The Open Science Debate: Part 1.5 – open access roundup
/
In anticipation of Friday's colloquium, here is a roundup of some of my favorite sources of rumination about what Open Science could look like, and some of the most promising-looking tools and resources I've encountered that represent what Open Science looks like today. First, a great post by Richard Poynder on his blog Open and Shut, which touches on most of the issues I raised in my own post this weekend about the mess journal publishers (and particularly Elsevier) have gotten themselves into with their support for RWA. In the end, while he certainly doesn't let them off the hook, he makes the case that the research community is equally oblivious to a gaping chasm of unsustainability in the current scientific publishing system.
Open Science Philosophy:
- These pretty much sum it up, but if you want to read lots more words, following are some more verbose resources.
Is the Open Science Revolution for Real?
- Ok I already linked to this David Dobbs article in my last post, but it's still one of my favorite discussions of the many issues involved in evolving the scientific publishing model. He breaks it all down for you. Great introduction to the debate.
- A manifesto of sorts by Peter Murray-Rust, Cameron Neylon, Rufus Pollock and John Wilbanks, generated in the usual way: went down to the Panton Arms pub in Cambridge and sorted it out. (Also workshopped with the Open Knowledge Foundation's Working Group on Open Data in Science.)
Open Knowledge Foundation overview of Open Science
- A useful introduction to the core principles of open data, open access, and open research by the Open Science Working Group.
- An informative memo (formatted as a sort of white paper or Request for Comment) with copious details about legal, policy, and practical issues with making data available according to OA principles.
The Rise of Open Access @ Science 2.0
- Another great summary of the history and principles of open access at science writing blog Science 2.0 - has its own handy list of useful OA resources.
Some Leading OA Citizens whose blogs you may want to follow:
...
Open Science Tools & Resources:
- Open Everything!
Science Meets Social Networking
- Science-oriented social network and discussion forum, intended to support collaboration over the web. Sort of a scientific quora.com.
- A set of tools being developed to enable community-based assessment of the truth value of statements on the internet! (I think...)
- Under development - somewhere between ResearchGate and Hypothes.is
- Resource for sharing all kinds of data (including negative!), figures, paper drafts, posters, abstracts you can think of, the point being to make it openly available in a citable format. Ideally no more citing "private communication"s!
- A forum for connecting with colleagues and sharing research papers
- Rapidly growing site, which combines literature organization, social networking, data sharing, collaboration, and pretty much you name it. Free! (ish...) Check out their blog, too.
- A new entrant into the web-synchronized literature organization field. Similar to Mendeley in many respects, but has an excellent recommendation engine. One of these days I'm going to review all the literature organization tools I've played with...
- Newer social / science media project which is intended to act as an online lab notebook / cloud database, but is also geared towards sharing with various levels of colleagues and collaborators. Recently profiled in Nature.
Literature Organization and Sharing
Notable New Publishing / Peer Review Models
OK, well this took at least as long as writing up my post would have, and I'm sure it's not complete by any means. Let's all rack our brains together, and if any of us come up with more great examples or resources I'll add them to the list! Happy Browsing!
