We launched a private version of Banyan to a few of you here months ago. Since then, our team has been hard at work trying to make Banyan the future of open science. Todays launch is just the start.
We know we have alot of work to do. Over the next few months we plan to tackle science, reproducibility, and make existing tools more awesome through our API.
I want to be as transparent as possible. Im happy to answer any questions you might have.
Got something more descriptive you can link to?
The blog appears to be down, but as an individual very interested in open science could you explain a bit more about the use-case Banyan targets? I imagine this is very focused on things like analysis or computational biology where the primary iterative factor is measured in lines of code changed.
Do you see this tool being used by adjacent sciences? Life sciences, human subject research, materials?
Our first target was initially bioinformatics, but we are moving into supporting all sciences. Our goal is to make sharing, collaborating & publishing research as simple as possible.
We are huge fans of git, and we want to leverage git to enhance every part of science. For us, that means integrations or improvements with existing tools like latex, ipython, etc.
I believe that open science hasnt taken off because there is no platform for it, no tool makes it easy/simple for the user, and the user isnt incentivized [1].
[1] Programmers apply for jobs now with their github/bitbucket profiles & there open source contributions. Why not provide scientists the same option?
Have you ever heard of the AAVSO? American Association of Variable Star Observers? It strikes me that you need a critical mass in the field you target and a small group to roll out. Bioinformatics sounds a little large. AAVSO sounds just about the right size. Of course your more detailed research will unsurprisingly have a different conclusion than mine, etc.
"I believe that open science hasnt taken off because there is no platform for it"
Well, the AAVSO has been around a lot longer than the web. Even if they're not eventually users, their experiences over the last century or so would make an interesting case study for you, one way or another.
Thanks, there are more of us every day! Check out http://noogastartups.com I think Tennessee is the next great startup state.
Banyan looks great. I've been mentioning Github to my advisor, but I think this is much more suitable.