Open Notebook Learning

Science has traditionally been done by scientists in their labs, trying to prove or disprove some hypothosis.  Their experiments work or they do not work.  They learn something important or the do not.  We learned, when the result were significant and they were reported.  What if Science opened up so that we could see and learn from successes and failures — good falures.  (Image (( Tourtellotte, James. “CBP chemist reads a DNA profile.jpg.” Wikimedia Commons. 7 Oct 2007. Wikimedia Foundation, Web. 20 Sep 2009. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CBP_chemist_reads_a_DNA_profile.jpg>. )))

Preparing the keynote for tomorrow’s launch of rural Scotland County’s (North Carolina) “one to one” initiative, I discovered an idea being promoted by Jean-Claude Bradley.  The Drexel University Chemistry Professor, after some discussion with other scientists on the Blue Obelisk mailing list, suggested in a blog post the concept of Open Notebook Science (ONL).  The Wikipedia entry for ONL begins

Open Notebook Science is the practice of making the entire primary record of a research project publicly available online as it is recorded. This involves placing the personal, or laboratory, notebook of the researcher online along with all raw and processed data, and any associated material, as this material is generated. The approach may be summed up by the slogan ‘no insider information’. It is the logical extreme of transparent approaches to research and explicitly includes the making available of failed, less significant, and otherwise unpublished experiments; so called ‘Dark Data’. ((Goetz, T. Freeing the Dark Data of Failed Scientific Experiments Wired Magazine, Sept.25, 2007.))

I would suspect that it was fairly radical idea, though it would probably have seemed down right blasphemous in an earlier time, when we were not so accustomed to ubiquitous conferencing.  The first thing I thought of, as I read through the Wikipedia article was the teachers who have told me that the best thing about having students do their collaborative work on a wiki is that they (teacher) can go back and review not only the students work, but the processing of their work, identifying who contributed what, and what they might have included at one point in the process and then dis-included later up, upon further research or consideration.

Appropriately, the article lists a number of scientists open notebooks, both experimental and theoretical. Advocates maintain that the practice of opening up the scientific process, without “unreasonable” delay or filtering,

• Improve(s) the communication of science,
• Increase(s) the rate at which research can progress, and
• Reduce(s) time lost due to the repetition of failed experiments. ((“Open Notebook Science.” Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia, 20 Sep. 2009.))

It seems an idea especially well suited to education, especially as we are coming to understanding the importance of process in the learning experience along with achievement.  I mean, after all, what are scientists, but students whose teacher is that aspect of the world they are probing.

This also seems an especially fitting topic considering the emerging learning environment in Scotland County and the growing number of schools and school districts who are embrasing tools that give all their student-learners and teacher-learners ubiqutous access to networked, digital, and abundant information — and the capacity to work that information and express discoveries and outcomes compellingly to authentic audiences.

I am certainly not suggesting a new buzz word or learning philosophy.  But the idea of opening up the work of learning learning seems worthy of some conversation.

What do you think?

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