open science
clock | June 25, 2007A few days ago, Nature launched its newest Web 2.0 baby, the Nature Precedings.
It is very interesting to see the initial responses, questions and possible misunderstandings of the new site, so browse through these posts and attached comments by Pedro Beltrao, Timo Hannay, Peter Suber (and again), Kaitlin Thaney, Jean-Claude Bradley, Guru, Egon Willighagen, Deepak Singh, ChemSpy, Putting Down A Marker, Maxine Clarke, Bryan Vickery, Clarence Fisher, David Weinberger, AJC, Euan Edie, Tim O'Reilly, Dean Giustini, Peta Hopkins, Eric, mrees, Sally Wyman, Michael Jubb, Alex Palazzo, Marie, Corie…
clock | June 20, 2007The 2006 Thomson Scientific Journal Citation Reports were released today. Mark Patterson reports on the PLoS journals, three of which have made it to the list for the first time, as they are too new, so their ratings are based on just a portion of the time:
The 2006 impact factors have just been released by Thompson ISI. The first two PLoS journals continue to perform very well: 14.1 for PLoS Biology (14.7 in 2006); 13.8 for PLoS Medicine (8.4 in 2006). The PLoS community-run journals also received their first impact factors: 4.9 for PLoS Computational Biology; 7.7 for PLoS Genetics; and 6.0…
clock | June 20, 2007After 10 years of fighting for open source, net neutrality, free information and open education, Lawrence Lessig has decided to change his career and to seriously attack the problem of corruption in the U.S. politics. It's not going to be easy, but having Lessig on our side in this battle is a great assett. Read his explanation (though you know I disagree with him on Obama and corruption) as it is very telling and well-written.
Hat-tip: Danica (where you can also see the movie of Lessig giving a speech in which he made the announcement).
clock | June 19, 2007On the heels of this post, I was informed of another Web2.0 site for scientists that just launched - SciTalks collects talks and lectures by scientists on a variety of topics. There are already many clips available on the site, which you can rate, or add some from your own collection. You can find out more about the site here and at the site's blog.
clock | June 17, 2007I think I have a profile on Friendster - I don't know, I haven't checked since 2003. I have bare-bones profiles on MySpace, LinkedIn and Change.Org and I will get an e-mail if you "friend" me (and will friend you back), but I do not have time to spend on there. I refuse to even look at all the other social networking sites like Twitter - there are only so many hours in the day.
But I am interested in possible ways of making science communication more interactive and more Webby 2.0, beyond just blogs. Pedro, Carl and Phillip have recently written thoughtful posts about this topic as well.…
clock | June 6, 2007Yesterday, PLoS-ONE celebrated the publication of the 500th paper (and additional 13). Here are some quick stats:
1,411 submissions
513 published paper
360 member editorial board and growing
19 day average acceptance to publication
600+ post publication comments posted
I am assuming that the remaining 898 manuscripts are in various stages of the publication process: rejected, in review, in revision, or in the pipeline to appear on the site any day now.
The very first paper was published on December 20, 2006. The 500th paper is this one "Climate Change Cannot Explain the Upsurge of Tick-…
clock | June 5, 2007As explained by Jean-Claude Bradley in this excellent interview: The Pursuit of Automation: Open Notebook Science:
The difference between Bradley's idea and traditional open source projects is the clutter, i.e., all of the data collected from research. In a journal article, what the reader receives is a set of findings, published after peer review, along with the conclusions and basic data used to reach them. Bradley's project allows the reader to see the process unfold, from hypothesis to conclusion, with all data, experiments and notes that are collected along the way. This inclusiveness…
clock | June 5, 2007Social Science and Humanities bloggers have been doing it for quite a while, but natural scientists have largely been very reluctant to do this. Now, with approval of his PI, Attila Csordas will start posting parts of his Dissertation on his blog. Stem cell research - mmmm, nice! Sure, the actual data may never appear there, but this is a big move forward anyway.
Most useful is the view of Nature that he reprints on his blog on what actually constitutes 'previously published' work, i.e., what not to do if you want to have the paper published in their journal. I'd really like to see…
clock | June 4, 2007Graduate of the University of Belgrade (Serbia), City University (UK) and UNC-Chapel Hill (USA), with a Masters from University of Belgrade, Danica Radovanovic is currently in Belgrade without a job and she is looking for one either in Serbia, in Western/Northern Europe or in the USA.
Danica is the tireless Serbian pioneer in all things online: blogging, open source, Linux, science blogging, open science, social networking software, online publishing, eZine editing, etc. She is the force behind putting Serbian science online and making it open. She has done research on Internet use in…
clock | May 24, 2007Yes. I said I wanted this job. And, in a very new and interesting way, after a fun interview, I got it. Signed and faxed the contract yesterday. Will be in San Francisco for a little while in July, then telecommute afterwards. Can pajamas be deducted as tools one needs for the job? Exciting!
clock | May 23, 2007In three easy steps, hopefully made obsolete by a completely Open Science a few years down the road....but surely useful for now.
clock | May 16, 2007When I teach BIO101 I usually give at least one assignment that entails finding a biology-related article, writing a short summary of it and explaining the gist of it to the rest of the class. We did that this Monday and the students picked, as usual, some interesting topics (including some that take us way outside of the scope of the course, e.g., game theory and Evolutionarily Stable Strategies). The sources, as usual, are popular science magazines like American Scientist (the last one that is still of high quality, I'm afraid to say), Scientific American, Discover, Natural History, etc.…