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For those who want to take a glimpse at where science and scientific discourse are going, take a look at some of the papers at this workshop: Workshop on Semantic Web Applications in Scientific Discourse , October 26, 2009, Proceedings ), part of The 8th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2009) Keynote: Enabling Semantic Publication and Integration of Scientific Information David Shotton. Presentation . A Short Survey of Discourse Representation Models Tudor Groza, Siegfried Handschuh, Tim Clark and Simon Buckingham Shum Paper Presentation Strategic Reading and Scientific Discourse Allen Renear and Carole Palmer Paper 'Confortation': about a new qualitative category for analyzing biomedical texts Delphine Battistelli, Antonietta Folino, Patricia Geretto, Ludivine Kuznik, Jean-Luc Minel and Florence Amardeilh Paper Presentation Hypotheses, Evidence and Relationships:The HypER Model of Representing Scientific Knowledge Anita de Waard, Simon Buckingham Shu...

This is old news from February, but I seemed to have missed it: the NRCan (Federal Natural Resources ministry in Canada) libraries have chosen the Open Source Evergreen integrated library system (ILS). Kudos to my colleague George Duimovich and others at the NRCan library . Here is the opening search interface . It is great to see sensible Web 2.0 and Open Source choices can be made in such organizations.

ICSTI2009 "Managing Data for Science" Conference From the site: ICSTI's 2009 Public conference will take place on June 9 and 10, 2009 at Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Speakers from Canada, the United States and Europe will address: How eScience affects the way libraries, publishers and scientists relate to each other. How the era of "big data" will enable enhanced experimentation and collaboration in science. The program includes presentations from: Francine Berman San Diego Super-Computing Center, California Richard Boulderstone Director of e-Strategy and Programmes British Library, UK Jan Brase German National Library of Science and Technology, EU Lee Dirks Microsoft, State of Washington Peter Fox Rensselaer Polytechnic University, State of New York Paula Hurtubise Project Manager Carleton University, Ottawa Liz Lyon UKOLN University of Bath, UK James Mullins Purdue...

ChemStar (Computed Molecular Data) is an Open Access database of the calculated chemical properties of over 12M substances from PubChem. The process - which demands significant computing power - was done is a distributed fashion using JavaRMI and is described in the paper below. The properties are calculated using three different methods: JChem , JOELIB and MOE . The site allows the perusal of the properties, with a Marvin -based applet for viewing structures. The Java sourcecode for the distributed computing is available . Karthikeyan, M., Krishnan, S., Pandey, A.K., Bender, A., Tropsha, A. (2008). Distributed Chemical Computing Using ChemStar: An Open Source Java Remote Method Invocation Architecture Applied to Large Scale Molecular Data from PubChem. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 48 (4), 691-703. DOI: 10.1021/ci700334f

LNCS 5071: Sharing Data, Information and Knowledge (25th British National Conference on Databases, BNCOD 25, Cardiff, UK, July 7-10, 2008). Some interesting papers: The Power of Data Visualisation to Aid Biodiversity Studies through Accurate Taxonomic Reconciliation Distributed Systems and Automated Biodiversity Informatics: Genomic Analysis and Geographic Visualization of Disease Evolution. Role Based Access to Support Collaboration in Healthcare Finding Data Resources in a Virtual Observatory Using SKOS Vocabularies Semantic Matching for the Medical Domain The Hyperdatabase Project – From the Vision to Realizations

Bret Taylor has a refreshing and rather simple (powerful) idea: Wikipedia for data . All kinds of data. From what I would consider scientific data, to census data to geographic data to TV listings to stock data to CD cover and track data to .....whatever. Cut out the lawyers and the licensing. Open Data for all to use and experiment with. Coming from a country where you have to buy census data (!!!), this is a wonderful idea. Spread the meme.

The 2nd European Conference on Scientific Publishing in Biomedicine and Medicine (Oslo, Sept 4 - 6, 2008) has announced its programme : How to get to universal Open Access and why we want to get there. The progress of science: what hinders and what helps in an OA environment? Funding to authors for OA publishing. University Central Funds for Open Access. Licensing & Copyright: major issues for some. Making the repository a researcher's resource. Open access and the commercial biomedical publishers. Science Publishing: the future of journal publishing. Evaluation of Scientific Research by Advanced Quantitative Methods Beyond Impact Factors. The use and misuse of bibliometric indices in evaluating scholarly performance. What linking in CrossRef can tell us about research.

