{"id":3361,"date":"2015-02-06T16:38:10","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T15:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.embl.de\/?p=3361"},"modified":"2024-11-29T16:54:44","modified_gmt":"2024-11-29T15:54:44","slug":"1502_how-to-crowdsource-a-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1502_how-to-crowdsource-a-paper\/","title":{"rendered":"How to crowdsource a paper"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aidan Budd has spent a considerable amount of time over the past year spearheading activities that have just culminated in two papers in PLoS Computational Biology<\/em>. This would seem normal for an EMBL scientist \u2013 in Budd\u2019s case, in the Gibson group at EMBL Heidelberg \u2013 were it not for the fact that the resulting papers are not bioinformatics analyses of gene regulation networks or metabolic interactions, but rather tips and rules for building a bioinformatics community<\/a> and organising an unconference<\/a>. Another particularity is that in writing the papers, Budd and collaborators took the collaborative nature of science a step further: both papers made use of crowdsourcing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it is getting video-gamers to help predict the 3D structure of proteins<\/a>, drawing on people\u2019s ability to identify shapes to understand how galaxies form<\/a> or using a screensaver to search for signs of extraterrestrial life<\/a>, the idea behind crowdsourcing is to pool resources and contributions from many people to generate data and knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Budd is keen to encourage others to try employing this approach while writing certain kinds of scientific papers, as it offers an opportunity for more and different voices and opinions to be heard on the topic of the paper, and is, he believes, an extremely effective community-building activity in itself.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\n\n

Do…<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

…Have one person who really owns the project<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomeone who really wants to make it happen and will take responsibility, and at the same time has the confidence to believe that they can make it happen. If you\u2019re that person, you have to be comfortable asserting yourself and pushing others and ultimately making decisions. As much as possible you\u2019d like everyone involved to decide with you, and agree with you on the process, but also things need to stop at certain points.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…Commit to open, transparent communication at all times<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re open and transparent about what you want, what you want to do, how much time you have, and so on, this builds trust \u2013 it makes people more willing to work with you. When that openness is not there, I\u2019ve only ever seen it cause resentment and frustration. And even though I know this, I catch myself also being non-transparent sometimes. You just go \u2018oh, I know that person, I\u2019ll just ask them if they\u2019re happy to do that\u2019, because it\u2019s quicker at the time. But that carries a huge risk that other people will resent not being asked \u2013 so you have to really make a conscious effort. Typically in such situations I\u2019ve gone \u2018d\u2019oh! Right, what can I do about this so that I can actually open it to everyone and genuinely give everyone an opportunity?\u2019 And that can be difficult at times, not least because it often means giving up things that I <\/em>want to do. But I accept that, by doing so, I\u2019m helping the community to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…Check your tone is always respectful<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really easy to slip on this \u2013 especially in moments of stress or hurry. Amazing people who I know and like can be \u2013 without realising it \u2013 really quite disrespectful at times, and do things that I think \u2018ah, I wish they hadn\u2019t done that because I expect it\u2019ll cause others to be less likely to contribute.\u2019 So, remember that the way you talk to people has an impact on their likelihood of wanting to be involved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

… Ensure you can get critical mass<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMake sure you have access to reasonably large groups of people who could be interested in getting involved. People are much more likely to get involved in something like this if they know the person who\u2019s asking, and it\u2019s someone who they think will actually deliver \u2013 a generic request from a stranger is much less likely to succeed. And in connection with that, look for people who are hubs of connections with similar interest, and who could know of other contexts or communities to tap into and help mobilise others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…Do some recon<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also useful to contact potential publications in advance to see if they\u2019d be interested in publishing something like what you have in mind \u2013 to see if there\u2019s any point in doing it, and if so, if they have guidelines you should be aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…Consider organising related events<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor the community article we organised a workshop at ISMB [the International Society for Computational Biology\u2019s annual conference] and invited all speakers and organisers of that workshop to contribute to the paper \u2013 the more crowdsourced part being that we collected feedback from all 100-plus participants and used this as a resource when writing the article. For the unconference paper, we held a \u2018birds of a feather\u2019 session at ISMB and invited everyone there to contribute. This kind of thing can help bring new people onboard, including people you might not know beforehand. But perhaps most importantly, organising something like this raises your profile and provides evidence of your dedication to the project and your ability to deliver, which can make people that bit more likely to join. You never know when you’re going to meet these people again; I just introduced myself to a new bioinformatician here at EMBL, asking if he’d like to work with us on the Bio-IT project, and he said \u2018You don’t remember me, but I know you; I was at the unconference session at ISMB in Berlin two years ago.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…Realise that things have to end at some point<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese papers actually aren\u2019t as crowdsourced as I would have liked. I had hoped to open the community article up further by asking people generically on Twitter and other social media, and incorporating those contributions too, but in the end I just couldn\u2019t face the large amounts of work and delay that that would bring. At some point, I wanted to get something out there that was useful for people, rather than waiting to make it even more crowdsourced.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don’t…<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

