Wednesday, July 22, 2015

OATP primary

OATP primary

2015 awards recipients of The Geological Society of America

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 09:29 AM PDT

Among this year's gold medalists was Brandon Schmandt. From the citation: "Brandon Schmandt, University of New Mexico, earned the Young Scientist Award (Donath Medal) and cash prize of US$10,000 for outstanding achievement. Schmandt integrates seismology and geology to understand mantle dynamics and continental evolution. Nominator Karl Karlstrom cites "demonstrated technical innovations, keen intellectual curiosity, drive and energy to produce at the highest levels, dedication to the new ethic of open access of data, and a gift for cross disciplinary collaboration and public outreach, all with a sense of humility," as the qualities that embody this outstanding young scientist."

Webinar: Open Access, which direction?

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 01:27 AM PDT

"Fast and furious: That describes the change underway in scholarly publishing. Keeping up with the pace – and preparing for what lies around the corner – are critical. On Tuesday, July 28, at 11:00 EDT / 15:00 GMT, Copyright Clearance Center invites you to join industry analysts Mark Ware in London and Deni Auclair in Boston for a complimentary webinar covering the latest in Open Access news and market trends. Open Access isn't new, but it is riding the next wave. As Ware documented for RCUK in May, the momentum for openness is strong, yet challenges remain. In her April Outsell report, Auclair noted that the direction toward OA may be clear, while the path ahead is far from straight. Information is precious in this dynamic publishing environment. Learn the facts from the experts."

Speeding up scholarly communication for rapid sharing | Times Higher Education

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 01:20 AM PDT

"William Mobley, a neuroscientist from the University of California, San Diego, is urging academic publishers to start offering authors the option to publish short units of communication, which he calls 'single figure publications' (SFPs) in an editorial published in F1000Research. The idea behind SFPs is to speed up scholarly communication, and make it more efficient by encouraging researchers to submit shorter publications with a particular focus on data, instead of waiting to publish them as part of larger research papers. The editorial calls for an 'optimal format' of scholarly communication to ensure the findings presented are valid with full declaration of all materials and methods, rapidly shared with minimal delays, machine-readable and free of bias. These micro-publications would, the editorial proposes, consist of a figure, a legend, material and methods, and an optional results section ... Publishing nimble units of data, known as nano-publications, has become common in recent years; there are now whole repositories and journals, such as Scientific Data, dedicated to publishing data. But, according to the editorial, SFPs aim to build an 'important bridge' between traditional journal papers and data nano-publications.  SFPs could be used to publish confirmatory data, negative results, data refuting published results and analysis of manufacturer-made reagents or materials, explains Professor Mobley. 'People need to know when something doesn't work the way others have proposed that it works.' This would also help to measure reproducibility of papers, he adds ..."

Collaboration at International, National and Institutional Level – Vital in Fostering Open Science

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 01:18 AM PDT

Use the link to access the presentation.  

Aaron Swartz rolls in his grave - Acclaimed News

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 01:14 AM PDT

"Online piracy is an ever-increasing problem for the power-crazed music and film corporations who have been lobbying for years for changes to be made to the way the law deals with copyright offences. The British government has now revealed that is looking to increase the amount of jail time for people convicted of online copyright infringement. The current penalty carries a maximum of two years imprisonment but ministers are considering increasing it to 10 years. Creative industry representative groups have called for stronger deterrents and updates to the laws covering online piracy, arguing that a short jail sentence is not enough to prevent the problem. Although the police have stated that small-time downloaders have little to fear from the proposed measures, there are methods available to crack down on them. The consultation primarily targets those who are distributing pirated content online to enable the mass downloading of movies and music, sometimes even before their release date ..."

Hacking the Tractor: what the future of farming means for open science | Southern Fried Science

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 01:12 AM PDT

" ... Here's the short version: Tractors are complicated and increasingly controlled by onboard computers. These computers use proprietary software, and that software is protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The software itself is encrypted to prevent copying or modding. Those encryption are also protected by the DMCA. Breaking that encryption is illegal, regardless of the state of the software. If you have to decrypt the software to remove it, you're breaking the law ... The ABI 3730xl DNA Analyzer is an awesome piece of equipment. Sure, these old school sequencers are being phased out in favor of "Next Gen" machines which can churn out terabytes of data, but, more than 10 years after their introduction, these beasts are still plugging away, producing data by the well-full. As labs replace these and other Sanger-sequencing machines with newer, fancier equipment, the secondary market for older sequencers is booming. They're cheap, reliable, and there's a wealth of literature and methodologies already validated on the platform. The 3730 could be a workhorse for establishing molecular facilities in places where they were previously untenable. They could fuel a boom in conservation genetics in the developing world and other regions where capital equipment has been historically difficult to obtain.  Can you guess what the problem is? I've visited numerous labs around the world that are operating second-hand sequencers. The machines themselves are robust, reliable, and reasonably affordable. The software is not. Crouched next to their prized sequencer is, in all cases, a dusty, withering computer, running the original software installation ..."

Data is the new oil | Business Spectator

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 01:07 AM PDT

"Data may be the new oil but for many businesses the challenge is not tapping it, but refining it. According to research firm Telsyte, more than 70 per cent of large Australian firms will become data dependent by 2019 and firms who fail to capitalise on the vast amount of social media, web analytics and connected device data risk missing out on customer insights and critical market intelligence, putting them at a competitive disadvantage. Just how astute a business is in using data depends on whether it has a workforce equipped with, and skilled enough to use, the tools required to understand, manage and manipulate the reams of information pouring into the organisation. With such a short lead time to prepare for the big data age, firms need to move quickly to get their workforce into shape ..."

