open data: how, why, and is there any point?
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Open Data:What can we do? What should we do?
Open Data:What can we do? What should we do?
And is there an
y point?
About me.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andypowe11/3915450391
I live in Bath
I work at RAL
I work for STFC...
ButThe opinions expressed in this talk are the personal views of the speaker given as a private citizen and should not unders any circumstances be taken of as indicative of STFC, RCUK, or government policy or of any discussions within these organizations of future policy....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andypowe11/3251538402
I get up in the morning
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattbuck007/3710451826
...and catch a train
...and a bus
Wikimedia Commons Succinate_Dehydrogenase_1YQ3_and_Membrane.png
Wikimedia CommonsMGMT BDNA_1T38.png
I work on...
...and get to do cool stuff
Mixture of small-lab work...
...and big facility experiments
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loty/326761635
Lots of reading...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amagill/38961674
...meetings...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22819720@N02/2306780847
...too much travel...
...which leads to too much of this
Why?
Why do I do it?
Why do they pay?
Why do they pay?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mararie/3313582639/ CC-BY-SA
Why do they pay?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mararie/3313582639/ CC-BY-SA
we
A (naive) history
Wellcome Images
Before 1945
1939-45
http://flickr.com/photos/14405058@N08/2618721930
Wikimedia CommonsKotzebue_AFS_Long_Range_Radar.jpg
Science won the war
...therefore...
Science needs funding
...but the war ended sixty years ago...
But that’s ok
We have new wars.
Clearly it is a lot more complicated than that
http://www.flickr.com/photos/storm-crypt/2078500698/
But we seem focused on threats
We believe our own propaganda...http://www.flickr.com/photos/ansik/3844530655
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuartpilbrow/3345896050 CC-BY-SA
...leading to
So what’s the answer?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrs_logic/3320303076
I don’t really know...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/valeriebb/2248744703
...but here are some ideashttp://www.flickr.com/photos/ful1to/3783198574
1. The personal
Be
with yourselfhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/danielle_scott/3690339561
My aim is to...
Maximise the (positive) impact I have on the world
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amardilo/3231427553 CC-BY
...through my work or through enabling others.
I work mainly on technique development and enabling
technologies
I aim to maximise the ability of people to (re-)use my work
The web makes publishing easy
...data, documents, media...
Publishing (broadcasting) is easy
...sharing is harder.http://www.flickr.com/photos/missrogue/107787363
2. The social (and technical)
Value of the network depends on connections
Bollen J, Van de Sompel H, Hagberg A, Bettencourt L, Chute R, et al. (2009) Clickstream Data Yields High-Resolution Maps of Science. PLoS ONE 4(3): e4803. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004803
“I propose the seeming paradox that in science, private property
is established by having its substance freely given to others who might want to make use of
it.”
Merton (1988) ISIS 79:606
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfllaw/222795669
Interoperability is the key...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffsand/3871415191
Technical interoperability...
...formats, vocabularies
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spunter/3239363956
Legal interoperability...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spunter/3239363956
Legal interoperability...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spunter/3239363956
Legal interoperability...
Technical interop.
Legal interop.
Process interoperability
Systems need to work with existing process
A short story...
MyTea project:A fully semantic laboratory recordfor chemistry
http://mytea.org.uk/
But not molecular biology
StructuredUnstructured
General
SpecificMyTea
StructuredUnstructured
General
SpecificMyTea
?
StructuredUnstructured
General
SpecificMyTea
Blogs
?
A recipe for chaos?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/benuski/3452291541
Yes to start with...
But then something interesting happened...
Templates Metadata
Sequence ontology:SO:0000696 “oligo”SO:0000155 “plasmid”
...but...
SO:0000006 “PCR product”or
SO:0000412 “rest. fragment”?
Self assembling ontology?
Capture first...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/furtwangl/3851841424
...then add structure
Dionaea muscipula Musca domesticachomped on
Map our process onto agreed vocabularies
...when we write the paper
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tnarik/366393127
Machines do structure
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yeowatzup/2463225297
....humans tell stories
Tools that capture structure as we choose
the pieces for our narrative
We can make it easy to sharehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/doubledareya/2443303399
...but will we want to share?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66164549@N00/2162663143
Not according to this paper...
We need agreed goals...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frli/3586354961
3. The political
Why do we fund science?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mararie/3313582639/ CC-BY-SA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattymatt/3017263513
If we don’t have answers...
...then at least...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescridland/3947254236
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomarthur/3593729997
Optimise for....
....not this
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vrogy/514733529
Less of this...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ehnmark/463965443
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chadmiller/2740551034
...more of this
...and a lot less of this
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tammra/283690669/
More open research.
An opportunity to engage...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidcjones/1422043515
Hundreds of thousands...
...but not if data is locked away
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andypowe11/3759152528
More open research.
Measure ourselves...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/3209939998
...and then do somethingabout it
http://www.flickr.com/photos/silas216/149401489
More. Open. Research.
But fit the existing processes...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38485387@N02/3581504276
Open Data:What can we do? What should we do?
What can we do?
Technically able to share
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3088582622
What should we do?
Tools for capturing...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pandawan/3950755957
And is there any point?
<insert answer here>
Cameron.Neylon@stfc.ac.ukhttp://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopenhttp://slideshare.net/cameronneylonTwitter: @cameronneylonFriendfeed: cameronneylon
Thanks to:Sciencetwists, Friendfeeders, and the wider online community for ideas, criticism, and conversations.
Deepak Singh, Larry Lessig, Andy Powell, and John Wilbanks for presentation inspiration.
Flickr (and in particular @andypowe11) for images
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