How network science helps us understand the fundamentals of language

Posted on July 7, 2023 by Hanna Landenmark

It is a busy time for the network sciences at PLOS. On June 20, we announced a new journal as an addition to our portfolio, PLOS Complex Systems. PLOS Complex Systems will be a community-led journal focused on research to understand the drivers and behaviors of complex systems, and will enable rapid dissemination of groundbreaking results, cross-fertilization of knowledge, and increased collaboration to address the fundamental questions that affect individuals and global societies. For more on this announcement, please see here.

In addition, PLOS will have a large presence at the NetSci2023 conference, 10-14 July. PLOS ONE Senior Editor Hugh Cowley will be in attendance, and is happy to meet with interested authors, reviewers and Editorial Board members. Attendees at this conference will have plenty of opportunities to hear talks by PLOS ONE Editorial Board members and Guest Editors, such as Renaud Lambiotte, Mirta Galesic, Marta Sales-Pardo, Hocine Cherifi, Alberto Aleta, Ceyhun Eksin, Dion O’Neale, Luis M. Rocha, Fabio Saracco, Petter Holme, Fragkiskos Papadopoulos and Tiago Peixoto.

In a paper published by PLOS ONE on June 23, 2023, Michael S. Vitevitch and Mary Sale of the University of Kansas explore whether or not languages may have a phonological “backbone” of words that would allow speakers to communicate with an essential number of words in many different situations. They found that the English language appears to have a kernel lexicon containing words that may be key to language development or rehabilitation, which they discovered using network simplification with phonological criteria. Below, we speak with Professor Vitevitch about the inspiration behind and outlook from this study.

Prof. Vitevitch’s research applies the mathematical tools of network science to language, and also examines various types of speech errors (including the tip of the tongue state) and auditory illusions (like the speech to song illusion). You can learn more about his research and obtain copies of his publications at his website: http://people.ku.edu/~mvitevit/

PLOS: Your study looks at the idea of a “phonological backbone”. What led to the idea that such a backbone would exist?

MV: Previous studies in my lab had identified “important” nodes in a network of phonological word-forms at the micro-level (i.e., identifying individual nodes that were “important”) and at the meso-level (i.e., identifying a subset of nodes that were “important”). When I read in PLOS ONE (Neal Z.P. (2022). Backbone: An R Package to Extract Network Backbones. PLOS ONE, 17 (5), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269137) about a new R package that would extract the backbone of a network to form a simplified sub-network of a more complex, denser network, I wondered if this technique could be used to identify “important” nodes at the macro-level in the phonological network (i.e., at the level of the whole network). We assumed that the nodes and connections that would “survive” the backbone extraction process would be those that were most “important” to the network. Previous studies had used other approaches—such as the most frequently occurring words in the language, or the words that are learned early in life—to identify an essential or kernel vocabulary, so we were really interested in seeing what a phonological criterion might produce.

PLOS: Were there any surprises about the features of the words that you found to constitute the backbone in this English lexicon?

MV: Our network was built by connecting words that sounded similar to each other by changing a sound, known as a phoneme, in one word to form another word. By adding, substituting, or deleting a phoneme in the word cat, you get the other words that would be connected in the network to cat, like at, scat, hat, cut, or can. That’s the only information encoded in the network. After extracting the backbone from the whole network of approximately 20,000 words we found that the approximately 6000 nodes and connections that “survived” tended to be short words, occurred often in the language, and were still connected in a way that allowed you to get from one node to another in the backbone very quickly. We were surprised to find that even though information like the frequency with which a word occurs in the language wasn’t directly encoded in the network, the backbone contained words that occurred often in the language. Such words are recognized and produced more quickly and accurately than words that occur less often in the language, and tend to be acquired earlier in life, so our simple phonological criterion yielded a kernel vocabulary that was comparable in size and content to kernel vocabularies that had been identified using other criteria. The fact that all of these different approaches converge on a kernel vocabulary comparable in size and content suggests that these words might be important for many aspects of language processing in humans and perhaps in machines as well.

PLOS: What first made you interested in applying the study of networks to language learning and cognition?

MV: Back in the early 2000’s I was teaching a graduate class on artificial neural networks (a different kind of network than the complex networks used in the present study), and I wanted a popular press book to use in the class to spark interest in the students before diving into the research papers that were heavier on mathematics. As I was preparing materials for the class, I read Barabási’s book Linked to see if it would be a suitable candidate for the popular press book for the class. I quickly realized that the book wasn’t about artificial neural networks (or what are often called deep-learning networks now), but I couldn’t put the book down because it kept making me think about a way to use this other type of network to map out the relationships among all the words in that part of memory known as the mental lexicon. Instead of just looking at a word and the words immediately around it that sounded similar, I now had a set of tools to see if words that were similar to a word a few steps away also might influence various language processes, such as the perception, production, or acquisition of words. Instead of the six-degrees of Kevin Bacon, think of the six degrees of the word ‘cat’. That led to a new direction in my research—looking at how the structure of the phonological network influences various language and cognitive processes—that I’ve been pursuing for the past decade and a half now.

PLOS: You made the data available for this study through OSF. What made you choose this way of sharing your data?

MV: My co-author and I liked that OSF is a third-party that is independent of any journal, university, or research institution, so we felt like this option would allow us to make our materials available to researchers regardless of what the future held (e.g., journal changing publishers, employment at another institution, retirement from the field, etc.). Hopefully, our materials will still be available and useful to researchers long after we are gone.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by contributors are solely those of individual contributors, and not necessarily those of PLOS.

The post How network science helps us understand the fundamentals of language appeared first on EveryONE.

Smorgasbord: Trends from the Spring 2023 Meetings and Conferences

Posted on May 11, 2023 by Charlie Rapple, Roy Kaufman, David Crotty

It’s conference season in scholarly communications. Between them, the Scholarly Kitchen Chefs have been / will be at 9 events around the world in the 6 week stretch from early April to mid May. In a series of “Smorgasbord” posts, Chefs will share some of the key themes emerging for our sector. This week: Charlie Rapple reports from EARMA, Roy Kaufman from the London Book Fair, and David Crotty from STM.

The post Smorgasbord: Trends from the Spring 2023 Meetings and Conferences appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.

Registration is now open for the Global Summit on Diamond Open Access

Posted on May 10, 2023 by OATP primary

Guest Post — An Inspiring and Sustainable Future for Scholarly Events

Posted on May 1, 2023 by Paul Killoran

Paul Killoran, CEO of Ex Ordo reflects on the future of scholarly events and makes a case for innovation.

The post Guest Post — An Inspiring and Sustainable Future for Scholarly Events appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.

SXSW Interactive: Slow Down To Speed Up

Posted on March 22, 2023 by Ann Michael

Back to SXSW this year! Hear about the conference, the speakers, and the themes. Tell us what resonates with you the most!

The post SXSW Interactive: Slow Down To Speed Up appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.

Open Science & Libraries 2022: 22 Tips for Conferences, Barcamps & Co. – Part 2

Posted on June 29, 2022 by Claudia Sittner

by Claudia Sittner

Of our event tips for the 2nd half of 2022, it is mainly the events in summer and early autumn that take place onsite (eleven of them). The later the year, the more they move back into the digital world (eight of them). Only a total of three events will be held in the new hybrid format on-site and online. It seems that organisers all over the world are not enthusiastic about the hybrid format after all.

In our event tips for July to December 2022, you will find all facets of the new event world: purely digital, hybrid and, above all, classic on-site event formats. Below you will find a selection of conferences, workshops, barcamps, festivals and other events that you should not miss in the second half of 2022. You can find more interesting events in the ZBW MediaTalk event calendar.

#01 – Open Space | 05.07. | Berlin (Germany)
Organised by: Forum for Open Innovation Culture (innOsci)
Open Science und Open Innovation – Pretty Best Friends?!
“This Open Space is intended to be an ‘open space’ in the truest sense of the word for the topics that are close to the hearts of our community. The title forms the bracket and is intended to invite us to take a deeper look at the question of how we can bring together Open Science & Open Innovation for the benefit of all and perhaps also think in a completely new way in order to meet the social challenges of our time and shape transformation.“

#02 – Conference | 06.07. – 08.07. | Odense (Denmark)
Organised by: Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche – Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) and University Library of Southern Denmark / Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek
LIBER Annual Conference 2022
“LIBER 2022 Annual Conference Theme: Libraries in the Research and Innovation Landscape — Supporting, Partnering, Leading. The upcoming LIBER 2022 Annual Conference will address the following topics: Libraries as research institutions; Citizen science and research communication; Partnering with other organisations and the private sector; Community building for researchers; Research libraries as publishers; Role of research libraries in bibliometrics; Special collections in research libraries.”

