics,
• Peer Review - The Newcomers' Perspective and
• Rethinking Outreach: Teaching the Process of Science through Modeling.

In order to harness the powers of a wiki for drafting the article, I suggest we do that here, in close collaboration with the CZ:Biology Workgroup and anybody else interested in Biology Week.

Aims of the article

Main points to make, considering the audience at PLoS Biology:

1. What is Biology Week?
   • Give first occurence (September 22-28, 2008) and details on planned regularity
2. OK, and what is Citizendium then?
   • Briefly explain most important aspects of CZ policy (cf. CZ:About and some useful decisions as well as CZ:Myths and Facts)
3. Why should readers (scientists, teachers, students, interested public) participate?
   • What sorts of contributions are possible and/or expected (here, the groups should be addressed separately, though that's not easy within a concise piece of narrative writing)?
4. Describe options for integration with other free educational projects
5. Mention other CZ Workgroup weeks, most notably those for Health sciences and Anthropology (as these fields have a large overlap with Biology), and envisaged frequency of such events

Structure of the article

This is just a collection of keywords and phrases (about 500 words alltogether) that should facilitate discussion about the structure of the article. Once this has been agreed upon, they will serve as a guideline for detailed phrasing below.

What is Biology Week?

• Nice quote on knowledge and science (or should we start with biology right away?), followed by a one-line invitation to lend their expertise to a collaborative education project: Biology Week at Citizendium, September 22-28, 2008

OK, and what is Citizendium then?

• Science is the process by which knowledge about the physical world is structured on the basis of systematic inquiry by theoretical, experimental or empirical means.

(would be cool to sync this introductory phrase with Science/Definition)

• Reference works, and encyclopedias in particular, represent a cornerstone in research
• Reliability is key, and so is the involvement of experts
  • Traditional models relied on a set of paid editors whose combined expertise covered all fields within the scope of the reference work and who wrote individual articles rather independently, with little involvement of others. However, this model does not scale with the expansion of scientific (and other) knowledge
  • An obviously scalable approach is the involvement of volunteers via an internet-based wiki, as evidenced by the growth curve of Wikipedia. But here, quality can not generally be assured, since basically anybody can write (even anonymously) about any topic, regardless of their respective expertise in it, and changes instantly become part of that body of knowledge often referred to as the first free encyclopedia, without any vetting by experts. mention vandalism?
  • Citizendium is an attempt to combine the best of these two worlds:
    • Registration with real names required
    • The scope is wider than in traditional encyclopedias (e.g. it contains entries on pop culture; give examples) but narrower than in WP (family-friendlyness)
    • Two basic types of articles: Approved (after careful examination by experts) or not
    • Every registered user can edit any draft page but a draft page only gets the status of an encyclopedic article after expert review.

Why should readers (scientists, teachers, students, journalists, interested public) participate?

• why should experts join?
  • public outreach and community service
  • eduzendium as an interactive learning/teaching environment - collaborative learning by structuring knowledge is a good preparation for later collaborative knowledge production in research teams
  • policy on taking academic credit is under way
  • contributions to traditional academic peer review (and the enormous efforts experts put in there) are largely invisible, which would not be the case with a wiki model with real name policy
  • civilized discussion atmosphere due to real-name policy
• what about biology?
  • CZ covers many fields, both academic and beyond, but activities in the biomedical fields have been especially visible: Biology is second to history in terms of number of articles (followed by health sciences), and second to computers in terms of number of authors (followed by history) and fourth (after computers, engineering and health sciences) in number of editors, see also CZ:Statistics (--> there are people to work with)
  • CZ:Biology Workgroup/Biology Week/Pending decisions
  • bot assistance for fact picking can be made available on a case by case basis
• what about original research?
  • it will not be allowed in the main namespace but might be so in subpages or other namespaces, details being discussed

Biology Week: What sorts of contributions are possible and/or expected?

• Here, the groups -- scientists, teachers, students, journalists, interested public -- should be addressed separately, though that's not easy within a concise piece of narrative writing.
  • biologists and other researchers
  • teachers
  • students
  • journalists
  • interested public
  • others (e.g. politicians)
• Technical support available?
• Related Workgroup weeks

Options for integration with other free educational projects

• e.g. WatchKnow

Similar events?

