News blog
New Mozilla Science Lab
Science still lives in a dark analogue world - Mozilla shows a way out.Biohackers and the Politics of Open Science
Michael Bauwens presents the book of the day: Biohackers and the Politics of Open Science, a book about Open Source in Genomics, not only the diybio movement but more in general how open science culture and practices interact with today’s innovation and market system. (Read here)Yay to open data!
Thomas Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), on open data:We are seeing a similar culture change in neuroimaging. The Human Connectome Project is scanning 1,200 healthy volunteers with state of the art technology to define variation in the brain’s wiring. The imaging data, cognitive data, and de-identified demographic data on each volunteer are available, along with a workbench of web-based analytical tools, so that qualified researchers can obtain access and interrogate one of the largest imaging data sets anywhere.Read more here.
You can overdo data-sharing
EU comissioner, Vivian Reding thinks US authorities should not have automatic access to EU citizens' data (read more here).The library-end of a data-sharing culture
Minglu Wang in a paper about new data services - an inside to the library-end of data sharing: From the Abstract:This paper describes the process of how we gained a better understanding of the variety of library users’ data needs, and how we gradually established some new data services based on our current capabilities.
Working paper on changing scientific policy advice
Gert G. Wagner and Heinrich Tiemann in a working paper on the new organization of scientific policy - some interesting ideas about data sharing. (In German only)OKFN: G8 Open Data charter highlights Open Data as a crucial for governance and growth
Today’s release of an Open Data Charter by the G8 is testimony to the growing importance of open data worldwide. The Charter recognizes the central role open data can play in improving government and governance and in stimulating growth through innovation in data-driven products and services.
Read more on that issue here.
New practices in scientific peer review
As a consequence and to respond to the scientists’ needs, some journals also involves themselves by providing new peer review models.
The bottom line is that journals cost money
Open access is a utopian pipe dream, says Richard Hoyle.TimesHigherEducation.
Open Access Subset
The PMC (PubMed Central) Open Access Subset is a relatively small part of the total collection of articles in PMC. Articles in the PMC Open Access Subset are still protected by copyright, but are made available under a Creative Commons or similar license that generally allows more liberal redistribution and reuse than a traditional copyrighted work. Please refer to the license statement in each article for specific terms of use. The license terms are not identical for all articles in this subset
Citizen Science as a Novel Scientific Instrument
In the way that smart phones have permeated our culture, citizen science seems equally ubiquitous, appearing at science conferences, museums, conservation organizations, government agencies, journal articles, web sites and yes, in blogs. Citizen science covers a diverse collection of activities in which groups undertake investigations alongside or under the supervision of scientists.PLOS
Mozilla Launches ScienceLab To Help Researchers Use The Open Web To Shape Science’s Future
“Scientists created the web — but the open web still hasn’t transformed scientific practice to the same extent we’ve seen in other areas like media, education and business,” Mozilla’s Mark Surman argues.Techcrunch.
Peter Suber’s „Open Access“ book is now open access
Today MIT Press released four OA editions: The paperback edition is still available as well.From Nature’s Technology Feature: The big challenges of big data
Biological data are much more heterogeneous than those in physics. They stem from a wide range of experiments that spit out many types of information, such as genetic sequences, interactions of proteins or findings in medical records.
Data-sharing among scientists
Some innteresting insights about data-sharing in Sarah C. William's study.The Open Science Project: Poster
Dan Gezelter's poster about openscience.org. Comments are welcome.G8 science ministers endorse open access
Science ministers from the G8 group of the world’s richest countries have jointly endorsed the need to increase access to publicly-funded research.
New Open Knowledge Foundation Panton Fellowships
If you also believe that open data means better science, if you are a young scientists and willing tackle those barriers which currently prevent science data from being made open, you should definately check out the OKFN Panton Fellowship.Summer of Student Innovation
JISC is offering £5,000 to student teams to develop technology to improve student research. One of the ideas seems particularly interesting in terms of research visualization: WikiNets is an online tool for piecing together contribution of many researchers into a graphical form that is easy to read and remember. The tool does this by allowing collaborative creation of annotated networks that represent all relevant variables in a domain of research and their relationships. From the presentation webpage: "Imagine a streamlined Wikipedia, built to focus on the links."What papers that are open access can cause
Jack Andraka, the recipient of the 2012 Gordon E. Moore Award, in an interview.New York: It’s time to take action for open access
The New York State Senate and Assembly are considering the Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act (S4050 / A180). This bill—which would give the public access to the results of tens from millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded research—is a crucial step in the fight for open access.
Edinburgh: Publishing Conference 2 – Live stream
See also this summary.The publishing industry is now changing faster than ever before due to internet services, digital publishing, free blogging platforms and open access journals. How will this continue to evolve in the future? Will the erosion of traditional publishing methods continue and how will publishing companies adapt? What are the growing entrepreneurial opportunities in this dynamic industry? Join us for a day of publishing talks, discussion and networking.
The Open Knowledge Foundation launches new fellowships on open data and open science
The Panton Fellowships are grounded on the idea:"open data means better science".Cameron Neylon is member of the Fellowship's advisory board. He says:
‘Panton Fellowships will allow those who are still deeply involved in research to think closely about the policy and technical issues surrounding open data.’Read here how to apply. The website gives also information about the previous Panton Fellows.
Negative results in medical research and clinical trials – an interview with Ben Goldacre
Negative results very commonly go unpublished, and this happens at every possible level. It’s a fascinating research issue, from the field of “research about research”. Various studies have shown that basic science research often doesn’t get published if it produces negative results.F1000Research.