#03 – Summer School | 11.07. – 15.07. | Zurich (Switzerland)
Organised by: University of Zurich
Open Science Summer School 2022
“Are you unsure what FAIR data is, or how to write a data management plan? Are you wondering about copyright, or how to manage sensitive data properly? Do you want to know more about the various Open Access roads, and how you can avoid predatory journals? You will have the opportunity to gain a deeper insight into the world of open data, research data management, and open access.”

#04 – Conference | 13.07. – 16.07. | Leiden (Netherlands)
Organised by: Leiden University, the Municipality of Leiden, Leiden University of Applied Sciences, and the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC)
EuroScience Open Forum 2022: Crossing the borders, engaged science, resilient society
“The main objective of ESOF2022 is to strengthen the trust in the various ways society is influenced by science and, on the other hand, how science is influenced by choices, dilemmas and responsibilities that arise in society. ESOF2022 will be about the creation of a sense of urgency in scientists, policy makers, media, and the general public to deliberate more actively on science. ESOF2022 in Leiden will reinforce the societal dimension of European research-recognising that citizen engagement is intrinsic to the support of science and to appreciate the benefits of science for the economy and quality of life. ESOF2022 conference with the theme ‚Crossing the borders, engaged science, resilient society‘ is embedded in a 365-day programme of Leiden European City of Science where we will celebrate arts, science, and technology, targeted to reach out to the general public and truly connect science with society.”

#05 – Conference | 26.07. – 29.07. | Dublin (Ireland)
Organised by: International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
87th IFLA World Library and Information Congress: Inspire, Engage, Enable, Connect
“An abundance of innovative and thought-provoking sessions awaits you, including: Digital skills on fire workshop – Fighting fake information at your library – Agile in the library: methods and tools for project management, collaboration and innovation – Inspire: how the SDGs can change your life – Equity, diversity, inclusion: intersectional issues in libraries – Librarians as evidence intermediaries during times of crisis – Climate Action in libraries: creating a more sustainable future by engaging and inspiring youth – Telling the next chapter: marketing libraries of the future – Infodemic management: strategies for combatting health mis/dis/malinformation – Truth, evidence and memory: Academic Libraries as cultural rights defenders – Information access through cooperation: models from libraries serving persons with print disabilities – European libraries in a time of war: responses to the crisis in Ukraine – Artificial intelligence: new horizons and implications for libraries.”

#06 – Conference | 30.08. – 31.08. | Hannover (Germany)
Organised by: Leibniz University Hannover (LUH) and TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology and University Library
Das erste deutsche Open Science Festival: Meet. Share. Inspire. Care.
“Exchange and impulses on Open Science practices with (inter)national experts – A place to network with other scientists – Practice-based workshops – A marketplace with information on local and international initiatives and services.”

#07 – Conference | 01.09. | Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Organised by: National Program Open Science (hereafter: NPOS)
Netherlands National Open Science Festival: Meet / Share / Inspire / Care
“This year the festival contains two tracks: Track 1: Open Science in Practice (all day) invites active researchers working in the Netherlands. The parallel track 2: Open Science in Policy (afternoon) invites everyone interested in Open Science policy. Join us to learn more about Open Science practices in research and current policy in the Netherlands. Plus, you’ll get to meet researchers in the Netherlands who already work openly or want to get started as well as Open Science policy makers.”

#08 – Conference | 13.09. – 14.09. | Online
Organised by: Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau
14th Wildau Library Symposium: Best of Failure
“Everyone agrees that a culture of innovation requires a willingness to take risks and an error culture. But what specifically can help to live both in practice in everyday library life? Under the working title ‚Best of Failure” (or ‚Failing Beautifully‘, ‚Protypes Create Types‘, ‚FuckUp Night‘), we will first collect together with the participants what can be included in an overview. Then we will work out how acceptance and transparency can find a permanent place for it. The goal is a systematic collection that can be used as a ‘lesson learned’ for project-initiated library work. There should be enough failed ideas/projects/solutions. They are a treasure if one draws the right conclusions from them for similar approaches, whether e.g. in the use of discovery tools, lending operations, QR codes, media acquisition, RFID devices, etc.”

#09 – Conference | 19.09. – 21.09. | Bern (Switzerland)
Organised by: University Library Bern
Open-Access-Tage 2022: Kollaboration
“The developments in the publication system towards more openness lead to an increase in the number of actors, institutions, infrastructures, interests, technologies, professions, etc. involved, who bring their own demands, requirements, interpretations, needs, standards, languages, etc. with them. One of the current challenges for OA is therefore how these actors and interests interact and how they can be included and taken into account. This raises questions such as: Which collaborations are desirable? What positive and negative experiences have we had? How should collaborations be designed in the sense of Open Access and Open Science? Do collaborations change the institutions in which we work? Which collaborations are particularly valuable strategically? Which ones should we strive for? What forms of collaboration exist? The following dimensions of collaboration are particularly important to us at the Open Access Days: Collaboration among people: different languages, assessments, prerequisites, competencies, interests and values – Collaboration between machines: Interoperability, services, infrastructures, exchange of (meta-)data, dashboards – Collaborative structures and mechanisms: different institutions, cultures, processes, goals and requirements.”

#10 – Conference | 19.09. – 23.09. | Berlin (Germany)
Organised by: QURATOR Bündnis
QURATOR 2022 – Third Conference on Digital Curation Technologies
“The Qurator conference provides a forum on the use of digital curation technologies in application domains for, e.g., media, journalism, logistics, cultural heritage, health care and life sciences, energy, industry. Of particular relevance are submissions that demonstrate the applied use of digital curation technologies and tools in domain-specific use cases and that bridge traditional boundaries between disciplines such as Artificial Intelligence and Semantic Web, data analytics and machine learning, information/content and knowledge management systems, information retrieval, knowledge discovery, and computational linguistics.”

#11 – Conference | 20.09. – 22.09. | Online
Organised by: Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA)
OASPA Online Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing 2022
“The 2022 online conference will encourage participants to think Beyond Open Access to equitable open scholarship and science practices and will address many timely and fundamental topics relating to open scholarly communication. These include, and are not limited to: The University Leadership Role in Delivering Equitable Open Access; Connecting Vision to Practice: what needs to happen to ensure recent recommendations are met; Common Good and Open Access; Humanities and Open Scholarship; Indigenous Knowledge; Open Science Knowledge Amongst Researchers; Has open science failed to influence research assessment?; Pathways to Open Access: Values-based publishing models.”

#12 – Conference | 28.09. – 30.0.9 | The Hague (Netherlands) & Online
Organised by: Europeana Foundation
EUROPEANA 2022
“We aim to explore how we can collaboratively build a common data space for cultural heritage and raise voices from across the sector to empower digital transformation and explore the role digital cultural heritage plays in today’s and tomorrow’s world.”

#13 – Workshop | 12.10. – 13.10. | Online
Organised by: Landesinitiative für Forschungsdatenmanagement (fdm.nrw)
Train-the-Trainer Workshop zum Forschungsdatenmanagement
“The two-day workshop is aimed at people who want to teach the basics of research data management in their field of work or at their institution and, based on this, want to set up or expand RDM services for their locations. In addition to didactic approaches, methods and the seminar structure, the following topics will be covered: Research data life cycle – Research data policies – Data management plan – Structuring of data – Documentation – Storage and backup – Long-term archiving – Access security – Publication of research data – Post-use of research data – Legal aspects.”

#14 – Conference | 17.10. – 20.10. | Online
Organised by: Open Education Conference Board of Directors
Open Education Conference 2022: Rise to Action
“The Open Education Conference (‚OpenEd‘) is an annual convening for sharing and learning about Open Educational Resources, Open Pedagogy, and Open Education Initiatives. This dynamic gathering celebrates the core values of Open Education that strive to realise education ecosystems that are accessible, affordable, equitable and inclusive to everyone, regardless of their background. As of 2022, the conference transitioned to leadership by a community-elected board of directors, guided by a strategic vision.”