…Underestimate the time and sustained effort required from the lead person<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201c<\/strong>I\u2019ve found most people can make a valuable contribution without it taking too much of their time and effort, but you need at least one person \u2013 and, ideally, just one person \u2013 who makes a considerable amount of effort to make things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…Do everything by email<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cActually talk to people. Decisions can be made so much quicker sometimes by discussing in person or at least on Skype \u2013 or teleconferences, group chats, whatever \u2013 than in endless looping email rounds. You can clear up misunderstandings so much faster, and get a sense of the majority\u2019s feeling \u2013 and just generally decide together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…Have too high a standard<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are things I\u2019d change in both articles, but I\u2019m alright with them. Actually, I’m proud of them! For the paper to actually get out, you have to be a non-perfectionist. I often ask the question \u2018Is there anything in here that is so bad you would not be prepared to put your name to it?\u2019 \u2013 this is different from \u2018Is there anything you think should be changed?\u2019. Obviously you want something good, but you can\u2019t enter endless cycles of change after change after change. People need to appreciate the power they have to say \u2018No\u2019, and the amount of work and effort and delay that comes from making changes. You want revisions, but not too many: the right number to get something that has enough quality for everyone to be prepared to go with it. Assuming you have smart, clued-in people involved, this level of quality will be high enough for the resulting document to be useful for readers. So, if everyone\u2019s prepared to put their name to it, then we\u2019re OK. People have studied these things; there\u2019s a whole framework for reaching consensus \u2013 if you\u2019re thinking about doing something like this, read about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…Crowdsource research papers<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCrowdsourcing is great at bringing diverse, valid input to an article when the resources needed to contribute are low; it’s easy for more people to contribute. This makes it good for papers like opinion, training or review articles, which present broad ranges of ideas and opinions on a topic. But when you crowdsource a paper, the whole point is to open it to contributions from many people, and this makes it hard to limit who has access to the text. So crowdsourcing doesn\u2019t work well in contexts where the article cannot be safely shared with a large group of people without compromising intellectual property (IP) or scientific precedence, for example. This, combined with the fact that research articles require more resources \u2013 experiments take time and money to plan and execute, and so does data analysis \u2013 means that they\u2019re not suited to crowdsourcing. Having said that, valid, important research articles can be published from data collected via crowdsourcing. This is the basis of \u2018citizen science\u2019 \u2013 a topic on which we’re trying to crowdsource another article! However in these projects, the resulting articles aren\u2019t usually crowdsourced: the scientists designing and controlling the study are typically the paper\u2019s authors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\n\n

The two papers just published in PLoS Computational Biology<\/em> brought together people \u2013 mainly bioinformaticians, but also teachers and journalists \u2013 from three continents, and Budd would like to extend their reach even further. \u201cEven the \u2018building a bioinformatics community\u2019 paper has many tips that could be widely applicable in other fields. In general, these are things that people don\u2019t often think about, so we are happy just to raise the profile of thoughtful community building \u2013 that, rather than diving straight in, it\u2019s something that\u2019s worth deliberating, and reflecting on the success, or not, of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It\u2019s the same with ‘unconferences’: it\u2019s about spreading ideas and things that we\u2019ve enjoyed a lot and consider have been very successful, and would like to offer other people the opportunity to do the same. It\u2019s about letting people know that these things exist, and maybe spiking their interest and giving them the confidence and inspiration to try them themselves. All of that goes beyond bioinformatics. We\u2019d be very happy if people from other areas read the articles and shared their thoughts and experiences. That’s part of the reason why we made sure these articles were published open access, so that everyone \u2013 bioinformaticians or not, scientists or not \u2013 can read them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you have \u2013 or are planning to \u2013 crowdsource a paper, Budd would love to hear from you, either in the comments below, on twitter<\/a>, or via email<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story has been updated since it was first published to clarify how crowdsourcing was used to a lesser and greater extent for both papers. For more information please contact us<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tried and tested do’s and don’ts of crowdsource writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17591],"tags":[28,43,49],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-3361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-science-technology","tag-bioinformatics","tag-heidelberg","tag-interdisciplinary"],"acf":{"article_intro":"

Having taken an unconventional approach to writing his latest scientific articles, Aidan Budd shares tips on what to do \u2013 and what to avoid.<\/p>\n","related_links":[{"link_description":"Budd, Corpas, Brazas, Fuller\u00a0et al.\u00a0PLoS Computational Biology, 6 February 2015.\u00a0DOI: 10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1003972","link_url":"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1003972"},{"link_description":"Budd\u00a0et al.\u00a0PLoS Computational Biology, 29 January 2015. 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