Open Science/OKFest2014

This is page is for the global Open Science community to coordinate plans for sessions at OKFest2014!


 * Official page to propose sessions

Contribute your ideas for OKFest activities on this page!

Propose a new session by creating a new section, edit or add to existing sessions, or leave your comments on the talk page.

Discovering Research with Open Data and Tools
Peter Kraker (Know-Center/Panton Fellow)
 * Facilitators

Christopher Kittel (OKFN-AT)

Stefan Kasberger (OKFN-AT)


 * Session description

We have indexed most of the world’s scientific knowledge, yet we still rely on a handful of proprietary tools to discover new content. Most of the time, we are restricted to a simple search interface. Thus, starting out in a field and staying on top of the research can be a time-consuming process. Furthermore, we have little insight into and influence on ranking. In this session, we will look at alternatives that facilitate discovery. We will explore different types of visualizations, streams and recommendation engines. We will look at open bibliographic/bibliometric data and open source applications that can be used to build powerful tools. If you are a developer or user of an open data tool/source, you can also present these in the session. In the end, you will even get our hands dirty and create a short overview for your individual field of interest in just 20 minutes.


 * Session motivation

In science and research, not only knowledge in the form of papers is pay-walled, but also access to metadata, bibliometric information, and discovery tools. This means that most people rely on a single source for discovery. It also means that the Mathew effect (“the rich get richer”) is reinforced because publications on the top of search results get more attention than those buried further down. With the advent of altmetrics and other web-based data sources, we are able to draw a broader picture of research aside of the few mainstream papers that are always cited. Up until now, we have focused mostly on using altmetrics for evaluation purposes, leaving their potential for discovery behind. We believe that researchers who have better tools at their hands for discovering research can be more empowered and effective. They might even discover similar researchers and labs which can help them to strike new collaborations in and between fields. Therefore, it is time to unlock this potential in an open and transparent way.


 * Session outcomes

In this session, people will learn about open bibliographic and bibliometric sources, as well as open source tools for discovery. They will learn how they can use these data sources and tools to stay on top of their research. They will even create such an overview for themselves which they can use for their work. Ideally, this session will also bring together people who are passionate about opening up scientific discovery and will help establishing a community in this regard. Facilitators will propose an extended hackathon at the end of the session for interested participants.


 * How would the session be structured?

This session is broken into three parts. In the first part (~20 minutes), we will give a short introduction to the topic, showing tools and data sources that can be used for the discovery of research content. In the second part (~20 minutes), participants are encouraged to show their favourite tools and data sources and discussing their needs for a scientific discovery. Depending on the number of people who want to present, we will either do this in the plenum or in small groups of around 3 people. If we split up into groups, there will be one person who is designated to take down notes and report to the people in other groups in a short wrap-up round. The session facilitators will make sure that there is a mix of experts and novices in each group. In the third part (~20 minutes), the groups will create an overview of a field of their choice, using their preferred tools or a tool proposed by the session facilitators.

Scaling open-science in low resource, high-cost environments

 * Facilitators

Alexandre Hannud Abdo (University of São Paulo, Open Knowledge Brasil)

...Anybody else?


 * Description

The intention of this session is to discuss the development of open science in latin america, africa and the middle-east, and any other region that shares the following properties:


 * 1) funding for science is scarce and/or ill distributed
 * 2) technology is expensive and not a widespread cultural element


 * Motivation

Open science projects under such conditions often have to simultaneously struggle with a higher risk of punishment for scientists who momentarily put aside their career interests by adopting innovative and less recognized practices, and the low availability of tools and even capacity the general population or even other labs to collaborate and enjoy the benefits of openness.


 * Outcomes

We will present and discuss experiences from open scientists, science hackers and open science promoters, in the interest of sharing solutions to common problems that arise from the combination of those properties.

In particular, we shall debate and further investigate the benefits and drawbacks of promoting collaboration among such countries in comparison to promoting it toward countries that do not fit such description.


 * Structure

Round table or open space depending on number of participants. Start with 10min of lightning interventions so people get into the zone, followed by 10min framing issues, 10min coming up with proposals, another 10min framing issues, 10min coming up with proposals. Keep 10min for buffer so session has 60min. This is going to be an intense, no-crap, zero-tolerance session - in a good way ;D It is expected that people will bring stuff ready from before the session takes place.