#15 – Conference | 18.10. – 19.10. | Online
Organised by: Science Europe AISBL
Science Europe Open Science Conference 2022
“At the Open Science conference, we will provide a comprehensive overview of the current policy initiatives, research assessment reforms, and financial measures that support the transition to Open Science, and look forward at new trends. We will also explore the impact of the transition on the daily reality of researchers, their teams, and institutions, and discuss ways to make the transition to Open Science fair and equitable.”

#16 – Conference | 19.10. – 21.10. | Brno (Czech Republic)
Organised by: European Commission; Masaryk University; the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic under the auspices of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union; and CEITEC – Central European Institute of Technology
International Conference on Research Infrastructures (ICRI 2022)
“A major worldwide event providing an opportunity for strategic discussions about international cooperation in research infrastructure. A variety of experts and stakeholders discuss challenges and emerging trends, highlighting the essential role of research infrastructures. Every two years since 2012, ICRI has hosted about 500 delegates, who discuss topics concerning research infrastructures on the international level.”

#17 – Webinar | 25.10. – 26.10. | Online
Organised by: Technology Arts Sciences TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences
Agenda 2030 – Libraries on the Road to Environmental Sustainability
“With the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030 adopted in 2015 and the new edition of the German Sustainability Strategy of the Federal Government, libraries are also called upon to make their contribution to sustainable development. Only recently there have been further clear impulses in the library world (Libraries4Future, Network Green Library). In this seminar, experiences are to be conveyed on how one can contribute to sustainable development in and with libraries. The focus is less on structural aspects and more on what can be influenced practically and in everyday life in libraries: Energy saving, cleaning and maintenance, green IT, services for library users, library administration, the green library office, library strategy and marketing.”

#18 – Conference | 26.10. – 28.10. | Leiden (Netherlands)
Organised by: FAIR Digital Objects Forum
1st International Conference on FAIR Digital Objects: Turning the Internet into a meaningful data space
“We need to act now. We have been living a data revolution for decades now. Every day, peta bytes of information of all kinds are generated and made accessible on the Internet. The amount of data is indeed so massive and varied that it is not feasible for humans to make sense of it using current processes and standards. What to do then? We can keep on creating and publishing information but will we manage it, use it, interpret it and exchange it efficiently? Turning the Internet into a meaningful data space. Successful management, exchange and interpretation of knowledge in an ever-growing information tsunami will depend on highly automated methods dealing with combined data. This will require artificial intelligence but also robust and informative ways to store and disseminate data and metadata. Here is where one crucial concept shows up: FAIR Digital Objects (FDOs).”

#19 – Conference | 03.11. – 04.11. | Online
Organised by: Kiel University of Applied Sciences and Kiel University
TURN Conference 2022: Shaping Change – Teaching and Learning Today, for the Challenges of Tomorrow
“We all know: The world is changing. Fast. In many areas. Students and graduates should be able to tackle and master the challenges of the present and the future and thus actively shape social change. Universities are thus faced with tasks and requirements on a strategic and cultural level as well as on a structural and practical level, which will be discussed at the TURN Conference 2022. In addition to all members of higher education institutions, we also cordially invite social actors and others interested in the topic to participate in Kiel. Participation in the TURN Conference 2022 is free of charge.”

#20 – Conference | 14.11.- 17.11. | Prague (Czech Republic) & Online
Organised by: European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)
EOSC Symposium 2022
“The next EOSC Symposium It will bring updates from across the EOSC ecosystem. It will coincide with the Second EOSC Tripartite Event . Stay tuned for the full programme with exciting speakers and topics.”

#21 – Conference | 29.11. – 01.12. | Tromsø (Norway) & Online
Organised by: The Arctic University of Norway (UiT )
17th Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing 2022
“The Munin Conference is an annual conference on scholarly publishing and communication, primarily revolving around open access, open data and open science. This year the Munin conference has a special focus on interactivity and discussions. Submissions will be published before the conference to allow for a ‚flipped conference‘ format. Participants will have to get acquainted with the content of submissions before the conference, whereas during the conference the focus will be on discussions and other interactive work with the content. (…) The (..) three main topics for this year’s Munin conference: Economics and equity in Open Science infrastructures; Open Science policies; Connecting the building blocks of Open Science.”

#22 – Conference | 07.12. – 08.12. | Online
Organised by: TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology and University Library, Berufsverband Information Bibliothek (BIB) and Leibniz Association
#vBIB22 – Virtual Conference for Digital Library and Information Topics
“We are committed to openness and exchange. Curiously looking beyond one’s own nose enriches and broadens one’s own horizon. That is why we are focusing on digital perspectives with #vBIB22! (…) In 2022, there will again be exciting keynotes on this year’s main themes of change, future and sustainability. Specifically, it will be about futurology and work 4.0 – but more is not yet revealed. The other half of the programme is all yours – the #vBIB community. And we wouldn’t be the #vBIB if we didn’t try something new again this time.”

Events 2023: How to stay up to date!

These were our event tips for the Open Science and library world for 2022. Of course, there will be more exciting conferences, workshops, barcamps and other formats in the course of the year. We will collect these for you in our event calendar on ZBW MediaTalk!

To stay up to date on interesting events, you can drop by there or subscribe to our newsletter. There we will inform you once a week about new highlights on the Open Science and library event horizon.

Missing an event?

Do you have an event tip that is not yet listed in our event calendar? Then we would be pleased if you let us know.

Event Tip

Despite the pandemic-related obstacles, there were already many worthwhile conferences, workshops, festivals, barcamps & co. in the first half of 2022. We have already recommended 22 of them in the first part of this article: Open Science & Libraries 2022: 22 Tips for Conferences, Barcamps & Co.. We have reported on some of them in more detail here on ZBW MediaTalk. So if you are thinking about visiting one of the events we recommended, our review of them will certainly help you in your decision-making:

Further reading tips for event organisers:

Do you organise events yourself and are looking for tips on how to make them even better? We have been dealing with this more frequently lately:

This text has been partly translated from German.

About the Author:

Claudia Sittner studied journalism and languages in Hamburg and London. She was a long time lecturer at the ZBW publication Wirtschaftsdienst – a journal for economic policy, and is now the managing editor of the blog ZBW MediaTalk. She is also a freelance travel blogger (German), speaker and author. She can also be found on LinkedIn, Twitter and Xing.
Portrait: Claudia Sittner©

The post Open Science & Libraries 2022: 22 Tips for Conferences, Barcamps & Co. – Part 2 first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

It’s Good to be Back… But What Happens Now?

Posted on June 21, 2022 by David Smith

Reflections on what’s next for getting together in the real world, in a time of climate change and pandemics.

The post It’s Good to be Back… But What Happens Now? appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.

Why I Keep Hosting Debates: A Personal Reflection

Posted on February 2, 2022 by Rick Anderson

I realized recently that I’ve been organizing formal debates at conferences for some time now. This has led me to reflect on why I do that.

The post Why I Keep Hosting Debates: A Personal Reflection appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.

Open Science & Libraries 2022: 22 Tips for Conferences, Barcamps & Co.

Posted on January 19, 2022 by cdau

by Claudia Sittner

After the coronavirus years 2020 and 2021 were practically a total failure for on-site events and everything actually took place online, a cautious trend towards a return to on-site events can be observed for 2022. Since even the most creative tools and formats have shown: Nothing can replace a face-to-face conversation on site or a chance encounter during a coffee break for networking. Nevertheless, there are still many “online only” events. But new hybrid event formats in particular are on the rise. So is hybrid becoming the new normal?

In our event tips for 2022, you will find all these facets of the new event world: purely digital, hybrid and classic on-site event formats. Below you will find a selection of conferences, workshops, barcamps and other events that you should not miss in 2022. You can also always find more interesting events in the ZBW MediaTalk events calendar.

#1 3rd ESFRI RIs -EOSC Workshop: What does EOSC bring to RI users?
Workshop | 25.01. – 26.01. | Hybrid
“The main objective of the workshop is to bring together ESFRI [European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures], ESFRI RIs [Research Infrastructures] and EOSC [European Open Science Cloud] stakeholders, in order to showcase and better comprehend the EOSC concept, including the Open Science and ‘FAIR’ policy agenda, and the vision for the future, along with the EOSC value proposition for its users, and ensure an optimal federation of clusters and RIs with EOSC.

