I was watching Katie Couric on Larry King last night. The discussion was on cancer research. She said researchers should collaborate rather than compete. That got me thinking, why do researcher compete than collaborate? Another news item drove this point as well. The millionth word in the English language was Web 2.0! Thats all about social networking and collaboration! What do you think?

collaboration of researches is the greatest strength for the researchers community.with this the productivity goes up and every one is encouraged and motivated.of course healthy competition should also be there for getting quick results

You bring up a very important topic. I did some research on collaboration a few months ago and this is what I found.

Academic research practices have remained virtually identical in its conduct and organization over the last few decades. Disparate groups of researchers work on ideas, projects and inventions in isolated clusters, with little sharing of information and synergies from collaboration.

Importance of Research Management
Research management and organization is a key determinant of a researcher’s productivity. A research file is a social organization of the researcher’s memory. This is where new ideas are stored and developed. Think of it as the researcher’s warehouse. A research folder which is ubiquitous provides a researcher an edge over a localized research folder. The results indicated that 90% of the researchers used localized computer files to organize and manage their research, as compared to (paper folders (49%) and Web 2.0 technologies (7%). This indicates researchers do not manage their research as well as they could.

Research Collaborative Practices
Researchers’ collaborative practices were compared to the results of a study conducted by Bozeman and Lee (2003). While these two studies are not directly comparable, the comparison provides some interesting insights. Specifically, movement from collaborating with researchers in the immediate work group, to collaborating with researchers outside the United States has risen substantially. However collaboration between industry and researchers remained about the same.

Problem with Collaborative Research
Researchers reported several problems with their collaborative efforts. These included:

Managing collaborators (61%);
Transmitting information (82%) and
Finding collaborators (54%).

I concluded that, by adopting Web 2.0 research portals such as MyNetResearch, researchers can significantly improve their research productivity through enhanced research management, secure information sharing, and better collaborative management.

Greater collaboration can lead to work on untapped opportunities For instance, industry and universities can create partnerships through the formation of university-based centers to facilitate joint knowledge creation and dissemination through Web 2.0 research portals. The establishment of these centers provides a knowledge base and repository which both entities can access.

I agree, collaborating and competing is not mutually exclusive. Maybe the question should be why researchers work either alone or within a close network. Typically this network consists of mentors, doctoral classmates, or other faculty in their departments. We should expand these networks.

Hi Kreminmp,

My name is Dr. Bay Arinze and I'm the Founding Editor of MyNetResearch. I'm glad to answer your questions about MyNetResearch (MNR). MNR is a research management and collaboration network whose aim is to help researchers become more productive and successful.

Typically, researchers have worked alone or in "collaborations of convenience" with colleagues in their department or group. As the world becomes flat, globalized and connected, this is an increasingly archaic way to work. With MNR, you can search and find great collaborators to work with across the globe, across a whole range of disciplines. Schools talk a lot about interdisciplinary work - we make it happen. Our extensive search allows you to find researchers who match your detailed criteria.

MNR also allows you to manage your projects, manage your documents and tasks and to access all these from any location with an Internet connection. You save time and money, avoid lost documents and out-of-sync documents (via version management), and easily communicate with your co-authors.

In addition, specialist tools like an expert system for research and survey design, and datasets of many varieties make the entire research process highly efficient and productive. MNR is used by both PhD students and professors alike, and also by corporate and non-profit researchers. They use MNR to work together or alone on academic papers, grant proposals, administrative projects, inventions and almost any other project.

MNR revolutionizes the way we have done research over the last century- from the functional silo based, localized, convenience-based collaboration type of research. We have evolved to an Internet-based, globally collaborative, expert tool-enhanced website that is now bringing significant productivity gains to institutions and individual researchers alike.

Try out the main portal at: http://www.mynetresearch.com

Kreminmp, thanks for the question. MNR helps not only experienced researchers, but grad. students and others learning the research game. Being part of a community with experienced researchers provides many potential mentors to a new researcher with questions.

Our online research and statistical methods expert systems were developed specifically for new researchers seeking validation of their experimental designs and statistical method choices. Other tools like our literature and citation managers help to make the research process more effective and efficient.

The PhD is a lonely endeavor, as I remember it from many years ago. Having a supportive community with potential collaborators and mentors, together with research management and specialist tools provides a great environment for the doctoral student.

As a final example, I'm on a thesis committee and both the doctoral student and committee members are all MNR users. It has made thesis management, document distribution and communication a breeze and the doctoral student involved cannot now envisage working on the degree without MNR. An an unbiased observer, I must agree!!

I would like to echo mzaman001's reply. MNR provides a dependable place to keep your documents; you can consider your PC as a back-up device. Many companies are also moving towards keeping documents and programs in Web 2.0 environments. This is an interesting article Hot Spots: Web 2.0 storage: Challenges and choices. MNR offers this service for researchers.

Whats Web 2.0? I keep hearing about it. After reading this forum, I beginining to see the emergence of Research 2.0. i.e., the era of online research management and collaboration. Does that make sense?

Tom.W,

Here is something I wrote about Web 2.0 in a recent book chapter...

While Web 1.0 revolved mostly around ecommerce, Web 2.0 architectures focus on encouraging user participation. The key aspects of Web 2.0 are interconnectivity and interactivity of web-delivered content. There are a number of Web-based services and applications that demonstrate the foundations of the Web 2.0 concept. These are not really technologies as such, but services (or user processes) built using the building blocks of the technologies and open standards that underpin the Internet and the Web. These include blogs, wikis, multimedia sharing services, content syndication, podcasting and content tagging services. Many of these applications of Web technology are relatively mature, having been in use for a number of years, although new features and capabilities are being added on a regular basis. It is worth noting that many of these newer technologies are concatenations, i.e. they make use of existing services.

Here is an interesting news item about research collaboration....

A research project focusing on quality and patient safety in hospitals has been offered 3 million from the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme - Health. The Jönköping Academy for Improvement of Health and Welfare is one of six collaborating project partners.

In the project "Quality and safety in European Union hospitals: A research-based guide for im¬plementing best practice and a framework for assessing performance" the researcher teams will carry out ten case studies of quality and safety improvement efforts. The findings from the project will form the basis for two important evidence-based documents to guide European health¬care: a quality and safety guide and a framework for assessing quality and safety in hospitals.

I wonder if they use Web 2.0 to collaborate?