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Open Science – the future for research?

As part of JISC’s ‘Research 3.0 – driving the knowledge economy’ activity which launches at the end of November, a new Open Science report released today trails key research trends that could have far-reaching implications for science, universities and UK society.

The report written by Dr. Liz Lyon, Director of UKOLN at the University of Bath and Associate Director of the Digital Curation Centre, identifies open-ness, predictive science based on massive data volumes and citizen involvement as being important features of tomorrow’s research practice.

It is hoped that this document will stimulate and contribute to community discussion in the UK, which is ranked second in the world for its output of quality research, but also fuel the open science debate on the global stage.

As part of JISC’s data management programme JISC is discussing with UK research funders and libraries on how best to build on recent initiatives, such as the HEFCE-funded UK Research Data Service feasibility study, so as to address the considerable challenges outlined in the Open Science report.

Neil Jacobs, programme manager at JISC, says, “There are important changes in the way science exploits the potential of digital technologies. We are not saying that the these trends go together - they may conflict - but what we are looking to find out is to what extent they are happening now and what researchers, librarians and others think their impact will be in the future.

“Where there is widespread access to the web, digital cameras and computers, then citizens can become active participants in science, for example collecting data on natural phenomena on a massive scale. While this has happened so far in isolated projects, the potential is now for a more general shift in public participation in science,” added Neil.

The Open Science report looks at how technologies can support the open movement to share data, workflows, methods and research outputs. It also illustrates the vital role librarians could have in supporting these new trends and the recognised need to build relationships between researchers and librarians to support the research of the future.

Read the Open Science report at:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/opensciencerpt.aspx

Take part in the Open Science discussions and share your views at the ‘Research 3.0 – driving the knowledge economy’ blog
http://res3.jiscinvolve.org

5th International Digital Curation Conference

"Moving to Multi-Scale Science: Managing Complexity and Diversity" | 2-4 December 2009

The IDCC is an established annual event reaching out to individuals, organisations and institutions across all disciplines and domains involved in curating data for e-science and e-research. The DCC will be hosting a workshop programme on 2 December followed by a Pre-Conference Drinks Reception at the Natural History Museum. The main conference will open on 3 December with a keynote speech from Professor Douglas Kell, Chief Executive of the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Other key speakers will include: Professor Ed Seidal, National Science Foundation; Cliff Lynch, Coalition for Networked Information; Timo Hannay, Nature Publishing Group. The first day of the conference will incorporate an interactive afternoon for posters and demos, followed by a Symposium entitled "Citizen Science: Data Challenges" led by Richard Cable, BBC Lab UK. The second day will be made up of peer-reviewed papers in themed sessions covering Disciplinary and Institutional Challenges, Practitioner Experience, Metadata, Software Preservation &Managing Risk. Places are limited so please register now. Registration to close on 20 November 2009

UKOLN Blogs

A number of staff at UKOLN make use of blogs to support their dissemination and user engagement activities, either as part of UKOLN's core activities or to support project work.

Recently launched: UKOLN DevCSI

Latest issue of the IJDC

UKOLN has just published on behalf of the Digital Curation Centre issue 2 of Volume 4 of the International Journal of Digital Curation. In addition to 8 research papers and 6 general articles, the issue also contains an exchange of letters to the Editor on the topic of archival authenticity of digital objects.

Two papers feature data on the environment. One lays more emphasis on arrangements for data stewardship while the other is written from the viewpoint of a distant archive, reporting on experiences in managing a "small" Research Data Archive. The other looks at elements of sustainability in distributed approaches that are cooperatively maintained by small cultural memory organizations. A further paper reports on work developing and establishing a well thought-out preservation repository dedicated to a state archive.

Two others address metadata and semantics. One is from the perspective of document authors, particularly of those whose documents may be moved between the two most widely used word-processing systems, Microsoft Office and OpenOffice. The other deals with compound document objects.

Two further papers are loosely related through standards, though from different standpoints. One describes XAM, a standard API for storing fixed content; while from the more general end, the other provides an overview of continuing efforts to develop standards frameworks that might be useful for those thinking of preservation and curation in the context of community participation.

JISC SIS Landscape Study Blog

JISC is funding a small study to provide a snapshot of the way the UK academic sector is using Web 2.0 tools and services in their work. Although JISC has developed a number of services (e.g. JORUM, JISCmail) specifically for use within the UK HE sector, people within the sector are increasingly using services developed outside the sector, either in addition to - or in some cases instead of - JISC-provided services. And as well as using such services, people are also engaging in 'mashups' where combinations of services and content are used to provide new services or to provide added value to data already held.
We will be using several approaches to collect evidence, including the JISC SIS Landscape Study Blog. To get your feedback, we have included in the blog a series of pages, each looking at a different task that Web 2.0 services enable you to do; please add your comments to the various individual pages.