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WE ARE SMARTER SCIENCE ENABLERS
The work life of a researcher can be draining but does scientific research need to stay that way? Onikle thinks different, we are here for Smarter Science.
Research. Research. Research. The work of a researcher has no end. If you were Einstein or Tesla, you would probably go to the library and for those who are lucky enough to be born in this era, they probably just search on the internet. But does scientific research need to remain so tedious?
How is scientific research done? Mainly, there is Google Scholar or Semantic Scholar, you might separately use the search engines depending on what kind of papers you want. Google Scholar for Inspirations. arXiv for Preprints. Paper with code for implementation. In reality, Google Scholar has too many papers to find a specific paper. You might be mostly into preprints? arXiv’s UI/UX might be too complex to find your way through. And Paper with code does not cover enough papers. The bottom line is you just want to just find and read papers but it takes too much time.
According to our research, a researcher wastes up to 900 hours per year just looking through papers they don’t need. How big is this number? It’s equal to the amount of time a researcher could spend on technical work annually. Onikle wants to remove this burden through the power of preprints. At present, preprint is strongly associated with computer science. This can be attributed to the fact that preprint is open and enhances cooperation. Onikle believes this is what science should look like. In spite of that, preprint has not gained mass adoption in other fields of science. Even within areas such as biology and medical where there is relatively higher usage of preprint, it is mostly concerned with topics related to machine learning/ AI.
Onikle does not expect that there will be a substantial growth for preprint in the “conventional” science fields where published and peer-reviewed research are most valued. But no one can argue against the role machine learning and AI will be playing in all fields of research; we can expect a steep rise in supply for preprints. We believe that within 10 years, if not earlier, computer science will have a significant presence in all areas of science.
Science needs a new solution for research, evaluation, and method for sharing.
I must not be the only one that gets blocked while researching and sees a pop-up message demanding “$29.99 for the full text.” The other issue with research is the price of academic journals. The soaring subscription fees of academic journals have forced universities to terminate their contracts therefore creating more strain for researchers. The prices of academic journals have continued to rise for decades, more than six times higher than they were 30 years ago. This has led to a small number of suppliers monopolizing valuable knowledge.
It is clear that the issue is not all about the time lost in researching; it is also about money. Specifically, the money that is used for scientific research, which mostly comes in the form of grants that are provided from the government. With government grants there are usually criterion that require researchers to yield results within 3 to 5 years. Usually, the grants do not cover the income of the researcher, therefore they have no choice but to be part of a university and allocate their resources to teaching and other duties associated with being a professor. This situation results in more loss of valuable time.
It goes without saying that research currently takes a lot of time to generate innovative science. Scientists do not research for the sake of their interest but to have a job or to keep funding agencies happy. When scientists fail to gain funding from the government or university sources, they are forced to appeal to businesses or interest groups. This compels scientists to reluctantly produce studies to help the agenda of businesses rather than for the common good.
Science needs a new solution for research, evaluation, and method for sharing. Onikle wants to provide that. Researchers have believed for a long time that: Top Journal = Top Articles, but this is not what science should be about. Journals created the “slow” nature of academia we have today but preprint will bring the speed necessary for our evolving society. Onikle aims to provide a platform with the openness that is currently lacking in science. Scientific knowledge was achieved by openness and discussion, if there is no openness then science will not evolve. We believe we can change that with you.
Sunao Tateno
Onikle Inc | www.onikle.io