• Mention other CZ Workgroup weeks, most notably those for Health sciences and Anthropology, as these fields have a large overlap with Biology
• Workgroup weeks will initially be held once a month

Schedule

• July 14, submit manuscript
• June 30, first draft finished, invite community feedback
• June 23, structure of article finished (this includes structure of the figure and/ or box)
• June 18, suggested phrasing to appropriately reflect the state of discussion on Things to be decided upon before first Biology Week, taking into account that the article should still be up to date in September when these decisions will, hopefully, have given rise to some appropriate policy

Text

1314 words

 Experts go wiki -- a new opportunity for the structuring of biological reference knowledge 

Introduction

Scientific research is the systematic dwelling at the frontiers of knowledge. Knowledge, however, is scattered in space and time, and successful dwellers thus require reliable reference works that assemble it, as pointed out by Diderot and d'Alembert in the definition of the titular term of their "Encyclopédie". Over the two and a half centuries since, many other encyclopedias have been produced following their scheme: They were written by scholars and charged users for access to the information they provided at update intervals on the scale of years. This resulted in credibility, the core currency of reference works, but (by today's standards) in limited dissemination and slow reactions to new knowledge. Web-based wikis, spearheaded by the Wikipedias, have extended knowledge accumulation to fields far beyond any traditional notions of expertise, provide their information at no cost to the user, and invite anybody to contribute (even anonymously) on a voluntary basis. This makes them popular and updateable on scales way below years but vulnerable to vandalism, thereby precluding credibility. Due to such problems, wikis had a slow start into the academic world but with the continued growth, diversification and global availability of the Internet, knowledge is becoming more dynamic and participatory.

Already some key biology databases are going wiki. Similarly, Biology-Online Dictionary is a completely open and editable dictionary which utilizes a Wiki concept, so that everybody can make a contribution. Another working example of this concept is OpenWetWare . Collaborative, peer-to-peer learning principles develop in parallel, and lead to more student-centred learning environments.

Citizendium (CZ)

Citizendium is a web-based educational and reference platform that seeks to combine the best of these two worlds and to avoid their major pitfalls. It provides all of its contents for free, requires users who wish to edit ("authors") to register under their real names (which provides for a civilized discussion atmosphere), and it allows for two basic flavours of articles: As in Wikipedia , most content pages can be edited by any user but their content will not be considered reliable. Credibility, then, is lent to an article in a very traditional way, i.e. by means of approval by experts ("editors"). The approved articles then serve as a reliable introduction to a topic (much like in paper encyclopedias, just more up-to-date), and all the non-approved versions ("drafts") as an educational playground (rumours have it that one might actually learn new things there and have fun at the same time). Approved versions cannot be edited but work on an approved article can continue in the draft version which may eventually enter the approval process again.

This two-step (and potentially cyclic) approach is conceptually similar to the thermal ratchet principle realized in molecular motors : Whereas Brownian motion can drive the paddle wheel randomly, the ratchet's movement will only follow if the pawl permits. The pawl's role (which requires energy) will be played by people whose life's work is to know things and who are willing to share the knowledge they have acquired during long years of dedication to their field. Consequently, CZ contributors are given credence for their work: The wiki allows to track individual contributions in a much more detailed way than any non-wiki system currently used in scholarly communication. This transparency of contributions to the structuring and expansion of global knowledge may well provide a fertile ground for the careers of knowledge workers and workers-to-be.

This brings us to the key difference between CZ and Feynman's original Brownian ratchet: Given the incentive of presenting one's knowledge on a platform that regularly attracts putative employers or academic supervisors, the input provided by most registered users can be expected to average well above thermal noise, thereby facilitating the role of the pawl.

Related efforts

Citizendium, in collaboration with expert teachers and lecturers, has also launched Eduzendium [1]. The Eduzendium project allows students to write their assignments online on the Citizendium on a given topic allocated by their teacher. Students can take responsibility for their work for course credits, and teachers grade the finished work based on the quality of the final article produced from each student's input. But students not only get to earn grade credits, they add to the global store of knowledge as they earn their written course assignment credits. By collaborating with the rapidly growing Citizendium (CZ) community of expert and non-expert authors, they can have their essays become a lasting article in the Citizendium. Perhaps best of all, students actually get to learn in a highly collaborative real-time way, enjoying direct online access to highly competent help with their work, in the form of the Citizendium authors and expert editors. Educators receive a higher degree of enthusiasm from their students, see the results immediately and get assistance from the global community of experts; students get to see their work online, learn about collaboration and have their writing actually contribute something to global knowledge; and CZ grows, gaining new contributions and contributors. Another related project is WatchKnow [2], which is a free, non-profit, K-12 educational video contest.

Biology at CZ

Biology was the first article to be approved in Citizendium (on December 15, 2006, half a year after the launch of the project) . The article Biology also makes good use of subpages, like related articles, bibliography, external links, gallery, videos and signed articles. Many of the authors who contributed to this article are busy academicians themselves: [3] and that may be inspirational for others to join the bandwagon.

CZ covers many fields, both academic and beyond, but activities in the biomedical fields have been especially visible: Biology is second to history in terms of number of articles (followed by health sciences), and second to computers in terms of number of authors (followed by history) and fourth (after computers, engineering and health sciences) in number of editors. More details are available at: [4].

