open access

More in an article entitled "A New Concept for Medical Imaging Centered on Cellular Phone Technology", published recently by Yair Granot, Antoni Ivorra and Boris Rubinsky in PLoS ONE.

I am wondering how far we can get with "Open X" movements in science and research, and I will combine my musings about this with a recommendation to attend a satellite event at the Euroscience Open Forum 2008 in Barcelona.

First, let's consider how far we have come in terms of opening up the research process:
* Open Access in the narrow sense, i.e. to published or at least peer-accepted research results, is real for a substantial share of research output and rapidly gaining ground (for most recent updates, click here).
* Open Access to the scholarly review process is gaining ground (public or interactive peer review, e.g. here).
* Open Access to empirical data (Open Data) is moving forward, too.
* Open Access to software (Open Source) is driving many aspects of society, including wikis and many research projects.
* Open Access to encyclopedic knowledge is becoming real on the heels of Wikipedia and Citizendium.
* Open Access to lab notebooks is being experimented with at OpenWetWare.

To sum up, there are not too many aspects of research that currently remain entirely in the dark. They basically boil down to grant writing (an attempt is here) as well as the associated review and grant allocation procedures, bookkeeping (which is partly open in much of Scandinavia, within the wider framework of Open Government), the actual research and data analysis, and to writing up the results for publication.

I do not see any technical issues prohibiting complete openness of the whole research cycle, and so I deem it a valid
target to aim at, already at the current stage of technology. However, people more involved with the practical implementation of these things may have more complex views on these matters, and so I am glad to see that such topics found their way into the program of ESOF 2008, in the form of a satellite event entitled Collaborating for the future of open science where experts will discuss them.

Yesterday, on the train, I met another young scientist, and he introduced me to the mathematical software package SAGE. It is comparable to Mathematica, Maple and MATLAB in terms of performance, ease of use and portability but, in sharp contrast to the former products, freely available on the internet (via http://www.sagemath.org/). SAGE also understands commands known from several other similar packages (including Mathematica and Maple), so migration from there should be very easy.

I had a closer look today and will definitely give it some detailed trials but if any of you already have experience with this tool, please share it here. Thanks!

See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAGE_%28computer_algebra_system%29 and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_computer_algebra_syst... .

[seen at
http://www.openstudents.org/2008/04/30/sparc-announces-video-con... ]

Videos on any topic related to information sharing will be accepted, as long as they are made freely available on the web. Deadline: November 30, 2008.

More info via www.sparkyawards.org .

The role of expert knowledge is central to a video documentary on Wikipedia's way of knowledge sharing. It features the opinions of the co-founders of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, as well as of some other major Web 2.0 players and critics, including the authors Tim O’Reilly and Andrew Keen as well as Charles Leadbeater (a former advisor to Tony Blair), Bob McHenry (former editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica) and Ndesanjo Macha, one of the first to blog in an African language and one of the major contributors to the Swahili Wikipedia (which, by the way, is about to reach the 7,000 article milestone within the next few days).

The views of these people, particularly on truth and its representation in encyclopedias, contrast quite significantly but their aggregation provides food for thought on how the future of knowledge sharing might look like. The explicitly scientific perspective was mainly missing but between the lines, it became clear that large interactively collaborative (ubuntu) projects like this might also play an increasingly important role in academic research and tertiary education.

One possible direction is a continuation and expansion of Wikipedia until saturation, other options include branching and the development of more academically inclined variants like Scholarpedia, the Encyclopedias of Earth and Cosmos as well as Citizendium (not mentioned in the documentary but in a previous post here), and there are certainly many other possible developments.

