Tag Archives: open data

Open Data without Open Access?

Velichka Dimitrova, Project Coordinator of Open Economics at the Open Knowledge Foundation, sums up the open access workshops at Minho University, Portugal:
While open access policies and structures might be getting more popular in some countries or science fields, there is still limited understanding of how to make data from research available on a wider scale. It is however clear that the experiences of the open access movement are key lessons for our understanding of how to make research data openly available.

And This is Why We Should Always Provide Our Data. . .

For a long time now, I’ve been beating the drum of “provide your data.” If you’re willing to take take a whole mess of measurements and do a whole bunch of analyses for a published paper, why not share the raw data? New techniques and research questions continually arise, so it can be invaluable for other workers to be able to draw upon previously published databases. Although the situation is improving, it’s still far from perfect. Even today, I’m somewhat embarrassed to point out that some articles in PLOS ONE (a journal whose mission I support as advocate and volunteer academic editor) don’t provide relevant supporting data (recent examples here and here). But rather than dwell on the negatives, I want to point out a recent case study (also in PLOS ONE!) where data reuse benefited authors, journals, and science as a whole.
PLOS Blogs (Andrew Farke).

Open Science – Investigating parameters for participation

Do you want to practice open science?
At the moment I am working on a research design that helps me investigating parameters for participation in open science. The design is, to be honest, not cut in stone yet and my methodological ideas change every now and then. Nonetheless, I documented my overall ideas for a research design in an open 1.5 pages document, accessible via Google Docs (this link). If you have a few minutes free on your hand and interest in the topic, I invite you to scim through the document and leave comments if you have any good thoughts, ideas, criticism and suggestions.

Current Controlled Trials and DOIs

Current Controlled Trials and DOIs

A blog entry on the DOI’s potential and Threaded Publications. BioMed Central Bolg.

DOIs are strongly associated with enabling digital scholarly content to be formally cited in journal article reference lists, and therefore for academics to gain credit for the work assigned a DOI. Not all scientists need understand DOIs, but all scientists understand citation. The growing practice of assigning DOIs to scientific datasets and other non-paper-based scholarly outputs is partly driven by the need to incentivize more scientists, through the potential for more citations, to publish their work.

Estimates from the Global Burden of Disease can become a global public good only if the data are made public

Estimates from the Global Burden of Disease can become a global public good only if the data are made public

As most of the global health community may be aware, today the long-awaited findings of the Global Burden of Disease 2010 (GBD2010) project were launched, to much fanfare and excitement, at a public event at the Royal Society, London. The launch coincides with the publication in the Lancet of seven original research articles describing the findings, along with additional commentary. Needless to say, the articles have been generously made free-access by the Lancet (but which is not the same as true open-access, under generally accepted definitions).

PLOS Blogs. 

Open Data Institute opens this week, today Open House

Open Data Institute opens this week, today Open House

The Open Data Institute, London, UK, opens this week. Today is ‘open house’ from 4pm - 6pm. To visit: Email required.

Address: 65 Clifton St, Shoreditch, London Borough of Hackney, EC2A, UK. 

The organisation has some pretty weighty founders, father of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, created it to be independent, non-profit and non-partisan. So far the ODI has nailed down £10 million ($16m+ USD) over five years from the UK government via the Technology Strategy Board, which invests in tech research and development, and a further $750,000 from Omidyar Network, the philanthropic investment firm. The organisation is also working toward long-term sustainability through match funding and direct revenue.

Read more here and here.

Open Data Bay Area

Open Data Bay Area

Open Data Bay Area calls itself “a group of thinkers, planners and doers meeting once a month to hear talks, get updated, spread news and meet other open data enthusiasts”.

Next meeting is on open web data, Speakers will be: Kurt Bollacker, a computer scientist currently pursuing research on long term digital archiving as the Digital Research Director at the Long Now Foundation, and Scott Robertson, founder of tri.vio. The meeting will be held November 27th, 2012 in San Francisco, 6-8pm. Location given only to members (login possible on website):

Though the talks will be especially interesting to engineers and data scientists, non-technical people will also enjoy them. Everyone is encourage to attend regardless of degree of technical skills.

Why all pharmaceutical research should be made open access

Why all pharmaceutical research should be made open access

The government wants to make all publicly funded research available – but the same must be demanded of pharmas also.

Cory Doctorow’s column series Digital Rights, Digital Wrongs for The Guardian.

Read also this blog entry on open access to all data from clinical trials by Tom Jefferson, member of the Open Knowledge Foundation.

This article on how open data can save money refers to Tom Jefferson’s blog entry advising that

pharmaceutical companies must release all the results of their clinical trials as open data, so that independent researchers can check what has been found.