[open-science] Why are we leaving it to Google?

Mon Sep 10 16:20:11 UTC 2018

Well, there's value in having people funded to think about those things
independently on medium and long term. That's why https://doaj.org exists.
It probably provides a better search experience in some ways and worse in
other ways/contexts. Either way the org behind it is very useful and the
people on the editorial team have gathered quite a lot of interesting
knowledge that orgs like SCOSS and SPARC, foundations, funders etc. then
make use of. Google eng wouldn't think of the problems in the same way as
the open science people involved in the open* mailing lists and DOAJ.

Greetings,
Emanuil

On 10 September 2018 at 15:52, Thomas Krichel <krichel at openlib.org> wrote:

>   Peter Kraker writes
>
> > As you may have heard, Google is building a search engine for datasets
> > (https://www.blog.google/products/search/making-it-
> easier-discover-datasets/).
> > This means yet another proprietary index on top of our own data that
> > nobody can reuse - and another inferior list-based interface that will
> > be pushed onto scientists by Google's sheer market dominance.
>
>   Inferior to what?
>
> > At the same time, there is no funding for a community-driven open source
> > alternative. We should not leave the field to Google, or science will be
> > poorer for it!
>
>   I agree but if there is the choice between building a second
>   interface to search when there is already one funded by Google, and
>   efforts to build actually open datasets, I think it's better to
>   concentrate on the latter. I am convinced that are ways to build
>   specific engines using aggregation of certain types of datasets that
>   leave us with plenty of opportunities at a level of fine
>   granualarity that Google will not reach.
>
> > We finally need to invest in a true open science
> > contender for research data discovery. This would bring meaningful
> > competition to this space and drive innovation.
> >
> > This is why we have launched the #DontLeaveItToGoogle campaign. I
> > encourage you to add your own voice to the discussion using this
> > hashtag.
>
>   Why leave the campaign to Twitter? ;-)
>
>   And why crosspost to opencon-discussion-list at googlegroups.com? It's
>   a group I can't seem to be able to join without having a Google id.
>   I refuse to get that. I emailed the moderator but got no reply.
>
>   So I am no friend of Google's but I don't think trying to beat them
>   at the search game is a good idea. There is more to life that
>   search.
>
> --
>
>   Cheers,
>
>   Thomas Krichel                  http://openlib.org/home/krichel
>                                               skype:thomaskrichel
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