Get crowdsourced feedback for your Open Science Prize application

Applications for the Open Science Prize are due February 29, 2016.

I'm offering free feedback to anyone submitting a proposal. If you'd like to take me up on this, there's just one small catch: to participate you'll need to openly share your proposal on Thinklab.

Thinklab is a site I built that facilitates open review of research proposals. I'm offering to review your proposal, but in addition to me you can invite anyone you want! Together, we'll be engaging in a real-time collaborative discussion aimed at helping you improve your proposal. Reviewers are rewarded with public recognition based on peer assessment of their feedback. And if you like, there's also the possibility of creating a $1000 reviewer rewards pool as an added incentive for reviewer participation. (Paying reviewers is a bit controversial — but I believe any extra incentive for open science is a good thing!)

Thinklab is starting with proposals, but the goal is really to open up the entire research process and bring about a "massively collaborative" open online model of science.

Benefits

• Improve your Open Science Prize proposal
  We often forget that not everybody has the same knowledge and background information that we have. It's really critical to get an outside perspective to make sure the value of your proposed project is being communicated effectively.

• Increase your visibility and find new potential collaborators
  Put yourself out there! By sharing what you're doing you open the door to new potential collaborations.

• Create a citable document and increase your impact
  Sharing your proposal is a way to create value for the scientific community, even if your proposal isn't funded. A lot of work goes into these things! Thinklab proposals have a DOI — you're creating a document that others can learn from and cite.

• Support open collaborative science!
  Thinklab is pushing the boundaries of open collaborative science on the internet. If you're applying to the Open Science Prize, you probably share much of our mission.

How it works

I encourage you to check out how Thinklab works and also check out my screencast demonstrating the review system. I've used this myself and am confident you'll find this an awesome user experience that really makes a difference in improving your proposal.