Open scientists have more and more early "Aha!" moments

Why I am an open scientist
The other day, I wrote about developing public understanding of science, now I came across the somehow interlinked concept of being an open scientist: scientists shall engage in making their work as transparent as possible. And no, not just writing about completed projects to peers and public, but about the scientific work in progress. For example, an experimentalist could keep a public lab notebook.

Challenges are to be discussed, but I immediately felt that the idea is straight forward and the rewards would outweigh risks. Traditionally, you had a lab notebook holding your unpublished work, until the data is transformed into results presented in a journal article. Nowadays that could be, and should be if possible, an open access journal, so why not starting with making also your lab notebook open. So far the straightforwardness: open access to information, maybe not entirely so, but at least during all stages to a certain degree. I guess, I do not need to mention the risks. What about the rewards?

What came as a reward into my mind was the early creation of "Aha!" moments. An "Aha!" moment or event indicates a change in the cognitive state. I first heard about this concept from Frank Ohl and Henning Scheich, former colleagues, but recently also found it in the Wall Street Journal: A Wandering Mind Heads Straight Toward Insight, which serves as a better introduction. These moments need an environment in which they can flourish. As far as my moments are concerned, they come—surprisingly—reliably but only if I write about my work with the reader in mind. Most of my articles changed quite dramatically in the process of writing, although I used to start writing, only when I thought the creative work is seemingly finished. I learned nothing could be more wrong. So for me being engaged in making my work more transparent by writing about it at an earlier stage, while it is still in progress, is nothing less than forcing insight.

Public Understanding of Science

One half scientific lobbying to increase the understanding of the value of science to society, the other half engaging the public in science to increase knowledge

For good or bad, public understanding of science becomes more and more an essential prerequisite for both getting adequate funding of research activities and finding a permanent faculty position. To my mind this is actually a good thing because the rapidly expanding Internet technology allows scientist to easily reach out to the public. (blogs in particular: it took 10 minutes to figure out how to create my own blog and here am I. The web still amazes me.)

To call for developing PUS as a task for scientists is quite different from the controversial concept of "publish or perish", a common advice how to sustain a career in academia. I admit, I like rather spending time developing my original research than writing papers. But once a paper is published, why not writing three short paragraphs to explain to the public what I did or maybe only why I did this research? I am doing both basic research carried out to increase our understanding of fundamental principles and applied research. Not always is an immediate benefit to the society obvious. But I can answer questions like: What has driven my curiosity to do this research. Why do I think this is a fundamental principle? What is my vision?

Do I spend much time pondering about these questions? Yes and no. Yes, I spent a large fraction of my time on thinking about the general significance of my work. Where will I go next, and why? This is part of my job. I will not spend much time for writing this blog. Frankly, in many cases I will just copy and paste text from my research proposals. There, I have to provide a clear flow of thoughts starting from the broadest scope of my research. Moreover, I get e-mails very other week from people asking about their migraines and what I think. So, I hope, this blog will actually safe me time for I can now refer to it.