On April 6, 2011 I presented at the HUBzero Conference in Indianapolis on "Open Notebook Science: Does Transparency Work?".

This presentation will first describe Open Notebook Science, the practice of making the laboratory notebook and all associated raw data available to the public in real time. Examples of current applications in organic chemistry - solubility and chemical reactions - will be detailed. Key details of the current technical implementation will be described and possible applicability to nanotechnology projects will be explored. Finally, the implications for Intellectual Property protection, claims of priority, subsequent publication in peer reviewed journals and the eventual automation of the scientific process will be explored.

The organizers did a great job in making the recording available as either a video or audio podcast.

I learned a great deal at the conference about how researchers from various fields use the HUBzero software to manage and share their data. As described on their website:

HUBzero® is a platform used to create dynamic web sites for scientific research and educational activities. With HUBzero, you can easily publish your research software and related educational materials on the web.

Although the system is not primarily designed for completely Open sharing, I did get the impression that for some applications there was significant interest in making data and processes more Open. There is certainly an enthusiastic user community around HUBzero - check out the recordings for some of the other talks here.