About Us
Open Source Science & Education
What it is
Open Science and Education is the next logical step forward from the Open Source Computing movement, so let's cover our predecessor first. Open Source was built on the idea that anyone should be allowed to download, edit, and distribute computer code, and that doing so would encourage groups of like-minded coders to work together on producing great software. Just one example of the many great contributions from that movement is Linux, which runs the majority of servers delivering the Internet to you every day. Another great one is the Drupal content management system, which is what this website is built on.
Since these two examples are a very tiny representaion of the very broad contributions made by the Open Source movement, the idea has now come around that not only should code be free, basic information should be free also. In scientific research, for example, very simple procedures are buried under a mountain of literature, in which one paper cites another paper that you may not have access to. This doesn't even begin to touch the topic of how hard these papers are to read, which is a major source of struggle for new graudate students. In teaching, many teachers simply do not know about a wide variety of opportunities as they might be buried in records, not publicized, or hard to find by a Google search. Also, if one teacher has great lesson plans, would it really make sense for 10,000 other teachers to have to re-invent those lessons from scratch as opposed to taking something good and improving on it? We argue that an open source model would benefit both of these communities; both teaching science and doing it.
How we do it
Our plan for Open Science and Education is to empower teachers and researchers to share content through our "resource system," which uses an open-contributing system similar to Wikipedia, while permitting some access control on the part of content creators. This permits individuals or groups to create content, and for them to maintain and improve that content collaboratively. If someone completely new comes along and wants to contribute, they also can, but the resource creators can reserve the right to reject content if it isn't up to their standards. This is our way of preventing the "edit wars" seen on Wikipedia.
This might lead you to ask "how do you make sure that content is actually good?" We do it through our rating system, which is not too far different from how Rotten Tomatoes rates movies. Resources developed on this site are rated by both the entire user community, and by "reviewers" who have their own separate rating. People who contribute good content to LaboratoryMike.com for a while can earn a chance to become a reviewer, which they may choose to apply for once they've contributed enough material.
Bringing teachers and researchers together
We've mentioned both teachers and researchers earlier, so why bring these two groups together? The idea came from an RET experience by this site's founder: Many teachers do not have access to cutting edge scientific information or experiences, so if teachers and researchers could be brought together, the impact on students would be phenomenal! And that's what we're all about; letting teachers and researchers contribute to each other's projects, so that teachers get access to high-quality sicentific information to use in their classes, and so that researchers can make a much broader impact with their research.
ESTEEM is an acronym for the major subjects we cover: Entrepreneurship, Science, Technology, Economics, Engineering, and Mathematics. We focus on these as this site is ultimately geared towards increasing people's economic productivity, which in our view requires students to learn productive skills (Science, Technology (skilled trades), Engineering, Mathematics), and the context with which to turn those skills into contributions to society (Economics, Entrepreneurship). Our view is that teaching students the keys to business and financial freedom -- and combining it with a good technical education -- will empower future generations to achieve financial freedom, make the maximum possible contributions back to their society, and pave the way for a more equitable and sustainable world.