Most of the research is supported by grants that require that you indicate who is doing the work and who is collaborating on the work. These requirement are there to ensure the quality of the work & required to be submitted with the application for the grant. So labs can't just haphazardly go online and share their work before publication, there are rules that govern scientific research and if a scientist work for a certain lab he can't do work for another lab online or otherwise. Thanks.

Dear all,

Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) is a CSIR-led global initiative with a vision to provide affordable healthcare to the developing world by providing a global platform where the best minds can collaborate and collectively endeavor to solve the complex problems associated with discovering novel therapies for neglected tropical diseases like tuberculosis.

OSDD charts a novel course for the drug discovery process by fostering openness and collaboration to enable researchers across the globe to work together to meet key challenges in drug discovery. In OSDD, the entire process of drug discovery is divided into challenges open for the entire community to contribute. This is made possible through a web-based platform called Sysborg.

You can learn more about this novel collaborative open mode of research through the following site www.osdd.net

Happy Researching!

Thanks and Regards,

First of all thanks to both of you for participating in the discussion, and I think my writing made it difficult for my views to be very clear. I am trying to make my views more clear and short.

I want more collaboration among researchers.

on line lab doesn't mean computation in this sense and neither making databases but sharing of your personal results or ideas or data which may be different from your present research work, through web but this should not be random and should focus on a particular aim to be accomplished.

What I mean is that researchers can participate extensively on a particular topic extensively may be a bit different from their actual research activities so that their research interest also remain safe and at the same time can also contribute to science by participating in other related research as may be decided by the forming group members.

See one has to keep its actual research data of his lab very safe.......... but one may take time out of his leisure activities to prepare a group member of like mindsets and as per the funds permits various sort of dry lab/wet lab research may be conducted on topics which may deviate from exact works of any of the research members of the group.

Even if the goal/aim of the experiment is not reached due to some unavoidable hindrance then its a assurity that every member will have its knowledge extended in various directions and one will surely think upon to better the collaborative research.

sorry I am still going very long to explain my view point..........but I think all should understand it and try to solve the issues just for better science progress.

Again take one example,

Suppose we two meet in a conference and have our research ideas shared and by chance it excites both of us.

so we decide to make a group of may be 3 or 4 or more and decides that as per our limitations and capability and time we will conduct research on that particular topic in our own labs(explore informations, post in net or in a site, interact, infer and experiment) individually and share the data amongst us only(here comes my privacy ).

By collaborating in this manner a particular individual may not have a headache to complete the experiment but at the same time contribute to the cause of the problem as per its own limitations. Even if any particular conclusion is not reached one will surely benefit from these interactions and new innovations will come to picture.

I know hard core research needs high funds and that is the reason I am telling to form group of members, use funds as per availibility, and perform such research which needs less funds and more of dry lab techniques.

You know that even if wet lab is not conducted, only vigorous discussions on a particular topic among members also give rise to new directions, ideas, and innovation.

Hard dedication and honesty is the main requisite for these sort of works. We should use the internet service to its maximum.

I do not have any personal gain but want scientific progress at its peak through out the world.

I think I have made my views more clear to everyone.

Thanks again to all for participating in the discussion.

Regards all.

Aditya Parekh

May each and every one understand the need for collaboration and advance towards the betterment of the science.

thank you all for your comments

If I understand you right what you are talking about is a cloud collaboration. Somebody can put a research idea in the cloud and all the scientists interested in the idea can start contributing to that research & whatever come out of this research belong to the group not to a specific lab. If I understand you right this will not be possible in research that require wet lab, these experiments require resources that you have to account for in your grant so if you do the experiment you have to own the results. If you are talking about dry or computational research one can do that in their own time without any complication & that will be a great idea to get researcher to work together who know what they'll come up with & what great discoveries they have. That sound like a great topic.

Http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110819/full/news.2011.492.html

hmm...the quote "if you want something done right do it yourself" comes to my mind here. Not sure if I could trust just anyone out there to perform an experiment for me. I realize that this is often required, but when I have to do such a thing I contact someone known in the field with dependable experience...not search online for anyone that can do it. I can see a lot of skewed results coming from this as not everyone cares to the same extent about your experiments as you do.

Well obviously the idea is not to give away your work but rather to get done stuff you could have never done in your lab and that can bring a lot to your project. And with regard to give stuff to fo do to other people in my experience it always take months if not year to be done (even for really simple experiments!) so maybe having more choice of people actually having time to really do the experiments when you need it would be quite useful.

(I'm talking about the Ebay for researchers)

(see link above)

@stephanie- I have looked the site. It's very encouraging for me and surely for others too.

It will do a whole lot of good to many scientists and researchers.

Thank you for the site.

Regards

Aditya Parekh

I feel your point is valid to have a collaboration in dry and wet lab. But do all really interested to do the same. For e.g. Are taxonomists will be accepted by the molecular biologist.

Well I would say the project need to make sens as a whole to start with. For instance the different level of studies molecular biology and taxonomist should be linked and used in conjunction to answer to a specific question. With regard to whether taxonomist would be accepted by molecular biologist then in my opinion if one think anything outside his field is of no interest then there is a problem... We artificially divided science in different fields but in reality everything is linked and an interdipliscinary approach in science is more and more encouraged in new PhD programs and research projects. Although it's true lots of researcher are quite recalcitrant to collaboration which is really a shame!

O.K. I will suggests the problems in plant sciences especially related to few large families and huge number of diversity. If you have inclination towords this I will be intrested to work in this interdisciplinary approch.

I didn't mention anything stating to just "give away my work". Obviously, if you contact just any Dick or Jane available on an internet site to do an experiment eventually someone is bound to run into the situation where their work is comprimised due to having someone either incompetent or who doesn't care conducting the experiments for them. If you can't say that there will be cases like this then you're sadly mistaken. Will it work great for some researchers...sure.....will it cost money and suck for others...yup. I would rather find someone in the field that I know is dependable either by word of mouth or via journals whom I know will take my work seriously.

Well for me the idea is to have a more global view of the people who coul do the work. Then you can check by looking at paper they published etc if they look like a good work group. Eventually assuming their website got a system of custormer feedback like Ebay then you'll have one more way to evaluate the quality iof their work. Maybe this idea is not the best ever but at least it's something new and that could act as a catalyst to enhance collaborations between labs. It could be the start up for a new way of working that could then evoluate in something better than a 'simple ebay for researchers'. Stagnation is a form of failure; evolution requires a constant change for the better.

Ps: But I actually totally understand your point of view. I do prefer doing everything myself too. Even for simple things like taking plates out of an incubator I'd rather come to the Lab ill at the weekend just for that than ask someone who is going to be there all day to take them all out for me (just in case they forgot, take them out to late.. etc..) lol