Open Science and the YSR Project

Open Science and the Youth Suicide Rise Project

Note: this is part of the Youth Suicide Rise project.

The current YSR project may be viewed as an open science experiment.

It is also an attempt to practice what I would call living science; this in a sense similar to the Wikipedia being a living encyclopedia.

There are several reasons why this may have a beneficial effect:

Academicians and practitioners who see that completed parts of the project are already 'published' online and potentially useful (e.g. a summary and analysis of youth suicide data) may be more willing to offer advice and criticism, especially if they see such input quickly utilized toward improvements.

Furthermore, since a critical review inevitably involves criticism of past studies, the willingness of the critic to address any objections, ideally by modifying or expanding the criticism in a fair and appropriate and timely manner, may also increase the chances that getting a response from key figures in the field. 

In short, the gradual and responsive nature of an 'open' science project could prove to be an advantage.

Of course it may be that this particular project will fail to elicit much interest and response, but then such an outcome would have likely been the same with the standard approach -- especially when the author is an unknown and 'independent' researcher. 

Finally, a living project is much easier to update when new information becomes available -- if youth suicide rates start a rapid decline, many of the conventionally published studies could become partly antiquated, but an online project could adapt swiftly.

Note 1:

The modular nature of many areas of science raises the question as to why collaborative methods in programming have not been utilized in science to a far greater degree than they are currently.

Note 2 (Wikipedia):

Imagine that a teacher could tell her middle school students to use Wikipedia in an 'academic' mode in which displayed articles offer a page validated by experts assigned by organizations such as the National Academy of Science or the National Academy of Medicine. 

The default use of Wikipedia would remain the same, but if a user selected 'academic' mode, then a 'validated' version of an article would be shown, if available, instead of the latest -- when not yet validated -- version of the page.

Each field of knowledge would have numerous content experts and a given article could be 'validated' -- possibly after editing, which the expert would do as an ordinary user -- by any of the experts assigned to the topic.

This would require a partly top-down and hierarchical approach, and yet be compatible -- and coexist without interference -- with the opposite approach common to Wikipedia.  The necessary organization and funding, of course, would be considerable, but in my view worth it, at least in areas important to the education of children and, arguably, also in those affecting public health issues and similarly important topics.