The event will focus on the current state of EOSC and how the thematic RIs and ESFRI clusters fit into the developing landscape, including the partnership with the newly established EOSC Association. The main focus of the 3rd workshop is on how the RI communities and researchers can use and benefit from EOSC, getting added value. Besides the general benefits of EOSC towards open science and ‘FAIRification’ of data and services, it is considered that the daily use of EOSC Exchange and concrete tools by the RI users for intra and interdisciplinary research will also greatly benefit EOSC, in becoming useful and effective, contributing towards its sustainability.”
Organised by: ESFRI Task Force on EOSC, the EOSC Cluster projects, EOSC Association, EOSC Future and the StR-ESFRI2 Project, in close cooperation with ESFRI and the EC

#2 What Is Web 3.0? The Decentralized Web: An Introduction
Workshop | 27.01. | Online
“What is the decentralized web, why is it important, and where is it along the path of development? How does Web 3 differ from Web 2? How does blockchain and cryptocurrencies fit into the ecosystem? Who are the players working to realize this vision? Why is the Internet Archive, a library, a leader in the decentralized web movement?”
Organised by: Metropolitan New York Library Council

#3 WissKom2022: How do you do it? – Public and academic libraries in dialog (German)
Conference | 21.06. – 23.06. | Jülich (Germany)
“Academic and public libraries mostly operate in separate world[s], but they have more in common than is apparent at first glance. Many libraries face the same challenges. Some have successfully addressed them, while others can only sing a song about the hurdles. What do academic libraries and public libraries have in common? What distinguishes them in their paths and goals for the future? How and what can libraries learn from each other? From the perspective of both types of libraries, current topics will be presented and discussed at WissKom2022. The contributions are to follow the ‘lessons learned’ idea and thus stimulate an exchange about the presentation of one’s own activities and their feedback. How can libraries work together and for each other? You can expect experience values and success models among the topics: digital strategy; Open Access; sustainability; Open Space in libraries; user groups; information and advice.”
Organised by: Cental Library of the Forschungszentrum Jülich and the Cental Library of the Public Library Düsseldorf
Hashtag: #WissKom2022

#4 Paris Open Science European Conference (OSEC)
Conference | 04.02.22 – 05.02.22 | Paris (France) & Online
“One of the main topics addressed during this conference will be the transformation of the research and innovation ecosystem in Europe, as well as issues of transparency in health research, the necessary transformation of research evaluations, the future of scientific publishing, and the opening of codes and software produced in a scientific context.”
Organised by: Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, the French Academy of Sciences, the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS),the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm), the High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (Hcéres), the University of Lorraine and the University of Nantes

#5 Open Science Retreat: Dialogue on Openness, Transparency and Science Communication in the Digital Age
Workshop | 15.02.22 – 16.02.22 | Online
“Only together can we successfully change the way we work scientifically. Only together can we advance Open Science. WE does not mean scientists only. WE incorporates scientists, science communicators, data stewards, librarians, publishers, editors, and other stakeholders involved in Open Science developments. With the Open Science Retreat, the ZBW wants to bring together international Open Science supporters from different stakeholder groups. For two afternoons in a row, the aim is to dive deep into the topics that are of burning interest to all of us.”
Organised by: ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics
Hashtag: #OpenScienceRetreat

#6 2022 Unconference on Open Scholarship Practices in Education Research
Conference | 24.02.22 – 25.02.22 | Online
“We will analysing the current state of open scholarship practice and interactive hackathons seeking solutions to identified problems. Participants will assess barriers to adoption of open scholarship practices unique to the education community and brainstorm strategies for promoting greater awareness.”
Organised by: Center for Open Science – Charlottesville, Virginia

#7 Open Data Day 2022
Conference | 24.02.22 – 25.02.22 | Online
“Open Data Day is an annual celebration of open data all over the world. Groups from around the world create local events on the day where they will use open data in their communities. It is an opportunity to show the benefits of open data and encourage the adoption of open data policies in government, business and civil society. All outputs are open for everyone to use and re-use.

The focus this year is on five priority areas on which Open Data has a positive impact: environmental data, tracking public money flows, open mapping, data for equal development, ocean data for a thriving planet.”
Organised by: Open Knowledge Foundation

#8 Barcamp Open Science 2022
Barcamp | 07.03.22 | Online
“The Barcamp Open Science is a barcamp dedicated to the Open Science movement. It is open to everybody interested in discussing, learning more about, and sharing experiences on practices in Open Science. We would like to invite researchers and practitioners from various backgrounds to contribute their experience and ideas to the discussion. The barcamp will bring together both novices and experts and its open format supports lively discussions, interesting presentations, development of new ideas, and knowledge exchange. Though, previous knowledge on Open Science is not mandatory. The barcamp is open to all topics around Open Science that the participants like to discuss.”
Organised by: Leibniz Research Alliance Open Science
Hashtag: #oscibar

#9 Open Science Conference 2022
Conference | 08.03.22 – 10.03.22 | Online
“The conference offers insights into both practical and technical innovations that serve the implementation of open practices as well as current and pioneering developments in the global Open Science movement. Such developments are, for example, the increasing plea for open practices as lessons learned from global crises as well as recent discussions on the relation of Open Science and knowledge equity. Furthermore, the conference offers many opportunities for networking and exchange.

The annual conference is dedicated to the Open Science movement and provides a unique forum for researchers, librarians, practitioners, infrastructure providers, policy makers, and other important stakeholders to discuss the latest and future developments in Open Science.”
Organised by: Leibniz Research Alliance Open Science
Hashtag: #osc2022

#10 Open Access Barcamp 2022
Barcamp | April 2022 | Online
“The Open Access Barcamp offers the community the chance to exchange ideas, network and learn from each other. The barcamp format is designed to be more open than a classic conference and deliberately does not use a pre-determined programme. Instead, the participants can suggest topics and hold sessions on issues of their choice. All topics related to Open Access are welcome.”
Organised by: Communication, Information, Media Centre (KIM) of the University of Konstanz as part of the open-access.network project

#11 2022 Library Publishing Forum
Pre-conference in the week of 16 May 2022 (days to be determined, probably one to two afternoons) | Online
“We are committed to expanding the diversity of perspectives we hear from at the Library Publishing Forum. Working towards some of the “Continuing Initiatives” from the LPC Roadmap for Anti-Racist Practice, this year we ask all proposals to explicitly address how they are inclusive of multiple perspectives, address DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion], or incorporate anti-racist and anti-oppressive approaches.

The Library Publishing Forum is an annual conference bringing together representatives from libraries engaged in or considering publishing initiatives to define and address major questions and challenges; to identify and document collaborative opportunities; and to strengthen and promote this community of practice. The Forum includes representatives from a broad, international spectrum of academic library backgrounds, as well as groups that collaborate with libraries to publish scholarly works, including publishing vendors, university presses, and scholars.”
Organised by: Library Publishing Coalition (LPC)

#12 International Conference on Economics and Business Information- INCONECSS
Conference | 17.05.22 – 19.05.22 | Online
“This conference wants to address issues relating to economics and business information. Main topics: Research Data, Reshaping of skills and structures, Research support, Open Access. The main target groups are librarians and other information specialists supporting researchers in Economics and Business Studies.

The uniqueness of the conference lies in its international scope in combination with the focus on Economics and Business Studies: bringing together best practices from different countries, establishing a platform for stimulating discussion, exchanging opinions, helping participants to improve and enhance their local services.”
Organised by: ZBW – Leibniz Informationszentrum für Wirtschaft
Hashtag: #INCONECSS

#13 Open Education Global Conference
Conference | 23.05.22 – 25.05.22 | Nantes (France)
“Specialised sessions will address unique approaches to OER such as the best way to implement OER in Russia, or Z-degrees at community colleges in California and also provide practical advice on things like OER diversity and accessibility. Thematic sessions highly relevant to the future of open education will also be held. We will specifically encourage sessions linked with the usage of technology for open education including linguistic tools, artificial intelligence, repository management, and blockchain. Sessions will be tied to UNESCO OER Recommendation action areas.

