Zzzoot

The NSF today announced a very exciting -- at least to me and my research colleagues -- program: CDI seeks ambitious, transformative, multidisciplinary research proposals within or across the following three thematic areas: From Data to Knowledge: enhancing human cognition and generating new knowledge from a wealth of heterogeneous digital data; Understanding Complexity in Natural, Built, and Social Systems: deriving fundamental insights on systems comprising multiple interacting elements; and Building Virtual Organizations: enhancing discovery and innovation by bringing people and resources together across institutional, geographical and cultural boundaries . Congruent with the three thematic areas, CDI projects will enable transformative discovery to identify patterns and structures in massive datasets; exploit computation as a means of achieving deeper understanding in the natural and social sciences and engineering; simulate and predict complex stochastic or chaotic syste...

The US National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure has a call for proposals . From the call: The new types of organizations envisioned in this solicitation will integrate library and archival sciences, cyberinfrastructure, computer and information sciences, and domain science expertise to: provide reliable digital preservation, access, integration, and analysis capabilities for science and/or engineering data over a decades-long timeline; continuously anticipate and adapt to changes in technologies and in user needs and expectations; engage at the frontiers of computer and information science and cyberinfrastructure with research and development to drive the leading edge forward; and serve as component elements of an interoperable data preservation and access network. ...these exemplar organizations can serve as the basis for rational investment in digital preservation and access by diverse sectors of society at the local, regional, national, and international levels, ...

I've just discovered this great resource , created by Charles W. Bailey, Jr, which is a 266 page bibliography (PDF) which includes sections on: Economic Issues Electronic Books and Texts Electronic Serials (including Electronic Distribution of Printed Journals) Legal Issues (including Intellectual Property Rights and License Agreements) Library Issues (including Digital Libraries and Information Integrity and Preservation) New Publishing Models Publisher Issues (including Digital Rights Management) Repositories, E‐Prints, and OAI This is the latest edition of this bibliography, first described in: Bailey, Charles W., Jr. ʺ Evolution of an Electronic Book: The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography .ʺ The Journal of Electronic Publishing 7 (December 2001).

The CODATA (Committee on Data for Science and Technology) Data Science Journal has a special issue entitled " Open Data for Global Science " (June 2007) which has a series of excellent articles. It is broken into two parts ( Recent International and National Governmental Data Policy Developments and Analysis of Data Policy Issues ). The Canadian National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data (NCASRD) is reported on , and other articles of interest include: Open Data for Global Science: A Review of Recent Developments in National and International Scientific Data Policies and Related Proposals . Paul F. Uhlir. Big Opportunities in Access to "Small Science" Data . Harlan Onsrud and James Campbell. OECD Principles and Guidelines for Access to Research Data from Public Funding . Dirk Pilat and Yukiko Fukasaku. Open Access to Scientific Data: Promoting Science and Innovation . Guan-Hua Xu. Open Data for Global Science . Paul F. Uhlir and Peter Schröder...

In " An Information Revolution ", David Penman discusses Open Access and Open Data (especially as applied to government-funded research) in general, and more specifically as applied to New Zealand science and scientists. While there is some good news: "The Foundation for Research, Science and Technology is now reviewing its data policy and moving towards the norm for the OECD – greater open access for publicly-funded data. Rather than the research provider deciding on access, all information is openly and freely available unless restrictions such as national security, environmental damage (eg, the GPS co-ordinates of threatened species), or clear commercial disadvantage can be justified." He has some blunt - and appropriate - words for NZ scientists: Our researchers will also have to change. No longer can they sit with filing cabinets full of data waiting for the definitive experiment or the life time monograph. Publish quickly in electronic media, make your data a...

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) have announced this new policy, which includes publications AND data. Basically, they have taken a gentle but significant step in opening-up the research outputs of the grant recipiants they support. It does not impact all forms of publications. Two of the most salient points: 5.1.1 Peer-reviewed Journal Publications Grant recipients are now required to make every effort to ensure that their peer-reviewed publications are freely accessible through the Publisher's website (Option #1) or an online repository as soon as possible and in any event within six months of publication (Option #2)." and 5.1.2 Publication-related Research Data Recognizing that access to research data promotes the advancement of science and further high-quality and ethical investigation, CIHR explored current best practices and standards related to the deposition of publication-related data in openly accessible databases. As a first step, CIHR will now re...

In " The irony of a web without science " (Sept 4 2007) James Boyle decries the state of scientific research and describes the limited amount of scientific output - in particular journal publications - that can be accessed in an Open Access manner. The author cannot reconcile what he describes as the "genius of the web is that it is an open network" with the closed and expensive nature of what is modern science and the modern scientific publishing landscape. But the author goes on to say: Thus I do not support the proposal that all articles based on state-funded research must pass immediately into the public domain. But there are more modest proposals that deserve our attention. Pending legislation in the US balances the interest of commercial publishers and the public by requiring that, a year after its publication, NIH-funded research must be available, online, in full... I think the author muddles a number of different ideas here (OA does not imply pub...