In no particular order, some interesting stuff that has been cluttering up my browser tabs...
"Preamble
Sound, reproducible scholarship rests upon a foundation of robust, accessible data. For this to be so in practice as well as theory, data must be accorded due importance in the practice of scholarship and in the enduring scholarly record. In other words, data should be considered legitimate, citable products of research. Data citation, like the citation of other evidence and sources, is good research practice and is part of the scholarly ecosystem supporting data reuse.
In support of this assertion, and to encourage good practice, we offer a set of guiding principles for data within scholarly literature, another dataset, or any other research object."
I strongly recommend that everyone with and interest in data citation endorses these principles, either on an individual basis, or on behalf of their organisation!
"Call to Action
We envision a future information ecosystem where research data is considered an integral part of scholarly communications. We propose a new metaphor to characterize our vision: a social contract. This contract is an agreement amongst all stakeholders based on shared, governing principles: data should be preserved, discoverable, measured, and integrated into evaluation processes; and data sharing is a fundamental practice. Adherence to this social contract will entail dramatic changes to existing workflows; technologies; and social norms for all the members of the research ecosystem."
"Scientists can be reluctant to share data because of the need to publish journal articles and receive recognition. But what if the data sets were actually a better way of getting credit for your work? Chris Belter measured the impact of a few openly accessible data sets and compared to journal articles in his field. His results provide hard evidence that the production, archival, and sharing of data may actually be a more effective way to contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge."
DOIs and the danger of data “quality”
"...NERC state “by assigning a DOI the [Environmental Data Centre] are giving it a ‘data center stamp of approval’”. Effectively they see a DOI name (or by implication any other form of Persistent Uniform Resource Locator (PURL)) as a quality check-mark in addition to its role as a reference to an object. Except the DOI system isn’t designed to suggest the “quality goes in before the name goes on”. Just to remind myself, I quickly looked at the International DOI Foundation handbook and it doesn’t mention data quality. Identification, yes. Resolution, yes. Management, yes. Quality, no."
(With a response from myself)
Citation Rates Highlight Uphill Battle for Women in Research Careers
"One of the most important and institutionalized forms of science communication is the peer-reviewed journal article. These articles are essential to disseminating information among researchers in specific fields of study, and the extent to which those journal articles are cited by researchers in later articles is of enormous professional importance to researchers – particularly researchers who work in academic settings. But it appears that many researchers face an uphill battle when it comes to getting citations and related professional benefits. Specifically, researchers who are women."
What’s the Point of Academic Publishing?
"In December 2013, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs made a startling announcement. “Today I wouldn't get an academic job,” he told The Guardian. “It's as simple as that. I don't think I would be regarded as productive enough.”
Higgs noted that quantity, not quality, is the metric by which success in the sciences in measured. Unlike in 1964, when he was hired, scientists are now pressured to churn out as many papers as possible in order to retain their jobs. Had he not been nominated for the Nobel, Higgs says, he would have been fired. His scientific discovery was made possible by his era’s relatively lax publishing norms, which left him time to think, dream, and discover."
Scientists losing data at a rapid rate
"In their parents' attic, in boxes in the garage, or stored on now-defunct floppy disks — these are just some of the inaccessible places in which scientists have admitted to keeping their old research data. Such practices mean that data are being lost to science at a rapid rate, a study has now found.
The authors of the study, which is published today in Current Biology, looked for the data behind 516 ecology papers published between 1991 and 2011. The researchers selected studies that involved measuring characteristics associated with the size and form of plants and animals, something that has been done in the same way for decades. By contacting the authors of the papers, they found that, whereas data for almost all studies published just two years ago were still accessible, the chance of them being so fell by 17% per year. Availability dropped to as little as 20% for research from the early 1990s."
Guidelines / Recommendations for Citing Data
An excellent set of resources from the Virtual Solar Observatory.
The Robot Army of Good Enough
"Pretty much any organization of any size has certain themes, beliefs and outlooks baked into them. Some of them might be obvious from the outside. Others are so inherent that the members might not even notice they’re completely steeped in it.
At the Internet Archive, there’s a philosophy set about access and acceptance of materials and presentation of said materials that’s pretty inherent throughout the engineering and the website. Paraphrased, in my own words, it’s this:
- Always provide the original.
- Never ask why a user wants something.
- Now is better than tomorrow.
- We can hold it.
- Many inexpensively is better than one or none luxuriously.
- Never send a person where a machine can go.
- Enjoy yourself."
"Being the largest land predator, the fearsome and enigmatic Polar Bear is seen by many as a powerful symbol to highlight of the threats to the environment through global warming. With a new publication on the Polar Bear genome out last week in Cell, they surprisingly are also an impressive example of how far data publication and citation has come in the last few years, and help debunk many of the negative arguments about the early release of datasets in this manner."
How Bitcoin’s Technology Could Revolutionize Intellectual Property Rights
"The bitcoin block chain is well known for its use as a ledger for digital currency transactions, but it has the potential for other, more radical uses too – uses that are only now beginning to be explored.
The online service Proof of Existence is an example of how the power of this new technology can have applications far beyond the world of finance, in this case, giving a glimpse of how bitcoin could one day have a substantial impact in the fields of intellectual property and law.
Although in its initial stages, Proof of Existence can be used to demonstrate document ownership without revealing the information it contains, and to provide proof that a document was authored at a particular time."
LIBRE
"is a free open peer review platform developed by a growing community of volunteer research scholars who envision a new era of openness and transparency in scholarly evaluation and communication. Join us and let’s liberate research together!"
Frontiers for Young Minds
"Frontiers in Neuroscience for Young Minds is a scientific journal that includes young people (from 8 to 15) in the review of articles. This has the double benefit of bringing kids into the world of scientific research – many of them for the first time – and offering active scientists a platform for reaching out to the broadest of all publics.
All articles in Frontiers for Young Minds will be reviewed and approved for publication by young people themselves. Established neuroscientists will mentor these young Review Editors and help them review the manuscript and focus their queries to authors. To avoid overburdening the young Review Editors, revised manuscripts will in turn be reviewed by one of the stellar Associate Editors of Frontiers for Young Minds."
