YouTube for Science?

Shipud writes "The National Science Foundation, Public Library of Science and the San Diego Supercomputing Center have partnered to set up what can best be described as a "YouTube for scientists", SciVee". Scientists can upload their research papers, accompanied by a video where they describe the work in the form of a short lecture, accompanied by a presentation. The formulaic, technical style of scientific writing, the heavy jargonization and the need for careful elaboration often renders reading papers a laborious effort. SciVee's creators hope that that the appeal of a video or audio explanation of paper will make it easier for others to more quickly grasp the concepts of a paper and make it more digestible both to colleagues and to the general public."

Another good video site: fora.tv

[Ralph Spoilsport (673134)]

I think these online video sites are great, and the specialisation/professionalisation of the genre only makes sense as the field matures.

One of my faves is fora.tv [www.fora.tv] which has lots of really good lectures and readings. A lot of it is from CSPAN, but I like CSPAN, so I'm not one to complain.

This kind of refinement in the online video space is a great great thing, and as online advertising increases in value (At the expense of broadcast advertising dollars) these kinds of websites will have greater and greater viability and from there, increased depth of programming.

Some websites have tried to do this in an entertainment sphere, and for the most part, aren't realy doing too well - audience expectations are high and the material presented is often iffy in quality. OF course, that changing, slowly - better stuff is arriving, but there needs to be filtering systems. Things like the site in TFA and fora.tv are just such filters.

This is a very exciting time for online video!

Now, if we can only keep the bandwidth up before it all chokes itself to death...

RS

Re:

[OECD (639690)]

This kind of refinement in the online video space is a great great thing

I don't know. In the case of scientific papers, yes it probably is. But a great deal of the appeal of youtube is the ability to stumble onto things that you didn't know existed (via the 'related videos' links in particular.) If there was a separate site for Japanese game shows, or Harry Potter rap, my life would be a little bit poorer.

Proof that this may not work out

[nadahlman (255850)]

Scientific presentations can easily fall into a certain formula that excludes the lay audience and may bore even the initiated. This presentation [youtube.com] brilliantly demonstrates the issue. It could be said that the opportunity to publicize is already out there; presenters may have to focus more on making the concept accessible and interesting, perhaps along the lines of a shorter, more thorough Radio Lab [wnyc.org].

Good idea

[JohnFluxx (413620)]

This sounds like a good idea.

I personally work on a digital hologram printer, and wouldn't mind recording a short video describing how it works etc.

Here's an example hologram that I've done: (Yes, I'm a KDE developer as well. It's the KDE dragon, konqi.)

http://img267.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pict0044s mallernk5.jpg [imageshack.us]

(Excuse the mess of my room)

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[kestasjk (933987)]

pff, aren't holographs supposed to move when you move your head around? Doesn't look like a very good holograph to me.

Re:Good idea

[JohnFluxx (413620)]

Try moving your head rapidly into the screen.

Very, very cool!

[RyanFenton (230700)]

I'm sure the likes of Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan and other proponents of accurate popularization of science would have applauded this approach. I'm also sure there's going to be some major stumbling blocks along the way - but this is just the kind of adventure that I see as healthy for the public interaction with science. Go science!

Ryan Fenton

Re:Very, very cool!

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

Won't be long until something like "www.idtv.org" or (given the way the Feds are funding Christian groups these days) maybe "www.creationtv.gov" comes along to try and counteract the dissemination of accurate science to the population.

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[nametaken (610866)]

That's the nice part about the internet, I have to want to go to a website.

I just don't like the idea of my tax dollars paying for it. :(

The not-so-nice part about the internet

[benhocking (724439)]

That's the nice part about the internet, I have to want to go to a website.

The not-so-nice part is that this applies to other people, too. ;) Those who need the exposure to popularized science the most are those least likely to seek it out.

