Comments for Circle of Complexity

Comment on The evolution of selves by open citizen science by The evolution of selves by open citizen science. | Global Guts

The evolution of selves by open citizen science. | Global Guts — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 02:16:24 +0000

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Comment on The evolution of selves by open citizen science by The evolution of selves by open citizen science. | Daniel Durrant

The evolution of selves by open citizen science. | Daniel Durrant — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 05:21:53 +0000

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Comment on One step closer to open science by Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:43:08 +0000

Unconvinced about nanopubs for the same reason as I am about the RDF thing in general — almost useless without mature, consensual ontologies to provide reliable values for two of the three parts of the triple.

Main thing I'd like to see from the new journal's sponsors is an enormous general repository for supporting data…

Comment on One step closer to open science by Paweł Szczęsny

Paweł Szczęsny — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:13:14 +0000

Yes, that's his talk. The gap is indeed large and I wonder if BMC's Research Notes could drift in that direction. FigShare is also heading towards the same idea. That might be the evolution you refer to. Only if we could get past initial "sky will fall if we do that"…

Comment on One step closer to open science by Egon Willighagen

Egon Willighagen — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:00:54 +0000

I guess you are referring to the talk by Barend Mons? I think there is certainly room for this kind of nanopublication, but the gap between the current publication and this nanopublication is enormous. I think we first needs to seek something in between. With the funding these three partners can throw in, they can in fact develop a publishing platform that does things right. They have no excuse not to. I believe in incremental evolution (well, it worked for my existence), and while a publishing revolution sounds good to me, I think the larger scholarly community would rather see the current publication evolve into something 21st century… oh hell, into something late 20th century would be nice already.

Comment on One step closer to open science by Paweł Szczęsny

Paweł Szczęsny — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:55:27 +0000

At OAI7 there was interesting talk on nanopublications (that is a experimentally [with broad definition of what 'experimental' means] verified assertion expressed as a triple) – that actually might be a better venue for Open Science than any of current publishing models. However, a serious discussions on nanopublications will not happen unless we drift away from old way of publishing, measuring impact, etc. Glossy or not, the new journal might prepare ground for the next idea – research reporting has to change dramatically and OA might not be sufficient.

That said I think folks at involved institutions are smart people – I wouldn't be surprised if most of the things you ask for ended in the submission guidelines. They might already know that "freely available" isn't that much of a difference in the long term.

Comment on One step closer to open science by Egon Willighagen

Egon Willighagen — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:25:10 +0000

I am not convinced that a journal article is at all (Open or not) the right platform for Open Science. Unless they radically change the editorial requirements for papers around machine readability, meaning (use of ontologies, unique identifiers), requirements for enough experimental detail, access to original raw experimental data, etc… unless all that is *also* done by this journa, it will just be another Glossy that a Open Science community really is not waiting for.

Comment on Ten commandments of open science by Claudia Koltzenburg

Claudia Koltzenburg — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:03:05 +0000

> ?Independent scholar? means ?unemployed?.

this depends on the field and country you're looking at, I guess. There are quite a few independent scholars who are doing their research, yes, independently, i.e. they are not paid for doing their research (and precisely for the sake of independence they may well have decided to not accept any payment for it before publication), yet independent researchers may well be employed – like myself, in fact

Comment on Ten commandments of open science by Paweł Szczęsny

Paweł Szczęsny — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:48:18 +0000

Kevin, thanks. Indeed, some of the points could be phrased better or completely replaced (I agree with all that you've wrote), but I wanted to change the original as little as possible for the purpose of the experiment.

Actually, in science anything written in stone is a bad idea anyway.

Comment on Ten commandments of open science by Kevin T. Keith

Kevin T. Keith — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:18:45 +0000

Very good points. The dreary red-baiting tactics of scary labels as an assault on decency or just plain good thinking are a plague, and hardly confined to science.

But a couple of substantive reactions as well:

"Change the world" is not necessarily the best advice. It's a great thing to do if you can, but remember that the vast majority of scholarship is not world-changing. Someone has to fill in the details. Read any science journal: vast volumes of small-scale fact-grubbing that explain how things work but do not dramatically support or disprove a theory. That's important work.

"Be creative" is also good, but replication is the heart of proof, as all scientists acknowledge – and too many granting institutions won't support it, journals won't publish it, some labs won't even allow it. Replicating known results, and extending them into new labs or new technologies, is also important work.

"Have no job" is a luxury that only the rich, or the exceedingly lucky, can afford. "Independent scholar" means "unemployed". "Collaborative multitasking" is not a realistic option for many or most. A lot of the "new economy" slogans are just romanticizing; strong support for science, including well-endowed labs and secure jobs with good salaries and benefits, is a better goal for science, scientists, and society. (Applies to other scholarly fields as well.)

And finally a tiny plug for capitalism: "give everything away" and "have no secrets" ought to be the norm in human-needs fields like medicine, energy, etc.; but there's room for market-oriented research (not publicly funded) as well. It does have strengths that can be utilized if it is not allowed to trample human values, lives, and necessities.