OA Librarian points out a press release from Dec 5 2007 a news release from Nature Publishing Group announcing that genome sequences: "Nature Publishing Group (NPG) announced today that is introducing a Creative Commons licence for original research articles publishing the primary sequence of an organism’s genome for the first time in any of the Nature journals." Of particular interest: "Wherever possible, NPG will apply the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike licence retrospectively [emphasis added] to original research articles reporting novel primary genome-wide sequences that have previously been published in Nature journals." Nature Editorial: Shared Genomes (Nature 450, 762 6 December 2007) It is good to see Nature trying to fill some of the leadership void in this area. Taxonomy, with a longer history in publishing, needs a similar effort, as pointed-out by Donat Agosti on the Taxacom mailing list (in reference to the NPG announcem...

In my rather hectic December I missed this publication on Dec 17 2007 of the ERC Scientific Council Guidelines for Open Access. From the document's " interim position on open access ": 1. The ERC requires that all peer-reviewed publications from ERC-funded research projects be deposited on publication into an appropriate research repository where available, such as PubMed Central, ArXiv or an institutional repository, and subsequently made Open Access within 6 months of publication . [Emphasis added] 2. The ERC considers essential that primary data - which in the life sciences for example could comprise data such as nucleotide/protein sequences, macromolecular atomic coordinates and anonymized epidemiological data - are deposited to the relevant databases as soon as possible, preferably immediately after publication and in any case not later than 6 months after the date of publication. [Emphasis added] Thanks to Mary Zborowski, CISTI, NRC and CODATA for pointing this out...

Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has just released the report " Agenda for Developing E-Science in Research Libraries ". Among other activities, this report specifically discusses the Canadian context, including the National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data (NCASRD) and the recent (2007) Library and Archives Canada's release draft of its Canadian Digital Information Strategy . Agenda for Developing E-Science in Research Libraries table of contents: E-Science: Implications for Research Practice National and International Context for E-Science Critical Areas for Research Library Engagement Data Issues and New Genres of Scholarly Communication Virtual Organizations Policy Development Current Library Capability to Support E-Science E-Science Task Force Recommendations: Outcomes, Strategies, Actions Structure and Process for ARL Agenda Develop Knowledgeable Community Develop Skilled Workforce Contribute to Research Infrastructure Develop Policy From ...

The article When Is Open Access Not Open Access? (CJ MacCallum) PLoS Biology examines the slippery activities of publishers that try and fly the flag of Open Access (with varying degrees of capitalization) but who only offer the free-as-in-beer definition of freedom, as opposed to the Open Access definition, which includes --- as well as free- gratis freedom -- extensive intellectual property rights permitting unrestricted derivative use. This issue and these distinctions were discussed earlier this year in " Free but not open? " at the PLoS blog. I have noticed that many journals use the weasel words like " We conform to open access as defined by SHERPA ". The SHERPA definition does not include the extensive IP rights described by Open Access: By "open access" to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of...

As part of its DISC -UK DataShare project , JISC has released two documents: DISC-UK DataShare: State-of-the-Art Review , Harry Gibbs Data Sharing Continuum graphic , Robin Rice The former is a summary of recent projects and policy, and introduced me to a number of projects and initiatives that I hadn't previously known about. The latter is a well thought-out view of the data sharing continuum, showing us where we have been (and perhaps for some of us, still are!) and a good idea of where we will/should be going. A good graphic to show to a manager trying to understand the big picture.

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...

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...

University Affairs has an interesting article on Open Science that examines the patents and licensing regime and its impacts on science and the ability to do science. While at times advocating an Open Source-like model of Open Science, the author is a little to wishy-washy and supports hybrid models which are too much of a slippery slope for me. I also don't agree with a number of statements including: But now an international scientific counterculture is emerging. Often referred to as "open science" this growing movement proposes that we err on the side of collaboration and sharing. Counter-culture ? I think that he has it backwards: despite the many biotechnologists and biotech companies and other science-based industries that use the patent system to support their business interests - usually encumbering further scientific discovery - the vast majority of scientists - at least working in academia, and of course with exceptions - have long been and will continue, wo...

Putting the Open (and almost live) back into Science In an effort that will surely challenge both other researchers and the Publishers, the Wiki Paper Experiment ( Jean-Claude Bradley ) is performing the research and writing the paper as they go on a wiki dedicated to the project , with a secondary (primary?) experiment being whether any publisher will pick-up the final paper.