E-ciencia: aplicación de la web social a la investigación y a la edición científica

In this paper, the social web as a work context for scientific research and the methodological features accrued to researchers by those work contexts are analyzed. Asociated concepts to e-Science, Science 2.0 and Shared Science and their characteristics are proposed. Virtual Research Environments (VREs) are defined and analyzed taking into account their historical development since the first primitive environments based on messaging service and gopher, up to the current ones that use social web tools and services, focusing on the features accrued to VREs by the social web as regards the shared nature of science and research. Special emphasis on support to digital scientific edition is made -mainly on peer review- and a proposal for revision through social networks is made. On this point, some of the most frequent objections -mainly on experimental areas- are mentioned. The coincidence of methods and objectives between these environments and those of the revisions in Social Sciences in which Formative Research has more relevance are also analyzed. Furthermore, in this sense the meaning, importance and possibility of having live information from a research beyond what is published and that is on the cloud stand out. Finally, the paper concludes with the need for suppport from agencies and research institutions to open edition as well as toVREs infrastructure and digital edition in environments with standards for communication in the social network as regards funding and projects