If any reader is interested in finding out the real feeling, one can start working to spiff up Biology/Draft [5] and get it approved before submitting another article. Some of the welcome additions would be a section emphasizing the complexity of biology and another on the philosophy of biology.

Workgroup Weeks

Imagine enormous quantities of content combined with the highest quality and exhaustiveness of scope. To give thrust to the ever-expanding field of Biology, the "Biology Week" will be the first of the different weeks planned for each discipline. It is scheduled to be held during September 22 to September 28, 2008. For all biologists this is a chance to make a difference.

Further, other CZ Workgroup weeks are also planned for various disciplines, a related one being for Health sciences: CZ:Health_Sciences_Workgroup/Workgroup_Week.Workgroup weeks will initially be held once a month.

Educators and researchers in biology can register as editors and share their expertise in creating and improving core articles in biology. Biology students can hone their communication skills by authoring and editing articles in their fields of study, and even earn credits for that.

Besides, collaborative learning by structuring knowledge is a good preparation for later collaborative knowledge production in research teams. Journalists can lend their phrasing skills to make articles more attractive to non-specialist readers. Interested politicians can write about the policy issues in biology research. All interested public can participate in the true spirits of wiki publications.

Future Plans

Currently a proposal is being formulated to decide whether authors should be academically credited for their contributions to CZ [6]. To facilitate all sorts of contributors, bot assistance for fact picking can be made available on a case by case basis. However, original research will not be allowed in the main namespace. Discussions are afloat for including original contributions in the subpages or other namespaces.

Take Home Message

So, if you feel motivated enough to contribute, come and join all of us there during September 22-28, 2008.

Figure caption:
The Citizendium (CZ) - a wiki that allows registered, non-anonymous authors to edit any article, 
with the results approved by qualified editors - is planning a big "online convention" of biologists: 
Biology Week, to take place worldwide at Citizendium.org on September 22-28, 2008.

Potentially useful phrases

  Should a reference be made to: Biology Online Dictionary? Also, that Key biology databases go wiki may be cited.

Why should readers (scientists, teachers, students, journalists, interested public) get involved?

Expertness, in turn, develops over years of in-depth involvement with a particular set of subjects. This requires an early start, dedication and a suitable learning environment.

• why should experts join?
  • public outreach and community service
  • eduzendium as an interactive learning/teaching environment - collaborative learning by structuring knowledge is a good preparation for later collaborative knowledge production in research teams
  • policy on taking academic credit is under way
  • contributions to traditional academic peer review (and the enormous efforts experts put in there) are largely invisible, which would not be the case with a wiki model with real name policy
  • civilized discussion atmosphere due to real-name policy
• what about biology?
  • CZ covers many fields, both academic and beyond, but activities in the biomedical fields have been especially visible: Biology is second to history in terms of number of articles (followed by health sciences), and second to computers in terms of number of authors (followed by history) and fourth (after computers, engineering and health sciences) in number of editors, see also CZ:Statistics (--> there are people to work with)
  • CZ:Biology Workgroup/Biology Week/Pending decisions
  • bot assistance for fact picking can be made available on a case by case basis
• what about original research?
  • it will not be allowed in the main namespace but might be so in subpages or other namespaces, details being discussed

Biology Week: What sorts of contributions are possible and/or expected?

• Here, the groups -- scientists, teachers, students, journalists, interested public -- should be addressed separately, though that's not easy within a concise piece of narrative writing.
  • biologists and other researchers
  • teachers
  • students
  • journalists
  • interested public
  • others (e.g. politicians)
• Technical support available?
• Related Workgroup weeks

Options for integration with other free educational projects

• e.g. WatchKnow

Present approval mechanism and some examples from Category:Biology Approved.

Image or box?

We can have either an image or a box but perhaps also both (see previous community pages).

• What about a box that lists the key properties of CZ with respect to similar projects readers might be familiar with (mainly EB and WP)?

• A good image would probably be of help, and something in the style of or

would seem appropriate - the field is depicted as a whole, yet its diversity is evident, too. Any suggestions as to how we can get the idea of a recurrent Biology week into such a figure?

Suggested Image structure

• A mosaic-like image that can serve in the Biology article (instead of Image:Montage2.jpg) and, together with some symbolic indication of "Week" or even Citizendium, as the illustration of the PLoS article.
• This image should make use of the images currently featured in Biology/Gallery but these should be arranged in a more logical order (similar to this depiction of the solar system and this image of the carbon cycle), perhaps best by level of biological organization. However, the molecular and population levels are missing there - if anybody has a good image that could be used here, please post the link here.

• A first draft of the image is available here:
  .