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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."
One of my faves is 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
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
YouTube for Science.
YouTube for Porn.
This sounds like a good idea.
s mallernk5.jpg
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=pict0044
(Excuse the mess of my room)
Don't tell me. You're in the electrical shielding business?
Deleted
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
Your real name is Faraday, isn't it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
It looks like it's only for biologists, from the journals they're taking papers from. Ones you pay to get published in. Huh?
What makes you think the formulaic, technical style of scientific writing, the heavy jargonization and the need for careful elaboration won't lead to a bunch of really crappy, unwatchable videos? The same people will be making the videos.
Oh, great. Training more Jim Hansens to appear in front of TV cameras while keeping their research details secret.
It's all about medicine. They even mention "How do I find the PubMed ID for my paper?" in their FAQ. Do they really think that medicine and biology are the only forms of science?
Physicists, please help!
Every time a coin in Al Gore's coffer rings, another soul from Global Warming purgatory springs!
Slow down cowboy! It's been 2 hours since you last criticized a limousine liberal for telling you how to live your life while he continues to wallow in the extravagance that only the mega-wealthy can afford.
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
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Very few have the knowledge combined with the art of communicating in an accessible, insightful, and entertaining way.
How many of us go through academia and see lecture after lecture where absolutely no value or new insight is added beyond the written curriculum? It is a rarity when a professor goes beyond that. So rare, we remember those few people years later. The science youtube will similarly populated with the unwatchable.
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.
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
Once more journals start using this, expect to see more variety in the videos.
Personally I'm interested in data compression and information theory.
...EPrints but more geared towards the video aspect. It's great to see more and more ways for Scientists to get their research out there and in the public sphere!
Silly rabbit
and how would you tell if it made sense?
...Lizard! I'm serious, too. A good science show but using/licensing the Mr. Lizard character would be a hit.
now to just line up a buncha volunteer timmys...
I mean, scientists aren't exactly known for there ability to explain things well. So, will having uncomfortable people /attempting/ an explanation help? And how exactly does having a video of someone *speaking* the jargon help with the problem of the jargon in the first place? Quite frankly, I find it asinine to complain about jargon when the target audience is people that will understand it anyway.
Also, there's that nasty question of peer review. I know that there are many papers from crackpots that end up on the arXiv. What exactly is SciVee going to do to ensure that this doesn't happen there as well?
IMO, this service is going to fail if only for the reason that (pretty much all) scientists are hermits.
...lots of dull-as-fuck clips of suburban 14-year-olds smashing up "fully working" pipettes and bunsen burners?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
This new way of learning is amazing. What a great way for everyone to gain more knowledge.
Ever to excel
How about... TestTube?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
last time i checked the majority of the public didn't "believe" in science.
People waste thousands of dollars every year going to conferences, etc. And then they have to sit through presentations whether they want to or not because, well, they've already paid for it. And then, the conference is only once a year. And then, not everything gets accepted (which is a good thing, mostly, but some decent papers don't get accepted either).
Personally, I think researchers owe it to yourselves to buy a decent HD camera (Canon HV20, for example) and a piece of software that will encode their videos with decent quality. That one you usually don't even have to buy. Want to present your work? Present it in front of a camera and send it to your contacts in scientific community, or just put it on the web. That way I can view the "dense" parts several times and ask better questions through email, which is crucial for understanding.
Another idea is to create a wiki where edit rights are for people with scientific credentials only, so that they could upload their videos and answer questions right there without duplication, and a layman could read and watch the interesting bits, too.
Granted in a lot of research orgs conferences are perceived as a perk and researchers don't pay for their trips themselves, but I do believe that we should be using technical advances and broaden the circle to include folks who don't have $10K a year to visit three conferences.
My brother just sent me links to really interesting set of documentaries that put into perspective the rise of Islamic terrorism, NeoCon world domination ideas and actions, Game Theory in politics and everyday life etc.T
You can't handle the truth.
I think it's a good idea with one major caveat - when they setup their site, they must provide no way of posting semi-anonymous comments to videos.
I mean, just imagine doing this on YouTube. People would watch the video and be educated. Then they'd glance down at the comments and instantly become retarded. I believe that personally, I have lost at least 30 IQ points from accidentally reading YouTube comments.
