Category Archives: oa.nutrition

Opening scientific knowledge to debunk myths and lies in human nutrition | SpringerLink

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“However, if OA papers are free of charge and easily available online to everyone, their readability is overly complicated for a wider public due to the usage of both general scientific and technical jargon in writing academic studies [8, 9]. In recent years, following the so-called “Third Mission” (TM), universities and other institutions have started to disseminate scientific results in formats more suitable for the general public….”

Open Food Facts – United States

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“Open Food Facts is a database of food products with ingredients, allergens, nutrition facts and all the tidbits of information we can find on product labels.

Open Food Facts is a non-profit association of volunteers.

15000+ contributors like you have added 1 000 000+ products from 150 countries using our Android,iPhone or Windows Phone app or their camera to scan barcodes and upload pictures of products and their labels….

Data about food is of public interest and has to be open. The complete database is published as open data and can be reused by anyone and for any use. Check-out the cool reuses or make your own!…”

Improving Zimbabwe’s capacities to effectively use open data on malnutrition

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“The need to provide better access to timely and accurate data for policy makers, farmers and the private sector to inform agriculture and nutrition interventions and activities, has been widely acknowledged as part of the solution to ending malnutrition.

It is with this in mind that the Zimbabwe Evidence Informed Policy Network, with support from the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN), implemented a 2-day workshop on open data for nutrition and agriculture. Held on 11-12 March 2019 in Harare, Zimbabwe, the objective of the workshop was to develop the skills and knowledge of agriculture and nutrition stakeholders to understand what open data is, the value and benefits of open data, and the intellectual and copyright issues around it….”

Improving Zimbabwe’s capacities to effectively use open data on malnutrition

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“The need to provide better access to timely and accurate data for policy makers, farmers and the private sector to inform agriculture and nutrition interventions and activities, has been widely acknowledged as part of the solution to ending malnutrition.

It is with this in mind that the Zimbabwe Evidence Informed Policy Network, with support from the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN), implemented a 2-day workshop on open data for nutrition and agriculture. Held on 11-12 March 2019 in Harare, Zimbabwe, the objective of the workshop was to develop the skills and knowledge of agriculture and nutrition stakeholders to understand what open data is, the value and benefits of open data, and the intellectual and copyright issues around it….”

André Laperrière: Executive Director at Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition – Geographical

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“GODAN is a knowledge broker, facilitating the flow of data knowledge in relation to anything that has to do with agriculture on a worldwide basis. We focus on parts of the world that have the greatest potential for agriculture, bearing in the mind the 2050 horizon where in light of climate change and demographics there’s likely to be a global nutrition challenge. So our mission is to address that. We believe that knowledge, open-source data and innovation is the way to work on these challenges….”

 

Kenya seeks to set up open data in agriculture, nutrition – Xinhua | English.news.cn

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“Kenyan researchers have formed a team to spearhead establishment of open data to generate information and services for smallholder farmers in agriculture and nutrition.

“Open data will provide advice and warning to farmers to enable them take precautions and avoid making unnecessary losses,” said Joseph Mureithi, deputy director general in charge of livestock at Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), during the launch of the team in Nairobi on Wednesday.

Mureithi noted that making data more open, easily available and accessible accelerates innovation and generates economic and social benefits….”

African countries to combat food crisis with open data

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“The Global Open Data for Agriculture & Nutrition (GODAN) initiative together with the Government of Kenya and 15 African Ministers including from South Africa, Congo, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Ghana, have agreed to a declaration for comprehensive open data collaboration in the nutrition and agriculture sectors, to combat the global food security crisis. The declaration is historic in that it presents the first time a ministerial level network, focusing on open data for agriculture and nutrition, has been formed. Coincidentally the Conference takes place in Africa, the continent with the largest untapped agriculture potential, proving a major milestone towards achieving global food security worldwide. …”

A Study on Fats That Doesn’t Fit the Story Line – The New York Times

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“There was a lot of news this week about a study, published in the medical journal BMJ, that looked at how diet affects heart health. The results were unexpected because they challenged the conventional thinking on saturated fats.And the data were very old, from the late 1960s and early 1970s.This has led many to wonder why they weren’t published previously….It’s hard enough to debate the data we can see. Knowing there’s probably data out there that people haven’t shared makes everything much, much harder.”