Re:

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

Maybe someone with some bucks should pay for click-through "ads" that have messages like "DID YOU KNOW that Evolution doesn't claim to know how life originated on Earth? No? Click here for more info!" or "Creationism is an untestable hypothesis, not a scientific Theory. Do you want to know more?" or maybe "Science is not in the God business. Why should God be in Science's business?" I'm sure you folks can think of a bunch more good teasers to bring in the undecided. Could even make some money for sites that

Not a bad idea

[benhocking (724439)]

And, presumably, those who need it the most won't know how to use AdBlock (or similar means) to avoid seeing the advertisements.

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[thePsychologist (1062886)]

Scientific papers today are not understandable by laypeople. To take an extreme, mathematics papers are not understandable by other mathematicians in an unrelated field. Hence for the public to benefit there needs to be what PLoS biology does with most (all?) of their papers: provide a nontechnical summary.

Currently, scivee.tv only has videos that would be of interest to people that know quite a bit about the topic already (example: Structural Evolution of the Protein Kinase-Like Superfamily).

The videos als

Re:Very, very cool!

[hubie (108345)]

This doesn't look like a site targeted at the layman. It seems to be a site targeted at the scientific community to help disseminate research results to other scientists. I think this is a great idea. Basically the majority of scientific papers that are written only have their abstracts, intros, conclusions, and figures read until it is determined that the paper is of great interest, then the nitty-gritty details are read. This allows researchers to quickly get the gist of papers to determine which ones they want to read in detail. It would also help the scientific journalist to quickly understand the big picture of a particular recent topic.

Since the videos are targeted at other scientists and engineers, I wouldn't expect too much polish. It would not surprise me if it gets used by company PR departments or researchers on the fringe to promote their ideas (and in which case I would expect pretty slick presentations) because I suspect posting a video on this site would carry more weight than just posting it on YouTube.

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[DinZy (513280)]

Too bad there is no channel for any physical science. This is Biology/medicineTV not science TV

Re:Very, very cool!

[jstomel (985001)]

PLOS One accepts articles from any field. Plus, it's in alpha testing. They'll get some physical science journals certified eventually.

Yes!

[astonish (177831)]

As someone who works in academia I really believe research is crying for something like this. You hear that anecdotal stat that the average published paper (conference or journal) is read ONCE. There is so much information out there that is going unused and with so much research going on getting out there in an easy to access and digestible format is key.

Any system that makes academic papers more digestible is a benefit for three reasons:

1) Researchers. Youtube like social networking amongst peers can boost awareness of research and give researchers a better sense of the "field" to dig into when doing background research allowing them to find relevant works quickly. It also does the opposite allowing them to spark others interest in their work so it doesn't get retired to the shelf. Even when reading papers in your own field understanding complex methods and results can sometimes be hard to digest if unclear writing is involved. A video (mainly of the researcher explaining things in their own spoken words) is worth a thousand words.

2) Business. Putting businesses in touch with research and programs relevant to them. This is a win/win. Companies get information that betters their products and services and hopefully in return they provide much needed research dollars to those doing the work.

3) The general public. Keeping the general public in the loop is important for countless reasons. Two of them being it lets them see where there tax research dollars are going and why they should support such funding and also because hopefully it will inspire people to take interest in the goings on of higher education and ward of general stupidity. It always brightens my day to see science videos of cool physics research or psychology tricks littered in with sports highlights and comedy clips. Even if it only raises peoples awareness slightly I think its worth it.

Re:Yes!

[spectrokid (660550)]

If the average paper is only read once, it is because
- in some places it is the quantity of papers produced that counts and not the quality
- because they are not published in open websites where they can be indexed by search engines.

Only for Bio

[Ray Yang (135542)]

It looks like it's only for biologists, from the journals they're taking papers from. Ones you pay to get published in. Huh?

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[jstomel (985001)]

It currently only takes papers from the PLOS family of journals. Most of the PLOS journals have a biological bent because they were started by a group of Biologists/Biochemists at UC Berkley and their editorial staff is mostly biology centric. PLOS One is a general subject journal and accepts publications from any field of science. You pay to publish in PLOS journals because they are open access. PLOS does not sell subscriptions or charge for access to articles, instead it charges authors a small fee (f

Peer review, or clique acceptance?

