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

Tue Sep 11 13:46:48 UTC 2018

Hi Naomi,

I do agree that many of the building blocks are already in place. But what researchers are eventually looking for is an interface where they can discover all of the datasets in the dataverse. 

However, a list-based search alone will never be sufficient to get a useful overview of an exponentially growing corpus of scholarly outputs. Even now, only a third are satisfied with current discovery engines. To change this, we need advanced techniques, such as visualization, as we do at Open Knowledge Maps, recommendation, collaborative features etc. 
And whatever is developed should of course be reusable for the rest of the ecosystem.

For that, we also have building blocks. Bur there is a big risk that they get stopped in their tracks, as there is currently no funding for this and after two years of lobbying for a project in this direction, I am convinced that many are indeed content to just leave it to Google.

Best,
Peter

> On 11.09.2018, at 12:54, Naomi Penfold <n.penfold at elifesciences.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Peter, and all,
> 
> I mirror your concerns about Google's market dominance potentially steering researchers to a product that is not helpful for increasing transparency and access to science.
> 
> When considering an alternative, DataCite and DataVerse seem to me to be well positioned in this space.
> 
> Is there anything about https://www.re3data.org/search that you find insufficient for these goals? What are your requirements for improving discoverability of open research data? Which of these are met and not met with Google dataset search and re3data?
> 
> Best,
> Naomi
> 
>> On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 11:18 AM Peter Kraker <pkraker at openknowledgemaps.org> wrote:
>> I am all for building a contender to Dataset Search! But let‘s build it on top of existing services, such as BASE that already index datasets. Then integrate it with Open Knowledge Maps, Hypothes.is, ContentMine, WikiCite, OSF and the rest of the open science ecosystem.
>> Then we would have true contender to the proprietary Googleverse.
>> 
>> The pieces are already there - but who will fund their integration?
>> 
>> Best,
>> Peter
>> 
>> > On 10.09.2018, at 22:49, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>> > 
>> > 
>> > 
>> > I don't have a problem with Google indexing public datasets. I work with Crystallogrophy Open Database which has indexed 350K data sets. What I take exception to is the way that Big Corporations can buy privileged access to paywalled datasets and publications. 
>> > 
>> > I have a tool which will index science (chemistry, crystallography, phylogenetic trees etc.) much better than Google (which doesn't do these)  but I am not allowed to use it. So  Google and Clarivate are handed a monopoly on indexing the literature even though I can do it better. What is even worse is the way that some publishers (Elsevier) take public data (crystallography) and put it behind the accessWall of the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre. Authors think they are making there data Open, They are not, It's being monopolised by CCDC who sells it by subscription and lets 1% or less out to the rest of the world.
>> > 
>> > I am sure there are many more of these cartels and monopolies.
>> > 
>> > I am happy to hear from others who want to build an alternative search engine to closed monopolists of the scholarly literature because we can do it better.
>> > 
>> > 
>> > 
>> > -- 
>> > Peter Murray-Rust
>> > Reader Emeritus in Molecular Informatics
>> > Unilever Centre, Dept. Of Chemistry
>> > University of Cambridge
>> > CB2 1EW, UK
>> > +44-1223-763069
>> 
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> -- 
> -- 
> 
> Naomi Penfold
> Innovation Officer
> 
> Explore open-source tools and technologies for research communication at elifesciences.org/labs. 
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