Abstract
The introduction of a new technology or innovation is often accompanied by “ups and downs” in its fortunes. Gartner Inc. defined a so-called hype cycle to describe a general pattern that many innovations experience: technology trigger, peak of inflated expectations, trough of disillusionment, slope of enlightenment, and plateau of productivity. This article will compare the ongoing introduction of Open Science (OS) with the hype cycle model and speculate on the relevance of that model to OS. Lest the title of this article mislead the reader, be assured that the author believes that OS should happen and that it will happen. However, I also believe that the path to OS will be longer than many of us had hoped. I will give a brief history of the today's “semi-open” science, define what I mean by OS, define the hype cycle and where OS is now on that cycle, and finally speculate what it will take to traverse the cycle and rise to its plateau of productivity (as described by Gartner).
Highlights
The introduction of a new technology or innovation is often accompanied by “ups and downs” in its fortunes
High performance networked computers are today’s equivalent of the printing press. They are a thousand times more powerful and a thousand times cheaper than computers were a generation ago: A multi-terabyte disk costs a hundred dollars, a thousand dollar computer can execute several billion instructions per second and the network that connects millions of such computers has a bandwidth approaching a terra-bit per second. Hardware with these capabilities is the innovation trigger that will enable Open Science, which is the “publication” of all relevant science results: data, software, workflows, etc., in addition to summary articles describing those science results, and accessibility of all these elements for the cost of an Internet connection
FAIR data could have helped the world in its fight against the coronavirus, and FAIR data proponents say this has created a spur to action and that we will be better prepared for the pandemic
Summary
The printing press was the innovation trigger that enabled semi-Open Science (OS). High performance networked computers are today’s equivalent of the printing press. They are a thousand times more powerful and a thousand times cheaper than computers were a generation ago: A multi-terabyte disk costs a hundred dollars, a thousand dollar computer can execute several billion instructions per second and the network that connects millions of such computers has a bandwidth approaching a terra-bit per second Hardware with these capabilities is the innovation trigger that will enable Open Science, which is the “publication” of all relevant science results: data, software, workflows, etc., in addition to summary articles describing those science results, and accessibility of all these elements (at least all those produced with public money) for the cost of an Internet connection. Another effort making progress in the interoperability of heterogeneous data is the Digital Object (DO) Architecture [4] It was designed several decades ago, but it, too, has only become practical with today’s high performance connected computers.
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