The Congress in Nantes will host learning labs to provide opportunities to acquire skills and knowledge associated with successfully implementing an open education initiative. Learning labs will address a wide range of topics such as advocating for OER, creating OER content, open licensing, policy for OER, open practices associated with disseminating, using, and sharing OER, open pedagogy, etc. Learning labs will be tied to UNESCO OER Recommendation action areas.”
Organised by: Open Education Global und Université de Nantes

#14 8. Library Congress Leipzig 2022: #FreiräumeSchaffen (German)
Conference | 31.05.22. – 02.06.22 | Leipzig (Germany) online
“Our motto #FreiräumeSchaffen (this means: create free spaces) connects the digital with the analogue space. The pandemic experience has shown how important such a connection is. How we want to fill the free space of libraries has to be explored again and again: in stock management, in digital services, in our learning and event offers and not least in the way we lead the library company into the future. So far, we have succeeded in striking a balance between digital services, analogue knowledge repository and genuine meeting place. The concrete ‘what we want’ is constantly changing. That is what ‘free spaces’ stand for. The idea of a free, equal society remains. That is what libraries stand for. So #FreiräumeSchaffen is also an appeal to the innovative power of our sector. The 8th Library Congress is also the 110th German Librarians’ Day.”
Organised by: Library and Information in Germany (BID) – Federal Union of German Library Associations
Hashtag: #FreiräumeSchaffen

#15 6th annual international User Experience in Libraries conference (UXLIBS VI): UX and Organisational Culture
Conference | 06.06.22 – 08.06.22 | Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (Great Britain)
“User experience (UX) research techniques are wonderfully accessible and offer us unparalleled access to the worlds of our users. In turn, UX design offers us an established process to follow to take the resulting research insights gathered, transforming them into action through prototyping and iteration. BUT absolutely none of the above matters if your organisation is not ready for, or not interested in, UX. […] If you don’t have the support and understanding of your colleagues and senior management all your UX hopes and dreams will come to nought. Some institutions are simply not interested in centring their services and activities around user needs and behaviours, while others just don’t realise yet that this is what UX research and design is all about. Doing UX is one thing, but getting it embedded and accepted, and the opportunities understood is quite another! If you don’t address the culture issue, like the Big Bad Wolf, it will come and gobble you up.At UXLibsVI we want to offer talks and presentations that speak to this challenge, which explore how the threat of organisational culture and closed traditional mindsets and approaches can be tackled head on.”
Organised by: UX in Libraries

#16 IASSIST 2022: Data by Design: Building a Sustainable Data Culture
Conference | 07.06.22 – 10.06.22 | Gothenburg (Sweden)
“The conference theme, ’Data by Design: Building a Sustainable Data Culture’, emphasizes two core values embedded in the culture of Gothenburg and Sweden: design and sustainability. We invite you to explore these topics further and discuss what they could mean to data communities. As a member of IASSIST, you are already part of at least one data community. Your other data communities may be across departments, within organizations, or among groups in different countries. How are these groups helping design a culture of practices around data that will persist across organizations and over time?”
Organised by: Swedish National Data Service (SND)

#17 re:publica 2022: “Any Way the Wind blows” (German)
Conference | 08.06. – 10.06. | Berlin
“All further information on the event will follow shortly on the republica channels.”
Organised by: republica GmbH
Hashtag: #rp22

#18 Open Science Retreat: Dialogue on openness, transparency and science communication in the digital age
Workshop | 14.06. – 15.06. | Online
“Only together can we successfully change the way we work scientifically. Only together can we advance Open Science. WE does not mean scientists only. WE incorporates scientists, science communicators, data stewards, librarians, publishers, editors, and other stakeholders involved in Open Science developments. With the Open Science Retreat, the ZBW wants to bring together international Open Science supporters from different stakeholder groups. For two afternoons in a row, the aim is to dive deep into the topics that are of burning interest to all of us.”
Organised by: ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics
Hashtag: #OpenScienceRetreat

#19 LIBER Annual Conference 2022
Conference | 06.07. – 08.07. | Odense (Denmark)
“LIBER 2022 Annual Conference Theme: Libraries in the Research and Innovation Landscape — Supporting, Partnering, Leading. The upcoming LIBER 2022 Annual Conference will address the following topics: Libraries as research institutions; Citizen science and research communication; Partnering with other organisations and the private sector; Community building for researchers; Research libraries as publishers; Role of research libraries in bibliometrics; Special collections in research libraries.”
Organised by: LIBER, University Library of Southern Denmark / Syddansk University Library
Hashtag: #LIBER2022

#20 EuroScience Open Forum 2022: Crossing the borders, engaged science, resilient society
Conference | 13.07. – 16.07. | Leiden (Netherlands)
“The main objective of ESOF2022 is to strengthen the trust in the various ways society is influenced by science and, on the other hand, how science is influenced by choices, dilemmas and responsibilities that arise in society. ESOF2022 will be about the creation of a sense of urgency in scientists, policy makers, media, and the general public to deliberate more actively on science. ESOF2022 in Leiden will reinforce the societal dimension of European research-recognizing that citizen engagement is intrinsic to the support of science and to appreciate the benefits of science for the economy and quality of life.

ESOF2022 conference with the theme “Crossing the borders, engaged science, resilient society” is embedded in a 365-day programme of Leiden European City of Science where we will celebrate arts, science, and technology, targeted to reach out to the general public and truly connect science with society.”
Organised by: Leiden University, the Municipality of Leiden, Leiden University of Applied Sciences, and the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC)
Hashtag: #ESOF2022

#21 87th IFLA World Library and Information Congress: Inspire, Engage, Enable, Connect
Conference | 26.07. – 29.07. | Dublin (Ireland)
“In conjunction with the Irish National Committee, IFLA will be […] publishing more information as the Congress plans develop.”
Organised by: International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)

#22 Open Access Days 2022: Kollaboration (German)
Conference | 19.09. – 21.09. | Bern (Switzerland)
“The Open Access Days are the major annual conference on Open Access and Open Science in the German-speaking world. The 2022 motto of the Open Access Days is Collaboration.” The Open Access Days are aimed at all those who would like to get to grips with the many facets of scientific publishing, for example, employees of libraries and other institutions of the science infrastructure and of publishing houses; but also scientists and members of the science administration.”
Organised by: University Library of Bern
Hashtag: #OAT22

This text has been translated from German.

Events 2022: How to stay up to date

These are our event tips for the Open Science and library universe for 2022. Of course, there will be more exciting conferences, workshops, barcamps and other formats in the course of the year. We collect them for you in our events calendar on ZBW MediaTalk!

To keep up to date with interesting events, you can either drop by there or subscribe to our newsletter, in which we will regularly inform you about new highlights on the Open Science and library event horizon: sign up for the ZBW MediaTalk newsletter.

Is an event missing? Do you have an event tip that is not yet listed in our events calendar? Then we would be happy if you would let us know.

Decision-making aids for event attendance: highlights 2021

Despite the second year of the Corona pandemic, there were many conferences, workshops, barcamps & co. worth visiting in 2021. We wrote about some of them in ZBW MediaTalk. So if you are thinking about attending one of the events we recommend, our review will certainly help you make your decision:

For Event Organisers

Do you organise events yourself and are looking for tips on how to make them even better? We have been dealing with this more frequently lately:

About the author:

The post Open Science & Libraries 2022: 22 Tips for Conferences, Barcamps & Co. first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

The Charleston Conference — Trailblazing the Return to In-Person Events

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe

Interview with Leah Hinds, ExecDir of Charleston Hub, reflecting on preparations for holding the Charleston Conference in-person as well as virtual. @chsconf @lisalibrarian

The post The Charleston Conference — Trailblazing the Return to In-Person Events appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.

Open Science & Libraries 2021: 20 Tips for Conferences, Barcamps & Co.

Posted on January 13, 2021 by Claudia Sittner

by Claudia Sittner

After the Corona Year 2020 threw the event industry off track worldwide, event organisers have adapted to the “new normal” in 2021 and developed new digital formats. The advantage: the event world has become smaller. Events that used to take place out of reach in Sydney or Bangkok can now often be attended conveniently from the home office.

Many organisers have also used the year to rethink their event prices, reduce fees or eliminate them altogether – which is entirely in the spirit of the Open Science idea. That is why it was not difficult for us to put together a list of conferences, workshops, barcamps and other events that you should not miss in 2021.

