Monthly Archives: February 2017

Open Science Prize announces epidemic tracking tool as grand prize winner | National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Posted on by

“A prototype online platform that uses real-time visualization and viral genome data to track the spread of global pathogens such as Zika and Ebola is the grand prize winner of the Open Science Prize

(link is external). The international team competition is an initiative by the National Institutes of Health, in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). The winning team, Real-time Evolutionary Tracking for Pathogen Surveillance and Epidemiological Investigation(link is external), created its nextstrain.org(link is external)prototype to pool data from researchers across the globe, perform rapid phylogenetic analysis, and post the results on the platform’s website. The winning team will receive $230,000 to fully develop their prototype with NIH awarding $115,000 to the U.S. members of the winning team, and the Wellcome Trust and HHMI also contributing $115,000 to the winning team.”

Predatory Publishing as a Rational Response to Poorly Governed Academic Incentives – The Scholarly Kitchen

Posted on by

“So when we think of predatory publishing, we can’t just think of authors as the victims. In some cases, it is clear that they are willing conspirators. The real victims are the OA movement (which gets unfairly tarnished by the poor practices of these publishers), honest researchers (as legitimate research is seen as less trustworthy due to the flood of unreviewed and questionable material masquerading as the real thing), and the general public (whose confidence in science is undermined).”

Here’s another article uncritically repeating a common cluster of false assumptions

Posted on by

The article:

https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/355205

The false assumptions: 

“1. Assumption: All or most OA journals charge author-side fees.

False: 70% of peer-reviewed OA journals charge no author-side fees. About 50% of articles published in OA journals are published in the no-fee variety.

http://bit.ly/oa-book#p170

2. Assumption: All or most subscription journals avoid charging author-side fees.

False: 75% of subscription journals do charge author-side fees, not as APCs but as page and color charges.

My number is from a 2005 ALPSP study. I’d gladly update it, but I haven’t seen more recent data.

http://www.alpsp.org/write/MediaUploads/FAOAoverviewREV.pdf

3. Assumption: Fee-based journals don’t erect editorial firewalls to protect against corruption. (Among other things, an editorial firewall insures that peer-review editors don’t know whether a given author would pay a fee or receive a fee waiver.)

Hasty: Some do and some don’t erect editorial firewalls. Unfortunately,  I don’t think anyone has published data on the ratio.

4. Assumption: If the possibility of fee-based corruption casts suspicion on the integrity of fee-based journals, then it would cast suspicion on more OA journals than non-OA journals.

False: On the contrary, if we assume no editorial firewalls at fee-based journals, then this business model would cast suspicion on 75% of non-OA journals and only 30% of OA journals (or 50% of OA journal articles)….”

Open Data Privacy

Posted on by

“Cities today collect and store a wide range of data that may contain sensitive or identifiable information about residents. As cities embrace open data initiatives, more of this information is available to the public. While releasing data has many important benefits, sharing data comes with inherent risks to individual privacy: released data can reveal information about individuals that would otherwise not be public knowledge. In recent years, open data such as taxi trips, voter registration files, and police records have revealed information that many believe should not be released.

Effective data governance is a prerequisite for successful open data programs. The goal of this document is to codify responsible privacy-protective approaches and processes that could be adopted by cities and other government organizations that are publicly releasing data. Our report is organized around four recommendations:

  • Conduct risk-benefit analyses to inform the design and implementation of open data programs.
  • Consider privacy at each stage of the data lifecycle: collect, maintain, release, delete.
  • Develop operational structures and processes that codify privacy management widely throughout the City.
  • Emphasize public engagement and public priorities as essential aspects of data management programs.

Each chapter of this report is dedicated to one of these four recommendations, and provides fundamental context along with specific suggestions to carry them out. In particular, we provide case studies of best practices from numerous cities and a set of forms and tactics for cities to implement our recommendations. The Appendix synthesizes key elements of the report into an Open Data Privacy Toolkit that cities can use to manage privacy when releasing data….”

Acta Mathematica

Posted on by

“Acta Mathematica will be produced and distributed in print and online exclusively by International Press, beginning with volume 218 (2017).

Also, by arrangement with the Institut Mittag-Leffler, International Press now provides fully open online access to the entire content of Acta Mathematica — from its first issue of 1882 to the most recent.”

