Archives

Improving Science Through Data Management

An interesting undergraduate research project on the importance of data management and sharing by Kathryn A. Kane.
This is just one small example of how valuable data can be lost to both current and future researchers when there is no data management plan in place. Scientific discovery and innovation move society into the future, and it is the responsibility of researchers to use their work to advance that purpose. By effectively managing and sharing their data with the public, researchers can facilitate collaboration with their peers, thus conserving time and resources. This also leads to increased transparency and improved scientific reputations. There are some challenges facing this proposal, but with a concerted effort data management and sharing can become an integral part of the scientific culture.

Hiding your research behind a paywall is immoral

A vivid piece from the guardian on open access and why a researcher should make sure that people can get to his or her results.
No, no, no. Dammit, we're scientists. Our job is to make knowledge. If we make it, then brick it up behind a wall, we're wasting our time and our funders' money – which ultimately means we're squandering the world's wealth.

Book review on »Biohackers«

Biohackers. The Politics of Open Science is a book published by Pluto Press and written by Alessandro Delfanti a scholar who studies the relationships between science and society. He tells us not only that the hacker culture has many things in common with the world of science, but also, in a more fascinating way, that the current transformations of life sciences are and will be even more characterized by a mash-up or remix (by adopting the author’s own words) between the traditional scientific culture, the hacker ethics and the open access culture.

Danny Kingsley on the state of Open Access: Where are we, what still needs to be done?

This is the seventh Q&A in a series exploring the current state of Open Access (OA). On this occasion the questions are answered by Danny Kingsley, Executive Officer of the Australian Open Access Support Group (AOASG), an organisation founded at the end of last year by six Australian universities in order to provide “a concerted and coordinated Australian voice in support of open access.”
Blog by Richard Poynder.

Open Science for Development Project

A collaboration of the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) and the OpenUCT Initiative at the University of Cape Town in an International Development Research Centre funded project to develop a southern led research agenda for open science for development.
We hope to use this as an opportunity not only to explore research into open science but also to really push community building efforts in the global south and identify a strong network of open science advocates and practitioners (...) You can read more in our project proposal.

GitHub’s Wild West Approach To Licensing Has Hidden Costs

The GitHub generation doesn't seem to like the bother of licenses, but is it prepared to stomach the costs? (...) As new research from Black Duck Software shows, today's developers aren't just moving away from the General Public License (GPL). They're moving away from open-source licensing altogether. Analyzing over one million projects on GitHub and other code repositories, Black Duck Software found that while 40% of open-source projects industry-wide carry no declared license, 77% of projects on GitHub have no declared license, open source or otherwise.
See also GitHub's open source license webpage.

Data Sharing Using Difference-on-write

From the abstract:
When a virtual machine writes to a page that is being shared across VMs, a share value is calculated to determine how different the page would be if the write command were implemented. If the share value is below a predefined threshold (meaning that the page would not be “too different”), then the page is not copied (as it would be in a standard copy-on-write operation). Instead, the difference between the contents of the pages is stored as a self-contained delta. The physical to machine memory map is updated to point to the delta, and the delta contains a pointer to the original page. When the VM needs to access the page that was stored as a delta, the delta and the page are then fetched from memory and the page is reconstructed.
 

Call for Papers: BerlinEarly Stage Researchers Colloquium on Internet and Society 2013

Extended deadline: Apply for the Early Stage Researchers Colloquium 2013. Take your chance, check out the Call for Papers and apply via colloquium.hiig.de
The Early Stage Researchers Colloquium provides a stage for new perspectives on current issues of Internet and society. The Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society in cooperation with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung wishes to gather together early stage researchers (Ph.D. candidates and post-docs) from all disciplines in order to push ahead with the discussion revolving around Internet research.

Evaluating the Open Access software toolchain

This is an article on how to build open access publishing websites, what needs to be done it says is the formation of an Open Access Toolset Alliance:
If we want tools that can plug in to any architecture, then we need to start working out where we have tied things too closely to our platforms, come up with standard interface formats and begin abstracting the functionality.
 

Open data for science education

Open data is the idea that scientific data should be freely available to all, without restrictions, in searchable online repositories. The open data movement is gaining momentum in the scientific community because of its promise to enable more frequent replication of studies and to accelerate the pace of research. But the advantages for science education are just as compelling.

PLOS Blogs.

Young Researchers in Digital Humanities: A Manifesto

The Humanities and Social Sciences are a vital component of human culture and offer an essential insight into the world in which we live. The Digital Humanities reflect the transition of the Humanities to the digital age. However, they do not only bring with them new technical means, but also new forms of knowledge creation and dissemination within, across and outside academic disciplines.