JANUARY 2021

Open Science Barcamp
14.01.21, Online-Event
“A session in the series leading up to the Netherlands National Open Science Festival on February 11th 2021.”
Organised by: National Platform Open Science Netherlands

Webinar Serie: German-Dutch dialogue on the future of libraries: Sustainability and libraries – agenda 2030
18.01.21, Online-Event
“Libraries are not only sustainable institutions per se, but they also make an intensive contribution to raising awareness of the need for a sustainable society. To this end they provide information, organize projects and support sustainable engagement. Why libraries in the Netherlands and in Germany play an important social role here, how they can contribute to this and what examples are available will be presented and discussed. How the international library associations like IFLA and EBLIDA support this global challenge will also be a topic in this online-seminar.”
Organised by: Erasmus University Library Rotterdam

ALA Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits
22.01.21 – 26.01.21, Online-Event
“Symposium on the Future of Libraries, offering sessions on future trends to inspire innovation in libraries, “News You Can Use” with updates that highlight new research, innovations, and advances in libraries.”
Organised by: American Library Association

PIDapalooza 2021: The Open Festival of Persistent Identifiers
27.01.21, Online-Event
“Festival of persistent identifiers. Sessions around the broad theme of PIDs and Open Research Infrastructure.”
Organised by: CDL, Crossref, DataCite, NISO and ORCID

FEBRUARY 2021

Education for Data Science
07.02.21 – 09.02.21, Jerusalem (Israel)
“How Data Science should be taught in academic institutions and what kind of training and retraining can help support the need for new professionals in the data science ecosystem.”
Organised by: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, CODATA

Fake News: Impact on Society 4/4
08.02.21, Online-Event
“This event offers research into the concept of fake news and its impact in modern society:
Strengthening information literacy in the time of COVID-19: the role and contributions of the National Library of Singapore. News analytics in LIS Education and Practice.”
Organised by: News Media, Digital Humanities, FAIFE, and CLM

Open Science Festival
11.02.21, Online-Event
“Open Science stands for the transition to a new, more open and participatory way of conducting, publishing and evaluating scholarly research. Central to this concept is the goal of increasing cooperation and transparency in all research stages. The National Open Science Festival provides researchers the opportunity to learn about the benefits of various Open Science practices. It is a place to meet peers that are already working openly or that are interested to start doing so. Key to this day is sharing knowledge and best practices.”
Organised by: NPOS project Accelerate Open Science

Barcamp Open Science 2021
16.02.21, Online-Event
“Discussing and learning more about, and sharing experiences on practices in Open Science.”
Organised by: Leibniz Research Alliance Open Science

Open Science Conference 2021
17.02.21 – 19.02.21, Online-Event
“This conference will especially focus on the effects and impact of (global) crises and associated societal challenges, such as the Corona pandemic or the climate change, to open research practices and science communication in the context of the digitisation of science. And vice versa, how open practices help to cope with crises. Overall, the conference addresses topics around Open Science such as: Effects and impact of current crises on open research practices and science communication – Learnings from crises to sustainably ensure the opening of science in the future – Innovations to support Open Science practices and their application and acceptance in scientific communities – Scientific benefit of Open Science practices and their impact in society such as coping with crises – Open Science education and science communication to different target groups in the broad public.”
Organised by: Leibniz Research Alliance Open Science

MARCH 2021

3. Workshop Retrodigitalisierung: „OCR – Prozesse und Entwicklungen“
01.03.21, Online-Event
“Digitalisierung bietet neue Erschließungsmöglichkeiten, auch und vor allem durch gute Texterkennungsprogramme. Die Optical Character Recognition (OCR) ist ein Werkzeug, von dessen Qualität die Durchsuchbarkeit von Texten maßgeblich beeinflusst wird. Der Workshop befasst sich daher mit Prozessen und Entwicklungen in der OCR – einem wichtigen Bestandteil aller Digitalisierungsprojekte.”
Organised by: ZB MED, TIB, ZBW and Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz

Open Data Day 2021
06.03.21, Online-Event
“Open Data Day is an annual celebration of open data all over the world. Groups from around the world create local events on the day where they will use open data in their communities. It is an opportunity to show the benefits of open data and encourage the adoption of open data policies in government, business and civil society.”
Organised by: Open Knowledge Foundation

2. Bibliothekspolitischer Bundeskongress: Bibliotheken im digitalen Wandel: Orte der Partizipation und des gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalts
26.03.21, Online-Event
“Bibliotheken im digitalen Wandel: Orte der Partizipation und des gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalts“ – miteinander über bibliothekspolitische Fragen ins Gespräch zu kommen.”
Organised by: German Library Association (dbv)

APRIL 2021

Webinar Serie: German-Dutch dialogue on the future of libraries: Central services for public libraries
12.04.21, Online-Event
“The national library (KB) in the Netherlands offers central digital services to public libraries and to patrons as well. How these services were initiated in the past and how the situation is currently will be presented and compared with the situation in Germany. Because of the political system and the cultural sovereignty of the federal states, the support of smaller public libraries in Germany is not centralized, but so called “Fachstellen” in various federal states offer services to their libraries. This system, its tasks and services are presented – decentralised or centralised support for public libraries – what are the advantages and disadvantages? And what effects will the pandemic have to these services in the future? How will the idea of the third place be connected with the need to offer mobile services for the library users during and after corona?”
Organised by: Erasmus University Library Rotterdam

MAY 2021

IASSIST 2021: Data by Design – Building a Sustainable Data Culture
May, Online-Event
“The conference theme, “Data by Design: Building a Sustainable Data Culture”, emphasizes two core values embedded in the culture of Gothenburg and Sweden: design and sustainability. We invite you to explore these topics further, and discuss what they could mean to data communities. As a member of IASSIST, you are already part of at least one data community. Your other data communities may be across departments, within organizations, or among groups in different countries. How are these groups helping design a culture of practices around data that will persist across organizations and over time?”
Organised by: Swedish National Data Service (SND)

Library Publishing Virtual Forum
10.05.21 – 14.05.21 Online-Event
“This is an annual conference bringing together representatives from libraries engaged in (or considering) publishing initiatives to define and address major questions and challenges; to identify and document collaborative opportunities; and to strengthen and promote this community of practice.”
Organised by: Library Publishing Coalition (LPC)

JUNE 2021

Deutscher Bibliothekarstag: forward to far
15.06.21 – 18.06.21, Bremen (Germany)
“Alternative room concepts, Inventory management, Library management, Library education, Blended Library Concepts, Community building, Digitale editions, Digitization of the teaching, Discovery and eBooks, Electronic Resource Management – and much more.”
Organised by: The Association of German Librarians (VDB – Verein Deutscher Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare) and Berufsverband Information Bibliothek e.V. (BIB)

IASSIST 2021/CESSDA: Data by Design – Building a Sustainable Data Culture
30.06.21 – 02.07.21, Gothenburg (Sweden)
“The conference theme, “Data by Design: Building a Sustainable Data Culture”, emphasizes two core values embedded in the culture of Gothenburg and Sweden: design and sustainability. We invite you to explore these topics further, and discuss what they could mean to data communities. As a member of IASSIST, you are already part of at least one data community. Your other data communities may be across departments, within organizations, or among groups in different countries. How are these groups helping design a culture of practices around data that will persist across organizations and over time?”
Organised by: Swedish National Data Service (SND)

JULY 2021

ICOSRP 2021: International Conference on Open Science Research Philosophy
19.07.21 – 20.07.21, Helsinki (Finland)
“All aspects of Open Science Research Philosophy.”
Organised by: International Research Conference

SEPTEMBER 2021

OA-Tage 2021
27.09.21 – 29.09.21 Bern (Switzerland)
“Open Access und Open Science.”
Organised by: open-access.network

OCTOBER 2021

FORCE2021
18.10.21 – 20.10.21 San Sebastián (Spain)
“At a FORCE11 annual conference stakeholders come together for an open discussion, on an even playing field, to talk about changing the ways scholarly and scientific information is communicated, shared and used. Researchers, publishers, librarians, computer scientists, informaticians, funders, educators, citizens, and others attend the FORCE11 meeting with a view to supporting the realization of promising new ideas and identifying new potential collaborators.”
Organised by: Force11

Events 2021: How to stay up to date

These are our event tips for the Open Science and library world for 2021. Of course, there will be more exciting conferences, workshops, barcamps and other formats in the course of the year. We will collect them for you in our event calendar on ZBW MediaTalk! To keep up to date with interesting events, you can either check there from time to time or subscribe to our newsletter, in which we will regularly inform you about new highlights on the Open Science and library event horizon: sign up for the ZBW MediaTalk newsletter.