GODAN | Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition

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“GODAN supports the proactive sharing of open data to make information about agriculture and nutrition available, accessible and usable to deal with the urgent challenge of ensuring world food security.  It is a rapidly growing group, currently with over 240 partners from national governments, non-governmental, international and private sector organisations that have committed to a joint Statement of Purpose.

The initiative focuses on building high-level support  among governments, policymakers, international organizations and business.  GODAN promotes collaboration to harness the growing volume of data generated by new technologies to solve long-standing problems and to benefit farmers and the health of consumers. We encourage collaboration and cooperation between stakeholders in the sector….”

FASTR to be Considered by Senate Committee | SPARC

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“After a month of intense conversations and negotiations, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) will bring the ‘Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR) Act’ up for mark-up on Wednesday, July 29th. The language that will be considered is an amended version of FASTR, officially known as the ‘Johnson-Carper Substitute Amendment,’  which was officially filed by the HSGAC leadership late on Friday afternoon, per committee rules. There are two major changes from the original bill language to be particularly aware of. Specifically, the amendment Replaces the six month embargo period with ‘no later than 12 months, but preferably sooner’ as anticipated; and Provides a mechanism for stakeholders to petition federal agencies to ‘adjust’ the embargo period if the12 months does not serve ‘the public, industries, and the scientific community.’ We understand that these modifications were made in order accomplish a number of things: Satisfy the requirement of a number of Members of HSGAC that the language more closely track that of the OSTP Directive; Meet the preference of the major U.S. higher education associations for a maximum 12 month embargo; Ensure that, for the first time, a number of scientific societies will drop their opposition for the bill; and  Ensure that any petition process an agency may enable is focused on serving the interests of the public and the scientific community …”

Impact of Social Sciences – Rather than narrow our definition of impact, we should use metrics to explore richness and diversity of outcomes.

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“Impact is multi-dimensional, the routes by which impact occur are different across disciplines and sectors, and impact changes over time. Jane Tinkler argues that if institutions like HEFCE specify a narrow set of impact metrics, more harm than good would come to universities forced to limit their understanding of how research is making a difference. But qualitative and quantitative indicators continue to be an incredible source of learning for how impact works in each of our disciplines, locations or sectors.”

Wellcome Trust Launches Guide for Publishing Open Access Monographs and Book Chapters – OASPA

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“Open access for monographs and book chapters is a relatively new area of publishing, and there are many ways of approaching it.   With this in mind, a recent publication from the Wellcome Trust aims to provide some guidance for publishers to consider when developing policies and processes for open access books. The Wellcome Trust recognises that implementation around publishing monographs and book chapters open access is in flux, and invites publishers to email Cecy Marden at c.marden@wellcome.ac.uk with any suggestions for further guidance that would be useful to include in this document. ‘Open Access Monographs and Book Chapters: A practical guide for publishers’ is available to download as a pdf from the Wellcome Trust website.”

Library support in the transition to open access: membership cancellations | Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir les savoirs communs

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“The purpose of this post is to shed some light on a specific issue in the transition to open access that particularly affects small and low-cost publishers and to suggest one strategy to address this issue. In the words of one Resource Requirements interviewee: ‘So the other set of members that we used to have about forty library members , but when we went to open access online, we lost the whole bunch of libraries. Yeah, so basically we sent everybody ,you know, a letter saying we are going to open access online, the annual membership is only $30, we hope you will continue to support us even though there are no longer print journals, and then a whole flu of cancellations came in from a whole bunch of libraries, which we had kind of thought might happen but given how cheap we are, I have to say I was really disappointed when it indeed did happen especially from whole bunch of [deleted] libraries [for which our journal is extremely relevant]. I was going, seriously $30?’ Comments: for a university library, a society membership fee, when not required for journal subscriptions, may be difficult to justify from an accounting perspective. $30 is a small cost; however, for a university the administrative work of tracking such memberships and cutting a check every year likely exceeds the $30 cost. With 40 library members at a cost of $30, the total revenue for this journal from this source was $1,200. A university or university library could sponsor this amount at less than the cost of many an article processing charge. The university and library where the faculty member is located have a support program for open access journals; clearly the will, and some funding, is there. One of the challenges is transitioning subscription dollars to support for open access, as I address in my 2013 First Monday article. Following is one suggestion for libraries, or for faculty to suggest to their libraries: why not engage your faculty who are independent or society publishers to gain support for cancellations or tough negotiations and lower prices for the big deals of large, highly profitable commercial publishers that I argue are critical to redirect funding to our own publishing activities? Here is one scenario that may help to explain the potential …”