Pedro - thanks for leaving some information about Nodalpoint on the UsefulChem blog. I've added it to our list of open source science sites:
http://usefulchem.wikispaces.com
Our contribution to the open science movement is to make our organic chemistry lab available to worthy chemistry projects. Currently, the primary project at UsefulChem involves the synthesis and testing of new anti-malarial compounds based on the inhibition of enoyl reductase. For more information:
http://usefulchem.wikispaces.com (Project Summaries)
http://usefulchem.blogspot.com (Main blog - project discussion)
http://usefulchem-experiments1.blogspot.com (Lab Notebook - raw data)
http://usefulchem-molecules.blogspot.com (molecules related to UsefulChem projects)
Excellent, I applaud your
Excellent, I applaud your pioneering spirit using blogs for scientific communication. I originally came across one of your many blogs after reading this post here, highlighting some of your comments on publishing data directly to the web (very contentious). I am curious to know, since you are faculty (?), how the rest of your peers are taking this ?
Is there a general sense of support for pursuing this kind of activity (blogs) ? Or is it considered more of a novelty, a distraction from the 'serious business' of real science ?
peer opinions
Greg - as with most interesting things, opinions are mixed about real time publication of research results on blogs and wikis. There is definitely some strong support from a core group of people who understand the value of open source science and the vehicles that I have chosen to disseminate it. Those who don't agree with it tend to remain invisible, since they are unlikely to subscribe to our feeds or make comments. And remember that there is nothing to stop us from writing papers and publishing to peer reviewed journals when we have enough data to warrant it. The blogs and wikis simply serve as raw data pre-prints.
pre-print
I am just not sure how will journals react to this. Several journals have no clear policy on pre-print servers. I assume that if more people start doing this, journals will just shape their policies to accept manuscripts that contain data previously shared on a blog (or other open repository). If anyone knows of such a case I would love to know what was the reaction of the journal and what was the line of argument used by authors and journal editors.