View source for Talk:Online Chemistry Nexus Proposal

Please discuss the proposal here! Martin A. Walker 19:44, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

== Broad guidelines from the NSF ==
There are two very basic points which the proposal must cover, according to the NSF, which Ican't find mentioned specifically on these pages. The proposal (and its one page summary) must ''separately'' address:
*the intellectual merit of the proposed activity; and
*the broader impacts resulting from the proposed activity. 
[[User:Physchim62|Physchim62]] 22:45, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
:OK, thanks for getting the ball rolling!  The first of these is difficult to define for a project like this.  With a proposed total synthesis of X, it's a tangible thing, but for this, the intellectual merit could be regarded as either obvious or elusive, depending on your definition.  (That's why I've struggled to respond).  As for the broader impacts, I've contacted several people working on the edges of chemistry (see my email on possible advisers); I've got a "yes" from an anthropologist (Bethany Usher, Potsdam, she uses DNA to track ancestry, etc, and she has a biology BS), and also an enthusiastic "yes" from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Proteins User:Proteins]. I'll be asking these people to write a couple of sentences on how Wikichem could help their fields.  Then we can write a broader overview to go with it. Thanks, Martin A. Walker 00:25, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
::We seem to be interpreting the two criteria somewhat differently! For the first, I would say that there is intellectual merit in striving to produce tools which make it easier for chemists to share their data and to access others peoples data and publications with greater ease. This intellectual effort is shown through the development of both software tools and a robust classification system (or set of classification systems). For the second, I think that "broader impact" needs to be guaged for users ''outside'' of the group of self-defined practitioners of the chemical sciences: we are striving to make this data available to ''everybody''. "Unrestricted access to data used to derive conclusions also builds public confidence in the processes and outcomes of research": it isn't me whose saying that, it is the [http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cosepup/ Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP)] of the National Academies in their recent report "[http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12615 Ensuring the Integrity, Accessibility, and Stewardship of Research Data in the Digital Age]" (p.&nbsp;55). All help in reading the report, especially its chapters 3 & 4, is welcome. [[User:Physchim62|Physchim62]] 00:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
:::Sorry, of course you're right about this view of "broader impacts", we need to consider both aspects.  I was thinking specifically of the program officer's opening sentences, "''it appears that this project is within the scope of STCI if you can explain how it supports multiple science domains (perhaps within chemistry or perhaps how it can be expanded more broadly as part of the project. STCI is meant to be a very broad-reaching program, and should support a broad user base.''"  I took that to mean that we need to try to show value for people who perhaps aren't mainstream chemists, but who perhaps use chemistry as part of their work.  Tonight I got positive replies from a drug discovery specialist (Alex Tropsha, UNC-Chapel Hill) and from a veteran Wikipedian, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mav User:Mav] - both a great news, and their involvement will help to broaden the impact of the site.

:::But you're absolutely right to focus on public access, really.  We need to make this idea a centrepiece of the proposal - this idea of making chemistry (and related areas) openly accessible to the general public.  As I said last week on the phone, I believe that with many NSF proposals the PI simply tacks on a piece about broader impact to the public in order to keep NSF happy, but it isn't anything the PI really cares about.  We do care about it, and we need to make that obvious in the proposal.  After reading the National Academies summary (fantastic reference - thanks for finding that!) I would go further; we could provide a medium through which researchers could disseminate their results to a wider audience.  As such, not only does our project have a broader public impact by itself, but this project could provide (in effect) a way for all those other NSF researchers to actually achieve the public accessibility part of their proposal, without too much effort!  If we can say that without sounding too pompous, I think it will make our proposal a strong one.  Martin A. Walker 07:20, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

== Some friendly competition! ==

Be sure to read [http://www.chemspider.com/blog/a-series-of-interesting-links.html this blog post] - I think this shows how that site might move in the same direction as this proposal.  I think, though, that this site and Wikichem can complement each other, and each could make the other stronger.  What do others think? Martin A. Walker 07:24, 6 August 2009 (UTC)