[cluge (114877)]

I think the idea is interesting, and a good way for people publishing papers to help a peer review group understand what they are looking at, but at the same time the quote The formulaic, technical style of scientific writing, the heavy jargonization and the need for careful elaboration often renders reading papers a laborious effort. struck me. Scientific method has always been the fundamental difference between science, fact, and belief. What I've found over the years is that there is more bad science in peer reviewed papers now than there was. In this day of the word processor and CYA get funded politics, there is a lot more to read, but less meat on the bone (so to speak). That being said there is still a LOT of good science going on, and I wouldn't step back to the days of carbon paper and typewriters for a second. For example - When I taught physics, drawing a conclusion from a graph or statistical results, but failing to provide an equation or the work or all of the data that one used to come up to such a conclusion resulted in a failing grade. Period. Yet peer reviewed articles by Mann [technologyreview.com], or the recent GISS fiasco [geotimes.org] point to a failure of peer review. These articles should have never made it to print.

Video and Audio presentations should go with each paper to a reviewing publication if it helps reviewers and laymen. More importantly the reviewers need to be able to remember their primary motivation. To be skeptical in the name of science.

cluge

Paper Format

[D.A. Zollinger (549301)]

There is a reason why research papers take the format that they take - to make it easy to locate the pertinent information that another researcher is trying to find. Most readers will be interested in the results section of a paper - where significant findings are listed. If the findings seem too good to be true, you might read the methodologies section to see how the researcher validated their study tools and to see if the methods used to arriving at their conclusions are suspect. If you are a layman to the field of study or you want to see what literature directed the researcher to this research question, you might be interested in reading the background section of the paper. If you found the topic interesting, and want to continue this line of questioning, you would read the discussions section to learn interesting aspects about what the researcher would do differently had they the opportunity to do the research over again or to perform the research again in the future. A lot of the discussion section might pertain to how they might change their methodology, or change their survey instrument in order to increase the return of relevant data.

Now, having said all of that, I do think that a site which offers video presentations of papers would be a more interesting way of learning information. In acadamia, a lot of professors and researchers are expected to become involved in their area of research, which means that they perform research, present research, and attend presentations of other researchers. In many areas you could attend presentations almost every day of the week. While this is encouraged, it does take up valuable time, and many in acadamia have to be selective about which presentations would be most valuable to attend, as presentations take more time than would reading the relevant portions of the paper. Finally, I have seen enough awful presentations to realize that just because the information is presented in another format does not mean that the author has become any less dry.

Impenetrable mathematics and terminology

[locster (1140121)]

I always find it interesting that some really simple concepts that could probably be understood by a child become completely unfathomable when presented in mathematical form. I've read papers that are describing techniques that I myself have implemented and yet still not recognised what was being described. This is a nice idea but what I would really like to see is plain english explanations of a concept alongside the maths, which I accept is necessary because English is after all ambiguous and inefficient at describing mathematical formulea or concepts. But that doesn't mean it can't be used to paint the big picture before filling in the detail.

I suppose part of the problem is the terminology used in research papers. You get groups of researchers in specialisations that use terminology that only they know, because they have developed it in their own little corner of the research world. You can end up with a newcomer to a field writing a perfectly good paper, but because s/he didn't use the now accepted proper terminology the paper is not understood by the people it is actually targeting.

Also sometimes I get the feeling that people are writing papers with impenetrable terminology to make themselves feel clever. The more big words the better. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

SciVee

[kbahey (102895)]

How timely.

A friend blogged about SciVee [scivee.tv] which is intended to be Youtube for scientists.

And it runs on Drupal [drupal.org].

Re:

[jstomel (985001)]

This is a misconception. While many scientists may not be good a making small talk at parties, we are paid lecturers you know. You don't teach to a class of freshmen and present at meetings six times a year without learning a thing or two about public speaking. Within the narrow confines of explaining their research, scientists can be very eloquent. It helps that this site is aimed at a technical to semi-technical audience. And as for peer review, SciVee only accepts submissions from well respected pee