Is an event missing?

Do you have an event tip that is not yet listed in our event calendar? Then we would be happy if you would let us know.

Decision-making aids for event attendance: highlights 2020

Despite Corona, there were many conferences, workshops, barcamps & co. worth visiting in 2020. We wrote about some of them in ZBW MediaTalk. So if you are thinking about attending one of the events we recommend, our review will certainly help you make your decision:

This text has been translated from German.

The post Open Science & Libraries 2021: 20 Tips for Conferences, Barcamps & Co. first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.The post Open Science & Libraries 2021: 20 Tips for Conferences, Barcamps & Co. first appeared on Leibniz Research Alliance Open Science.

Conference-ing in a Virtual World

Posted on August 13, 2020 by plos

This blog was written by Nancy Beam, Senior Editor, PLOS ONE

AIDS 2020: Virtual, the 23rd International AIDS Conference hosted by the International AIDS Society, may portend the future of international conferences regardless of when the COVID-19 pandemic is brought under control. AIDS 2020 was originally planned to take place in San Francisco and Oakland, California from July 6-10. This two-city format, itself a revolutionary innovation, was meant to highlight the health disparities and innovative responses to HIV/AIDS of these two iconic cities. The organizers then switched to a completely virtual format in late March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The virtual conference provided many advantages. The conference registration fees were greatly reduced. Travel, lodging, and poster-printing costs were eliminated. Travel hassles and jetlag did not decrease attendees’ ability to focus. Although the International AIDS Conference has always provided a platform for people living with HIV, community organizers, providers, and researchers to contribute, this conference seemed particularly suited to weaving different perspectives together. For example, Prime Sessions combined presentations by scientific experts on a topic with talks by community advocates about their work and lived experiences. Up-to-date findings were easily integrated into the conference program, and a free COVID-19 conference was added to the AIDS 2020 conference only two months before it was scheduled to begin.

Conversely, I missed the excitement of travel, meeting new people, and the atmosphere of exhilaration created by being in the same room with a large group of people. I missed running into old colleagues from the HIV/AIDS community and serendipitous conversations struck up while waiting in line or for presentations to start, or while gathered around a poster. While there were public chat forums meant to encourage these types of conversations, I didn’t find any substantive conversations going on there. Finally, I opted out of browsing through the exhibitions. Without the smell of fresh popcorn, the lure of free lattes, and the possibility of stocking up on the ubiquitous free pens, so beloved at last year’s conference, I didn’t wander through the exhibit booths on my way to somewhere else. I saw pop-up invites to talks and gatherings at booths, so I may have missed out on some engagement opportunities. Even at a virtual conference, there is still too much to do

Predictably, technical problems occurred and while travel barriers were eased, internet access remained a barrier for some participants especially for those who could not access their offices. In addition, because they weren’t traveling, some attendees reported that they were expected to continue working, making it difficult to attend sessions. While conference sessions will be available online for a month after the conference, the expectation that participants continue adding webinar viewing to their workday is a heavy burden. My expectation was that virtual attendance would increase the diversity of attendance as travel and cost barriers were decreased, but without seeing the data, I am not able to judge whether this occurred, or if work and internet access presented too great a barrier. I look forward to hearing what IAS reports about the impact on diversity.

I personally found the tech support to be quick and helpful. However, some website features were surprisingly unsophisticated. For example, the search function only allowed searching for one keyword at a time. So, searching for posters with the keyword “transgender” was quite specific, but “drug delivery systems” produced far too many false positives. Also, searches couldn’t be saved, so after viewing one poster or presentation on a topic, the search had to be rerun. I would have also liked to have been able to click on links in the conference program to go directly to sessions rather than having to navigate to sessions through a separate listings.

As with working remotely, having learned from this forced experiment the pros and cons of a virtual conference, the conferences of the future are likely to be different, and better, than before. A blend or virtual and in-person participation will make for a richer, more diverse, more accessible experience for all.

The post Conference-ing in a Virtual World appeared first on EveryONE.

Physical forces at the interface with biology and chemistry: a conversation with Kerstin Blank and Matthew Harrington

Posted on February 5, 2020 by Carla Pegoraro

Cell behaviour, tissue formation/regulation, physiology and disease are all influenced by cellular mechanics and physical forces. The field of mechanobiology has for a long time striven to fully understand how these forces affect biological

Physical forces at the interface with biology and chemistry: a conversation with Kerstin Blank and Matthew Harrington

Posted on February 5, 2020 by Carla Pegoraro

Cell behaviour, tissue formation/regulation, physiology and disease are all influenced by cellular mechanics and physical forces. The field of mechanobiology has for a long time striven to fully understand how these forces affect biological and cellular processes, as well as developing new analytical techniques. At the same time, the properties of advanced smart materials, such as self-healing, self-reporting and responsive polymers, have been determined by a complex interplay between the thermodynamics, kinetics and mechanics of dynamic bonding strategies. These are tightly connected to the field of mechanochemistry, which aims to elucidate and harness molecular level design principles and translate these to the bulk material level as emergent properties. At this interface between disciplines lies an emerging and exciting research area that has been strongly facilitated by the collaboration of physicists, chemists, engineers, materials scientists, and biologists.

We had the pleasure of speaking to Kerstin Blank and Matthew Harrington, who have been working on how mechanical forces influence biological systems, molecules and responsive biomaterials, about their views of the field and the recent ‘Multiscale Mechanochemistry and Mechanobiology’ conference of which PLOS ONE was one of the proud sponsors.

How did you first become interested in this topic?

Kerstin: When I started in this field in 2000, I was mostly impressed by the technical possibilities. I was working with Hermann Gaub, one of the leaders in single-molecule force spectroscopy. I found it fascinating that we could stretch a single biological molecule and observe its response. I did ask myself sometimes if this was just something that physicists like to play with or if one could solve biomedically relevant questions with this approach. Now, almost 20 years later, it has become very evident that a large number of biological systems are regulated by mechanical forces in many different ways.

Matt: My educational background was primarily in biology and biochemistry, but I became fascinated with the capacity of certain biological materials to exhibit self-healing responses in the absence of living cells. I reasoned that this must arise from specific chemical and physical design principles in the material building blocks themselves, and I became obsessed with figuring out how this works. This led me to the self-healing materials community, which was largely populated with chemists and materials engineers, but not so many biologists. When I began to see that many of the same principles at play in synthetic self-healing materials were present in nature, and that in some cases nature was going well beyond the state of the art in synthetic self-healing materials, I realized the enormous potential at the interface of mechanobiology and mechanochemistry. I haven’t looked back since.

Which areas are you most excited about?

Kerstin: I find it very intriguing how cells utilize mechanical information from their environment and then feed it into intracellular biochemical signalling cascades. Understanding these mechanosensing and mechanotransduction processes requires knowledge of the cellular players and their interactions. But to develop the complete picture, we also need to investigate how cells interact with their extracellular environment. This also involves understanding the microscopic and macroscopic mechanical properties of the extracellular environment. I am highly excited about the development of molecular force sensors that convert mechanical force into a fluorescent signal. This allows for the localized detection of cell traction forces and, in the future, will also enable us to visualize force propagation inside materials that mimic the natural extracellular matrix.

Matt: I am currently most excited about understanding how and why nature uses different transient interactions to control the fabrication and viscoelastic mechanical responses of biopolymeric materials and the potential this has for the development of sustainable advanced polymers of the future. Recent discoveries in the field clearly show that in contrast to traditional polymers, living organisms commonly use specific supramolecular interactions based on dynamic bonds (e.g. hydrogen bonding, metal coordination or pi-cation interactions) to guide the self-assembly and mechanical properties of protein-based materials. The thermodynamic and kinetic properties of these labile bonds enable a certain dynamicity and responsiveness in these building blocks that provides potential inspiration for environmentally friendly materials processing and active/tuneable material properties. These concepts are already being adapted in a number of exciting bio-inspired polymers.

