Dr. Robert Hoffmann, Society in Science fellow, has developed what is claimed to be the first Wiki which ensures due credit for the author and also lets users ascertain the source of data. The scientific Wiki project, introduced in the September issue of Nature Genetics and released online, is projected as a milestone in the Mememoir project. Dr. Hoffmann, who is also a visiting scientist at MIT, worked in conjunction with Society in Science, the ETH Zurich-administered fund that seeks to explore new avenues in the relationship between science and society.
Based on an authorship tracking technology, Dr. Hoffmann's new version of the Wiki links every word to its corresponding author. This way, readers can always know their sources and authors receive due credit. Users can rate each other based on their contributions, thereby enhancing collaborative publishing with the advantages of a reputation system. According to Dr. Hoffmann, a self-regulating reputation system can help to settle editing conflicts, which were an important problem in first generation Wikis and which used to depend on slow and refutable top-down decisions.
In first generation Wikis, information can theoretically be found in the archives, but in practice, it is impossible for a reader to reconstruct the authorship of specific texts from hundreds of previous versions. This has been the root cause of a lasting suspicion against Wikis in academia and the business world. This apart, authorship is often pivotal to a successful academic and professional career. Clear authorship attribution in the next generation Wiki is therefore seen as a significant improvement.