It would be naive to assume that the same people won't shamble over to the new site and drool all over everything.
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.
I, personally, cannot wait for Kirk Cameron to post to the site a research paper that is a companion to his video!
For the last ~year my biology teacher has been using youtube to show us what happens in the body, it works well too, we see everthing from live cells actively dividing by mitosis, to a video of a the carbon cycle. Really, I didn't think it was too uncommon, its such an obvious idea for a use of this service- and all of the content is already there.
It sounds like this would be similar to poster talks you already get at conventions, although you can't ask questions in real-time.
It's most definitely a good idea.
I wonder of they got the good idea from http://sciencehack.com/
Oh well, the more the merrier. Perhaps the new one will have videos from talks given. Not the nifty graphics oriented demonstration-type stuff, but that kind of stuff has been accumulating and not being used.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
to politics. So now the accepted science will be that presented by the most photogenic scientists.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Great. Instead of papers that are dry, stale, full of technical jargon and can only be understood by someone else who works in that particular sub-speciality, we will have video presentations which are dry, stale, full of technical jargon, and can only be understood by someone else who works in that particular sub-speciality.
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats
The Journal of Visualized Experiments has been in operation for a while and is awesome. There are several Science YouTube sites. I want want one that is geared toward organic synthesis and materials synthesis.
And, presumably, those who need it the most won't know how to use AdBlock (or similar means) to avoid seeing the advertisements.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
They're using their grammar skills there.
Scientific presentations can easily fall into a certain formula that excludes the lay audience and may bore even the initiated. This presentation 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.
Traditional peer-reviewed journals online:
- text online. Check
- supplementaries including text, audio, video, whatever. Check.
There is no need for the "new" site.
More important is to have an effective system of rating of papers. Traditional peer-reviewed system is prone to favoritism.
There was a site with 1000 experts in different sciences reviewing regularly papers. That is another way.
Applying digg system to science directly probably won't work.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
How timely.
A friend blogged about SciVee which is intended to be Youtube for scientists.
And it runs on Drupal.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
If they believe in Intelligent Design then they believe in science, albeit divine science.
We are running a http://videolectures.net/ science video site with over 2500 science videos and presentations mostly related to Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Mining, Semantic Web, etc.
If you click it right now, please also check http://videolectures.net/site/live/ where live webcast of the Machine Learning Summer School which is going on right now (http://www.mlss.cc/tuebingen07/).
And please don't put it on the slashdot front page (i.e. slashdot-it) just jet, because the server probably won't stand that much load (we'll be upgrading servers soon).
Well this looks very promising. Nice GUI, nice functionalities. Hope you wont stay just on this specific topics, but its good work, keep it up.
Sweet! Shaky, blurry videos of hot postdoc chicks making out over a soundtrack of "White and Nerdy"
Well, I think the point of this site is not to reach out to the unwashed masses of laypeople; Rather it is to reach other academics in the field or to reach professionals who want to put new discoveries into practice (engineers / industry).
I think the video site is trying to capitalize the fact that author presented seminars on papers can provide a more efficient transfer of the new idea than just reading the paper does. The problem is, seminars are interactive... When someone doesn't understand a point, they can ask a question... performing a drill-down into more detail as it were.
While these videos show a human face, you can't ask them questions.
Well, you CAN, but that would just be odd now wouldn't it?
Still, the video with verbal explanation of the paper might provide an alternative, more natural take on a complex idea than the formalized paper. There is probably still some advantage to having two presentations on the same topic available (both the video and the paper together).
\Personally I hope this idea succeeds. Maybe the respected journals will catch on early and provide an electronic channel for video distribution as well.
Privacy Statement: We value your privacy! It is very valuable. That's why we try to sell it whenever we can.
They think its solely a recreational sight, yet science papers and products I wish to buy are increasingly putting things there. My company is one of the Fortune 100, but the management is backwards.
Here we go, telegenic science, dumbing down of academia, here we come!
Melting glaciers! Exploding test tubes! We're all going to die! We've found a cure for AIDS! FILM AT 11!
It's the San Diego Supercomputer Center (http://www.sdsc.edu/), not the San Diego Supercomputing Center.