How FIFA Can Kick Corruption With Open Data

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 01:05 AM PDT

" ... FIFA, football's world governing body, has been engulfed by claims of widespread corruption since the early hours of May 27, when Swiss police raided a luxury hotel in Zurich and arrested seven of its top executives. The seven were held at the behest of the U.S. Department of Justice, which has indicted a total of 14 current and former FIFA officials and associates on charges of "rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted" corruption following a major inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation ... FIFA plans to spend around £140m next year on development projects to support its member organizations' activities, ranging from technical development to education, medicine and science. Open data about awarded contracts and performance would significantly increase accountability in the delivery of this investment.  And alongside comprehensive spending data, releasing data related to governance would drastically reduce FIFA's opaqueness. For example, individual salaries of senior FIFA officials remain unknown despite strong calls for their disclosure, in particular from an independent governance committee set up in 2011 in the wake of more corruption allegations. The release of salary data for executive committee members would represent a significant step towards transparency.  Open data can act as the catalyst for this reform. Adopting clear open data policies could signify a new dawn for FIFA under a new president. It could be the way to restore trust in it as the global face of football."

Data+Drinks : a meetup to engage the open data community in the South of Nigeria | School of Data - Evidence is Power

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 01:03 AM PDT

"As the the fight for transparency and accountability in government keeps going with the help of open data, Nigerians are doing their share and innovating in that area. New initiatives around open data, open government, open education, open access… are appearing in Nigeria. But people are still used to the traditional ways of getting the  government to listen to the citizens : unions, town hall meetings, protests, etc. How do we connect with citizens, civil society organisations (CSOs), journalists, NGOs and entrepreneurs and get them to take advantage of the available data? Monitoring the way the government works, driving advocacy, improving their activities and in turn the economy are all potential benefits of making use of the data, but the message still need to be spread. Thankfully, as a 2015 School of Data fellow, I can tap into the great School of Data community of people working on improving data literacy ..."

LPC | Library Publishing Forum 2016

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 01:01 AM PDT

"The Library Publishing Coalition is pleased to announce that the third annual Library Publishing Forum will take place May 17 - 19, 2016 at the University of North Texas Libraries in Denton. Further details are forthcoming and a call for proposals will be issued in early November 2015. The conference is being held in conjunction with the 2016 UNT Open Access Symposium (May 20 - 21, 2016) ..."

Dgroups - Login

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 01:00 AM PDT

"This online event is a joint effort by the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to provide a forum for institutions and individuals to learn more about the Lyon Declaration, and to exchange ideas about how information centers and libraries can promote the adoption of access to information as part of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. The event will offer webcasts by experts to provide important background information for participants and to help stimulate dialogue and discussion around three main questions: 1.- What are the ways that access to information (and more narrowly open access) contributes to sustainable development? Please elaborate in case studies and examples if possible. 2.- How can libraries and information centres promote the adoption of access to information as part of the 'post-2015 agenda, in particular SDGs'? Have you considered contacting your relevant Ministries to ensure that access to information, open access, and information providers (such as libraries and information centres) are reflected in the National Development plans? 3.- What can we do collectively - for example, through COAR, FAO and IFLA- to raise awareness of open access and access to information in the context of SDG discussion? Please join and participate to this e-forum!

The Parachute: Levelling the Open Access – Paywall Playing Field for Authors

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 12:57 AM PDT

" ... And yet, there are moments when I understand researchers when they are having to decide where to submit their papers. Do they choose an older subscription-supported journal, or a younger APC-supported open access journal? In the latter case, they'll have to find the funds to pay the Article Processing Charge; in the former, they don't, since subscriptions are paid out of the library budget.  It does make a difference to a researcher's perception. Even though in many cases it is the funder who provides the money for the APCs, the researchers are aware of the cost and part of the decisions they take are financial/economic ones, even if sometimes subconsciously. They are not confronted with financial/economic decisions if they submit to a paywalled journal. Convenience may set in, perhaps in the form of a certain laziness, and a decision to stick with the old hassle-free subscription journals is easily taken. It may happen here and there, but what I have not seen is attempts by the library community to confront researchers with the cost of paywalled journals. I'm not talking about the subscription price, but about the cost to the system of a single paper published in such a journal. It is a significant cost. For subscription journals published by the major publishers, this is on average in excess of $5000 (there are differences depending on the publisher), and for the 'glam' journals presumably more, much more (Phil Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature, estimated costs of $30,000–40,000 per paper in 2013. That's costs to the publisher; costs to the system will be higher, as they include profits.) Now imagine that universities, perhaps via their libraries, take care of any payment to publishers, be they subscription charges or APCs, and then reclaim a per-article fee from their grants whenever researchers publish their articles ..."

Design principles for crowdsourcing cultural heritage

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 12:55 AM PDT

"This report presents selected findings from the study An Information Systems Design Theory for Crowdsourcing Cultural Heritage. The aim of the study is to establish the principles of design that influence participation and contribution quality on websites for crowdsourcing cultural heritage, and build and evaluate an Information Systems Design Theory that encompasses these principles to support website design and evaluation. To achieve this, the study answers the following research questions: 1) What are the principles of design that influence participation and contribution quality on websites for crowdsourcing cultural heritage? 2) How can an Information Systems Design Theory support the design and evaluation of websites for crowdsourcing cultural heritage? The design principles were developed using the following research methods ..."

Introducing ContentMine | Open Knowledge Blog

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 12:52 AM PDT

"If you are interested in Open Access and Open Data and haven't hear about ContentMine yet then you are missing out! Graham Steel, ContentMine Community Manager, has written a post for us introducing this exciting new tool ..."
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