[open-science] Open Science Microformats/Pattern languages? was Re: Launch of the Panton Principles for Open Data in Science + Is It Open Data?

Tue Feb 23 20:18:15 UTC 2010

Speculative question: what would a microformat, or family of
microformats for open science look like? What pattern language(s)--to
borrow from Christopher Alexander--is(are) in play here?

Jack

On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 12:12 PM, Jessy Cowan-sharp
<jessy.cowansharp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Apologies for the belated reply. Some thoughts:
> As someone passionate about this but new to the community and its inner
> workings, only after reading John's post about why this is significant did I
> really get a better sense of, well why this is significant. I appreciate now
> that the two big players in this space are essentially agreeing to some
> common ground, which is necessary for moving forward. Hooray!
> As a scientists, if I work with a data set, I'll look at this and say,
> great, yes, I agree-- and then move on. The real question is how to make
> this actionable. For example, can we provide a microformat of some kind for
> data sets? Something that includes a wrapper for links to data with license
> info? But then that separates the license info from the data, which is
> suboptimal. That said, software licenses are simply distributed "with"
> software, and not necessarily "inside" it. So, perhaps that's acceptable.
> Could something like a code snippet/microformat use a webhook (web callback)
> that calls back to a site such as CKAN or infochimps and registers it in
> their database? This would not prevent scientists from hosting their data
> wherever else they want, but would provide a similar function to arxiv.org
> (and an equally important mirroring function, which I assume/gather CKAN
> already does?). And one could say that regardless of where else it is
> hosted, if it's in these data registries, then that suffices to meet the
> criteria. This would also make it super easy for scientists to participate.
> I'm sure there's many other, probably better, ways to do it, this is just
> one thought. And of course we need the concrete ideas before implementation
> of those ideas can occur, so definitely agreed this is a great start! Thanks
> for humouring the n00b, and apologies if this has all been covered before.
> Are there interests/plans for going further into the "operationalization"
> realm?
> Jessy
>
> On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Daniel Mietchen
> <daniel.mietchen at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Thank you, Peter and Cameron. Next step then would be some framework
>> for when and if data should be made available.
>> Anyone working on this?
>> Daniel
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 4:22 PM, Cameron Neylon
>> <cameron.neylon at stfc.ac.uk> wrote:
>> > I would add slightly to this. The point of the PP was for it to apply
>> > after
>> > the decision to publish the data has been made. We completely sidestep
>> > the
>> > issue of when it should be published. As Peter says, privacy is an issue
>> > with the decision to publish, not any decision about how that data is
>> > made
>> > available. Note that the PP makes no comment at all as to when, or even
>> > if,
>> > data should be published.
>> >
>> > The issue of the definition of data is a fair one, but it is essentially
>> > impossible to define in a way that will capture all the different
>> > definitions that people want. We can count angels till the cows come
>> > home,
>> > or we could rely on legal definitions (which would be inconsistent). I’m
>> > pretty happy with “I know it when I see it”. This is not supposed to be
>> > a
>> > legal code, this is supposed to be statement of principle.
>> >
>> > Cheers
>> >
>> > Cameron
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 20/02/2010 12:15, "Peter Murray-Rust" <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>> >
>> > Daniel,
>> > This is an extremely valid point. My understanding is that it best
>> > covered
>> > by "community norms". At present I see the situation as:
>> > * any data which is "Open Data" is necessarily publicly visible so there
>> > is
>> > no additional release of information.
>> > * it is therefore important for an author to unedrstand the community
>> > norms
>> > relating to the release of this information
>> > * data in public view are tecnically crawable and analysable by bots. It
>> > is
>> > true that some bot-owners may be dissauaded by the current lack of
>> > clarity
>> > on rights and hold back from indexing this. However it is likley that
>> > this
>> > is already repeatedly crawled by large search engines (some of which
>> > currently crawl private information as well).
>> >
>> > So I don't see that Open Data per se gives any less privacy. Of course
>> > if a
>> > community or author applies Open Data to material that is normally
>> > regarded
>> > as private this is a problem. But that breach of privacy is not really
>> > dependent on Open Data - but a poorly thought out publication policy.
>> >
>> > On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Daniel Mietchen
>> > <daniel.mietchen at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > After posting on the principles in some mailing lists, I got replies
>> > from the social sciences/ humanities/ medical corner in which concerns
>> > were raised about the lack of definition of "data" in the principles,
>> > and about a possible lack of applicability to their fields,
>> > essentially because of privacy concerns for subjects/ patients.
>> > Perhaps you can address these points when you talk about the subject?
>> >
>> > Thanks!
>> >
>> > Daniel
>> >
>> > On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:59 PM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk>
>> > wrote:
>> >> I've now met Lisa - we've had lunch with Lee (also copied). The good
>> >> news
>> >> is
>> >> that there will probably be 2 recordings of this - one routed through
>> >> MS
>> >> and
>> >> UWash and the other an independent video stream by an enthusiast (whose
>> >> name
>> >> I'll post when I have it). I think this is a seminal meeting from which
>> >> both
>> >> SC and OKF take considerable credit and I'm hoping we can get it widely
>> >> reported ...  I bounced this off Lisa at lunch. Anyone with friendly
>> >> science
>> >> journalists is welcome to let them know.
>> >>
>> >> Cameron and I will divvy up the Panton material - I will also show
>> >> IsItOpen
>> >> but don't have time to make any requests during the talk. However I had
>> >> earlier tried it out on a friendly publisher and got a positive reply.
>> >>
>> >> There'll be a good physical attendence. I haven't asked but I assume it
>> >> will
>> >> be tweeted
>> >>
>> >> P.
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Peter Murray-Rust
>> >> Reader in Molecular Informatics
>> >> Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
>> >> University of Cambridge
>> >> CB2 1EW, UK
>> >> +44-1223-763069
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> open-science mailing list
>> >> open-science at lists.okfn.org
>> >> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-science
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > http://www.google.com/profiles/daniel.mietchen
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Scanned by iCritical.
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> http://www.google.com/profiles/daniel.mietchen
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> open-science mailing list
>> open-science at lists.okfn.org
>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-science
>
>
>
> --
> Jessy Cowan-Sharp
> p: http://jessykate.com
> w: http://nebula.nasa.gov
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> open-science mailing list
> open-science at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-science
>
>