Doing Science in the Open: Interview with Michael Nielsen

Michael Nielsen — a scientist, writer, and programmer — discusses the general topic of open data in science and how it can help bridge the gap between society and academia. He opens by describing the progress made by Zooniverse, an online crowdsourcing project developed at Oxford and now widely considered as the flagship citizen science platform. Nielsen then explains his work on collaboration structures in research information networks and relates the significant difference between preplanned and open collaborations. He ends by discussing the idea of ‘designed serendipity’ and how open source online tools can realise this concept by connecting the right person at the right time to solve a particular problem.