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The dangers of growing DNA databases
,----[ Quote ]
| Scientific data sharing has become big news in
| the wake of the theft of e-mails from the
| Climatic Research Unit and ensuing
| investigations. Although the CRU researchers
| appear to have had an attitude towards data
| sharing that breached generally accepted
| scientific ethics, the process of actually
| sharing the data would have been anything but
| straightforward. The CRU had no procedures in
| place for data sharing, the data came from a
| variety of sources with no standardized data
| format, it was a mix of published and
| proprietary information, etc. In short, it's
| one thing to decide to share the data, another
| challenge entirely to actually do so.
`----
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/04/nasa-planet-hunters-may-only-be-releasing-limited-data-set.ars
BitTorrenting biology, getting the big picture in search
,----[ Quote ]
| The biosciences, like other branches of
| research, are being dragged into the digital
| era. This is in part because traditional
| mediums of communications, including journal
| articles, are migrating online, and in part
| because high-throughput approaches to
| biological research are producing staggering
| amounts of data that can only be stored in
| digital form. A couple of papers released by
| PLoS ONE have presented new approaches to both
| aspects of digitization that, in essence,
| simply involve modifying tools that are common
| outside of the field specifically for use by
| biologists.
`----
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/04/bittorrenting-biology-getting-the-big-picture-in-search.ars
University told to hand over tree ring data
,----[ Quote ]
| Queen's University in Belfast has been told by
| the Information Commissioner to hand over 40
| years of research data on tree rings, used for
| climate research.
|
| Douglas Keenan, from London, had asked for the
| information in 2007 under the Freedom of
| Information Act.
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8623417.stm
Linked Data and the Leadersâ Debate â My Challenge
,----[ Quote ]
| For example â can someone write me a Linked
| Data query to show how much is spent by the
| government on UK education quangoes?
`----
http://blog.ouseful.info/2010/04/16/linked-data-and-the-leaders-debate-my-challenge/
CloudMadeâs OpenStreetMap Surges On Wikipedia-Like User Passion
,----[ Quote ]
| The number of contributors to OpenStreetMap
| has grown steadily over the years. A year ago
| 110,000 individuals had added or edited data.
| Today itâs up to 245,000 individual mappers.
| An average of 7,000 edits an hour are made to
| the data.
`----
http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/17/cloudmades-openstreetmap-surges-on-wikipedia-like-user-passion/
An Open Mind
,----[ Quote ]
| If the mission of the university is the
| creation of knowledge (via research) and the
| dissemination of knowledge (via teaching and
| publishing), then it stands to reason that
| giving that knowledge away fits neatly with
| that mission. And the branding benefits are
| clear.
|
| The Open University, the distance-learning
| behemoth based in England, has vastly
| increased its visibility with open courses,
| which frequently show up in the Top 5
| downloads on Appleâs iTunes U, a portal to
| institutionsâ free courseware as well as
| marketing material. The Open Universityâs free
| offerings have been downloaded more than 16
| million times, with 89 percent of those
| downloads outside the U.K., says Martin Bean,
| vice chancellor of the university. Some 6,000
| students started out with a free online course
| before registering for a paid online course.
`----
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/education/edlife/18open-t.html?ref=education
Khan Academy Goes CC BY-SA
,----[ Quote ]
| David Wiley has a new post expressing
| frustration that the Khan Academy, an OER
| repository, did not have a clear license.
| Shortly after Wileyâs post the Khan Academy
| added the CC BY-SA license.
`----
http://openeducationnews.org/2010/04/16/khan-academy-goes-cc-by-sa/
Recent:
OpenUp â TSO Launches Open Data Challenge with Â50,000 Development Fund
,----[ Quote ]
| TSO (The Stationery Office), the leading
| provider of publishing solutions to the
| public sector, has today announced the
| launch of OpenUp, a Â50,000 development
| fund aimed at encouraging the British
| public to come up with ideas of how open
| data can be put to better use for their
| communities. The move by TSO to offer the
| substantial fund for investment follows the
| recent launch of Data.gov.uk by the
| Government. Individuals or teams of people
| are encouraged to enter the competition by
| submitting an idea that can use public data
| to deliver value to communities locally,
| regionally, nationally or even
| internationally. As well as securing the
| fund to see their idea developed the winner
| will also be awarded a personal prize of
| Â1,000.
`----
http://www.tso.co.uk/press/latestnews/archive/2010/openup/
The commonsware publishing model
,----[ Quote ]
| CommonsWareâs publishing strategy is fairly
| simple: try to give readers a fair deal.
|
| Digital publishing with a price tag
| attached â whether it be books or music or
| movies â is trying to leverage an
| artificial scarcity. For all intents and
| purposes, there is really no additional
| costs for delivering 200 copies than there
| are for delivering 2 copies. However, the
| alternative revenue models are works-in-
| progress.
`----
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-commonsware-publishing-model/2010/04/10
An Approach to Open Access Author Payment
,----[ Quote ]
| There have been hundreds of articles in
| recent years exhorting the strengths and
| warning of the weaknesses of Open Access
| through author payment. This article
| discusses a few of the favorable and
| unfavorable issues and proposes an approach
| that takes advantage of the favorable aspects
| and overcomes some of the unfavorable ones.
| It requires extensive government support,
| which may or may not be feasible, but the
| approach is presented here nevertheless. Some
| evidence is given for the potential savings
| that would be achieved by scientists,
| publishers and libraries in the US.
`----
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march10/king/03king.html
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