Conducting scientific research outside traditional settings – timesofmalta.com

Posted on by

“While the rise of crowd-funded science projects, open-access science initiatives and open-access publications make the scientific environment friendlier for citizen scientists, many traditional scientific practices remain out of reach for those without sufficient funds or institutional support – for example, studies involving human participants. Community-supported checks and balances remain essential for scientific projects, but perhaps they too can become unbound from traditional academic settings.”

OER supporting environment: Open Access, Open Data and Open Government policies – 2nd World OER Congress

Posted on by

“The aim of this workshop is to discuss various regulatory aspects that are critically affecting the adoption and use of OER and open learning. This includes in particularly generic policies and government approaches to open access, open data and open government.”

USDA APHIS | Updates to APHIS’ Website Involving Animal Welfare Act Compliance Information

Posted on by

After previously taking down an OA database on cruelty animals, and after triggering public protests, the USDA put the database back up. 

“Today, APHIS is posting the first batch of annual reports of research institutions and inspection reports for certain Federal research facilities that the Agency regulates under the Animal Welfare Act.  The reports posted are part of a comprehensive review of the documents the Agency removed from its website in early February and are in the same redacted form as before.

To conduct the review, the entire agency search tool database was taken off line….

The reposted information can be found on our website, here….”

Medical Researchers Want Up To Five Years Exclusivity For Clinical Trial Data Derived From Volunteers | Techdirt

Posted on by

“A year ago, we wrote about how TPP’s requirement for “data exclusivity” risked undermining one of science’s fundamental principles: that facts cannot be owned. Data exclusivity is just the latest attempt by Big Pharma to extend its monopoly over drugs, whether using patents or other means. To a certain extent, you might expect that: after all, companies are designed to maximize profits, and if it means more people suffer or die along the way, well, that’s regrettable but sort of beside the point. However, it’s surprising to see a group of medical researchers writing in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) calling for just the same kind of data exclusivity. The post is in response to an earlier NEJM article by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), entitled “Sharing Clinical Trial Data”….”

Mysterious medical research consortium: we should own volunteers’ clinical trial data for 5 years / Boing Boing

Posted on by

“The “International Consortium of Investigators for Fairness in Trial Data Sharing” — a group that appears to have just been formed, backed by 282 researcher in 33 countries — has objected to a plan to limit exclusivity over clinical trial data derived from medical volunteers, insisting instead that the fair thing to do is to lock up this uncopyrightable, factual data for up to five years….”

Peer Review Has Its Shortcomings, But AI Is a Risky Fix | WIRED

Posted on by

“Imagine for a moment that publishers…embrace AI in peer review. AI performance will increase precisely where human editors today invest most of their time: choosing reviewers and judging whether to publish a manuscript. I don’t see why learning algorithms couldn’t manage the entire review from submission to decision by drawing on publishers’ databases of reviewer profiles, analyzing past streams of comments by reviewers and editors, and recognizing the patterns of change in a manuscript from submission to final editorial decision. What’s more, disconnecting humans from peer review would ease the tension between the academics who want open access and the commercial publishers who are resisting it….”

Are Textbook Prices Too High? – The Lions’ Pride

Posted on by

“With the rising costs of textbooks, many college students are finding it increasingly difficult to purchase the ones that are required for all of their classes each semester. This undoubtedly has the potential to severely impact their performance in class, as their grades may greatly suffer. Similarly, many people are discouraged about earning a higher education because they not only have to think about tuition, but they also have to consider the soaring costs of textbooks they have to pay each semester.

A report posted by the United States Public Interest Group in February of 2016 stated that, ‘Over the last decade, the price of college textbooks has soared. Since 2006, the cost of a college textbook increased by 73% – over four times the rate of inflation. Today, individual textbooks often cost over $200, sometimes as high as $400.’

The report also went on to say that, ‘Nearly 5.2 million U.S. undergraduate students spend a total of $1.5 billion dollars of financial aid on textbooks every semester, or $3 billion per year.’

From these statistics, it is evident that textbook costs have been on the rise and are progressively getting higher. But if this is so, how are students expected to purchase textbooks throughout their entire college career?

Here on campus, a few students shared how they managed to afford their textbooks this semester.”