What progress has the field made in the last years?

Kerstin: It is now well-established that cells are able to sense and respond to the elastic and viscoelastic properties of the material they grow in. We have also learned a lot about how the mechanical signal is converted into biochemical signalling on the intracellular side. This is a direct result of many new technological developments, including the molecular force sensors described above. It is further a result of the increasing development of extracellular matrix mimics with well-defined and tuneable mechanical properties and microstructures.

Matt: Due to recent technological advances it is becoming possible to link specific aspects of mechanical material responses directly to structural features at multiple length scales. The better we understand these structure-property relationships, the better we can optimize the material response. This provides an intimate feedback loop that has enabled major breakthroughs in the fields of active matter, including self-healing and self-reporting polymers.

What is the real-world impact?

Kerstin: It is widely accepted that mechanical information plays a key role in stem cell differentiation. It has further been shown that mutated cells, e.g. in cancer or cardiovascular diseases, have different mechanical properties and show alterations in processing mechanical information. Understanding the origin of these changes and being able to interfere with them will have direct impact in disease diagnostics and treatment. Engineering materials with molecularly controlled structures and mechanical properties will further enable the community to direct stem cell differentiation in a more defined manner for applications in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Matt: Aside from biomedical impacts, the insights gained from understanding the structure-function relationships defining the mechanical response of molecules are also extremely relevant for the development and sustainable fabrication of next generation advanced polymers. Given the global threat of petroleum-based plastics processing and disposal, this is an extremely important aspect of the research in this field.

What are the challenges and future developments of the field?

Kerstin: At this moment, we usually try to relate the macroscopic material properties (measured in the lab) with the microscopic environment that cells sense. In my view, we are missing a key piece of information. We need to understand how the macroscopic properties of a material emerge from its molecular composition, topography and hierarchical structure. In combination, all these parameters determine the mechanical properties of a material and, more importantly, what the cells ‘see’. In fact, this is not only key for the development of new extracellular matrix mimics. The same questions need to be answered for understanding how nature assembles a wide range of structural and functional materials with outstanding properties, such as spider silk, cellulose composites and nacre. Here, I see a great potential for future collaboration between disciplines.

Matt: There are enormous challenges on the bio-inspiration side of the field involved with transferring design principles extracted from biological materials into synthetic systems. Biology is inherently complex, so there is a common tendency to distil the extracted concept to a single functional group or concept, while often there are collective effects that are lost by this more reductionist approach. On the biological side, a key challenge is ascertaining which are the relevant design principles. On the bio-inspired side, there are challenges in finding appropriate synthetic analogues to mimic the chemical and structural complexity of the natural system. Overcoming this barrier requires cross-disciplinary communication and feedback and is an extremely exciting and active area in our field.

Why and when did you decide to organize a conference on this topic?

Kerstin & Matt: While both working at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, we quickly realized that the cell biophysics, biomaterials, mechanochemistry and soft matter communities are all interested in very similar questions while using similar methods and theoretical models; however, we had the impression that they hardly interact with each other. We thought of ways to change this and organizing a conference was clearly one way to do it. The first conference with the topic ‘Multiscale Mechanochemistry and Mechanobiology: from molecular mechanisms to smart materials’ took place in Berlin in 2017. When bringing this idea forward in our respective communities, we immediately realized that we hit a nerve. Now that the conference has taken place for the second time in Montreal in 2019, we really got the feeling that we are starting to create a community around this topic. There will be another follow up conference from August 23-25, 2021 in Berlin (@mcb2021Berlin).

What are the most interesting and representative papers published in PLOS ONE in this field?

Kerstin: The paper ‘Monodisperse measurement of the biotin-streptavidin interaction strength in a well-defined pulling geometry’, published by Sedlak et al., is a highly interesting contribution to the field of single-molecule force spectroscopy, which was also presented at the conference. This work highlights the methodological developments in single-molecule force spectroscopy since its very early days. The authors from the Gaub lab have re-measured the well-known streptavidin-biotin interaction, now with a very high level of control over the molecular setup. It clearly shows how far the field has come and also that protein engineering, bioconjugation chemistry, instrumentation development and data analysis all need to go hand in hand to obtain clear and unambiguous experimental results. Clearly, considering a defined molecular setup is not only crucial for this kind of measurement but also for the development of biomimetic materials with controlled mechanical properties.

Sedlak SM, Bauer MS, Kluger C, Schendel LC, Milles LF, Pippig DA, et al. (2017) Monodisperse measurement of the biotin-streptavidin interaction strength in a well-defined pulling geometry. PLoS ONE 12(12): e0188722, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188722

Matt: Accurately detecting and measuring the mechanical forces at play inside living cells is one of the key challenges in the field of mechanobiology, given the small size and dynamic nature of the intracellular environment. However, this information is extremely important for understanding the role of mechanics in regulating cellular functions such as growth, differentiation and proliferation, as well as disease states. In the ‘Nuclei deformation reveals pressure distributions in 3D cell clusters’ paper from the Ehrlicher group, the authors address this challenge by using fluorescently labelled proteins in the cell nucleus coupled with confocal microscopy to measure compressive pressures within cells and cell clusters. Using this methodology, they explored the effect of cell number and shape of multicellular clusters on the internal compressive pressure within cells, providing potentially important insights for cellular signalling and function. These studies have potential applications in both in vitro and in vivo models, and provide a relatively simple methodology for acquiring intracellular mechanical data.

Khavari A, Ehrlicher AJ (2019) Nuclei deformation reveals pressure distributions in 3D cell clusters. PLoS ONE 14(9): e0221753, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221753

Other PLOS ONE representative papers:

Huth S, Sindt S, Selhuber-Unkel C (2019) Automated analysis of soft hydrogel microindentation: Impact of various indentation parameters on the measurement of Young’s modulus. PLoS ONE 14(8): e0220281, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220281
Taufalele PV, VanderBurgh JA, Muñoz A, Zanotelli MR, Reinhart-King CA (2019) Fiber alignment drives changes in architectural and mechanical features in collagen matrices. PLoS ONE 14(5): e0216537. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216537
Wheelwright M, Win Z, Mikkila JL, Amen KY, Alford PW, Metzger JM (2018) Investigation of human iPSC-derived cardiac myocyte functional maturation by single cell traction force microscopy. PLoS ONE 13(4): e0194909. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0194909
Opell BD, Clouse ME, Andrews SF (2018) Elastic modulus and toughness of orb spider glycoprotein glue. PLoS ONE 13(5): e0196972. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196972
Yalak G, Shiu J-Y, Schoen I, Mitsi M, Vogel V (2019) Phosphorylated fibronectin enhances cell attachment and upregulates mechanical cell functions. PLoS ONE 14(7): e0218893. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218893

Kerstin Blank studied Biotechnology at the University of Applied Sciences in Jena and obtained her PhD in Biophysics under the supervision of Prof Hermann Gaub at Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich. After two postdocs at the Université de Strasbourg and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, she became an Assistant Professor at Radboud University in Nijmegen in 2009. In 2014, she moved to the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces where she holds the position of a Max Planck Research Group Leader. Her research interests combine biochemistry and single molecule biophysics with the goal of developing molecular force sensors for biological and materials science applications.

Matthew J. Harrington is Canada Research Chair in Green Chemistry and assistant professor in Chemistry at McGill University since 2017. He received his PhD in the lab of J. Herbert Waite from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Afterwards, he was a Humboldt postdoctoral fellow and then research group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in the Department of Biomaterials. His research interests are focused on understanding biochemical structure-function relationships and fabrication processes of biopolymeric materials and translating extracted design principles for production of sustainable, advanced materials.

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ESCAIDE 2019 – A Smörgåsbord of Infectious Disease Epidemiology

Posted on January 21, 2020 by Artur A

ESCAIDE 2019 [Credit: ECDC] (The title is an homage to the host country of the conference – Sweden – where the smörgåsbord is a buffet-style meal served on a large table. In English, the term has also adopted a

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Physical forces at the interface with biology and chemistry: a conversation with Kerstin Blank and Matthew Harrington

Physical forces at the interface with biology and chemistry: a conversation with Kerstin Blank and Matthew Harrington

ESCAIDE 2019 – A Smörgåsbord of Infectious Disease Epidemiology