Found at http://openmed.nic.in/2789/ :

Open access to knowledge and information: scholarly literature and digital library initiatives – the South Asian scenario

Das, Anup Kumar (2008) Open access to knowledge and information: scholarly literature and digital library initiatives – the South Asian scenario. UNESCO, New Delhi, India. ISBN 9788189218218

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Abstract

The South Asia sub-region is now in the forefront of the Open Access movement within developing countries in the world, with India being the most prominent partner in terms of its successful Open Access and Digital Library initiatives. Institutional and policy frameworks in India also facilitate innovative solutions for increasing international visibility and accessibility of scholarly literature and documentary heritage in this country. This publication has its genesis in the recommendations and proceedings of UNESCO-supported international conferences and workshops including the 4th International Conference of Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL2001, Bangalore); the International Conferences on Digital Libraries (ICDL2004 & ICDL2006, New Delhi); and the International Workshop on Greenstone Digital Library Software (2006, Kozhikode), where many information professionals of this sub-region demonstrated their Digital Library and Open Access initiatives. This book describes successful digital library and open access initiatives in the South Asia sub-region that are available in the forms of open courseware, open access journals, metadata harvesting services, national-level open access repositories and institutional repositories. This book may be considered an authoritative Source-book on Open Access development in this sub-region.

FACTS Reports is a unique forum that will publish manuscripts and opinion pieces related to field-based activities within various topic areas: economics, health, education, agriculture, urban planning and environmental issues. FACTS will focus on activities in developing countries and impoverished areas of developed countries. During its first stage, FACTS will develop journals devoted to economic development and health.

Objectives
The goal of this journal is to collect and disseminate knowledge and best practices on field activities. Many professionals work in developing countries to address issues related to economics, health, agriculture, education, environment and development in general. Frequently, these activities do not have an evaluation component or when an evaluation does occur, no forum exists to communicate results to a broader audience. Consequently, knowledge is capitalized poorly resulting in the perpetuation of bad practices and lack of recognition and visibility for good practices. The aim of FACTS Reports is to fill this gap.
FACTS Reports will include peer review with a requirement that peers work in the field themselves. This process will ensure critical input from world experts, allow for cooperation and competition among authors, and promote a high level of science.

Readership
FACTS reports will provide a platform of communication and exchange among field-based professionals. It will improve communication, evaluation of methods, capitalisation of knowledge, and recognition of best practices. In a second stage, FACTS will promote other activities such as training courses, symposia, and educational awards.
Subject Coverage
Suitable topics for FACTS Reports related to economy, development and health include, but are not limited to:
• Development finance
• Education, employment policies
• Social policies
• Trade capacity building, actions related to globalization
• Rural development
• Evaluation methods
• Health care delivery
• Pharmaceutical pricing and drug distribution
• Public health delivery
• Access to health care
• Equity in health care distribution
• Novel health care and public health delivery technologies and methodologies
• Effective practice
• Health promotion
• Health education
• Health systems and health care supply
• Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in health projects

Specific Notes for Authors
Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors and other
relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Guidelines for authors www.institut.veolia.org/en/facts-initiative.aspx

Editors and Notes
Contributions should be sent in MS Word format attached to an e-mail (details in Author Guidelines) to the following:
Nadia CAÏD
Development Director
Institut Veolia Environment
15, rue des Sablons
75116 Paris
Tel: +33 1 53 43 22 70
E-mail: nadia.caid@institut.veolia.org
With a copy to: FACTS Editorial Office
E-mail: facts.initiative@institut.veolia.org

Dear all members,
The ICTP (www.ictp.it) organise a workshop on Using Open Access Models for Science Dissemination during 7-16 july 2008.
It is an extension of the workshop on CAPACITY BUILDING OF YOUNG SCIENTISTS (Track 2- Dr Garrett) organised last 1-3 march 2008 by the WAYS.
Application form can be download at
http://cdsagenda5.ictp.it/agenda/current/askArchive.php?base=age...
or
http://cdsagenda5.ictp.trieste.it/full_display.php?smr=0&ida=a07...
best

Just stumbled upon this interesting suggestion - copyrights should be taxed:
http://afternoonblag.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-isnt-intellectual-... .

This way, copyright claims would be treated more similarly to patent claims (upholding which requires substantial fees), and incentives would be provided to transfer copyrighted material (such as research articles) into the public domain.

Take a look at this journal - it is dedicated to the scientific study of what is today's most urgent topic (sustainability), approaches it from a cross-disciplinary perspective and in a way that stimulates collaboration between scientific generations, and is most appropriately (and ambitiously) named Consilience:
http://consiliencejournal.readux.org/ (full name: Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development).

As any ordinary journal, Consilience will accept research papers, but like Eduzendium, it will also accept manuscripts written for coursework.

Finally, it is entirely Open Access.