Geomicrobiology as open science for development

 * Facilitatators: tom olijhoek (open access wg, openscidev wg OKF), Ruben Borge Rockinsoils.com

Improving the impact of open science for development: the example of geomicrobiology Especially in the Global South there is a lack of interaction between scientists, and eg farmers who can make use of the newest advances in agroscience. On the topic of soil fertility, we propose to build and link scientist networks with practioners networks using a dedicated internet platform. Motivation Use of geomicrobiology for natural fertilizers will directly benefit farmers in the Global South People can learn about the existence of easy and low-tech methods for making natural fertiligzers. The results of pilot projects in Ethiopia and Tanzania will hopefully motivate participants to spread the word and increase the number of users for the proposed networks How would the session be structured Intro, description of pilot results;interactactive-> what is needed for network, tools; live twitterstream; wrap-up and listing of interested parties in Global South from Twitter + personal contacts This session offers a clear example of the advantages of open science for development. Linking scientists and practitioners is an innovative way to establish a direct line from research to the field. Knowledge needed will be made accessible and useful to people that actually need it and can immediately improve their living conditions using the tools, the knowledge and the interactions with community members.
 * Title
 * Description
 * Session outcomes
 * How does your session contribute

Workshop: quality assessment of scientific articles and data

 * Facilitator: Tom Olijhoek (open access wg OKF)

Workshop: Best practices for quality assessment of scientific articles and data
 * Title

with physical participants and online participants the workshop will serve to try and define criteria in order to develop a best practice method for quality assessment of science
 * Description

Science requires a new way of quality assurance to assure that sharing the information is useful
 * Motivation

Participants of this workshop will interactively establish a practical approach for the development of a new quality assessment framework. This approach will serve as a base for mounting an externally funded project on this topic with participants interested in this
 * Outcome

Intro; Interactive discussion on criteria: priority criteria; interactive discussion on best practice; seeking commitment for helping mount a project; wrap-up
 * Structure

Science needs new ways for quality assurance because existing methods are not up to the challenge of handling growing amounts of data and articles quickly and adequately. Internet communities need new methods that make use of the possibilities of digital data This session will point the way to the development of a tool where users and providers will determine what knowledge is useful to share. In this way the workshop touches all 3 streams in a unique way
 * How does your session contribute

Geo Hackathon
Google Doc

Open Access signalling
Originally submitted by Daniel Mietchen to the March 15 deadline; shall be resubmitted to the March 30 deadline; co-facilitators are most welcome. A growing number of scholarly publications are being made available to readers for free, and a subset thereof as Open Access, i.e. under open licenses, with no restrictions on reuse. This Open Access literature could become more visible if it were marked as such when being cited. A prototype for marking cited references as to their licensing is currently being developed by WikiProject Open Access on the English Wikipedia, and possibilities for similar implementations in Open Access journals are being explored. This session will provide an overview of these efforts, and invite discussion on how such a system could be designed for robustness, ease of use and and consistency across sites.
 * Basic idea: mark references cited on Wikipedia or in scholarly articles as to their licensing, so as to raise awareness for open licensing in the context of scholarly communication.
 * Description

In my view, the lack of efficient signalling of the licensing of cited references is a missed opportunity in terms of outreach about the importance of open licensing in scholarly communications. Now that the information becomes available on a per-article basis and in machine-readable formats, it seems a good time to discuss such a signalling system.
 * Motivation

Participants will learn about the usage of open licenses in the context of scholarly communication, get to know use cases of openly licensed materials on Wikimedia platforms, and have the possibility to contribute to an effort to introduce a signalling system for the open access-ness of cited references.
 * Outcomes

This would be a 60min hands-on session in which participants work in groups to identify and evaluate ways in which the openness of scholarly materials is being signalled in different contexts. They will then apply that knowledge to discuss how the openness of cited references could be signalled. We will start with examples listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Open_Access/Signalling_OA-ness and with code that is being developed for that at https://github.com/Daniel-Mietchen/OA-signalling/.
 * Structure

This session helps spread knowledge about open access, Wikimedia projects and open-source tools for linking the two.
 * Narratives and streams

Testing the efficiency of open versus traditional science
Originally submitted by Daniel Mietchen to the March 15 deadline; shall be resubmitted to the March 30 deadline; co-facilitators are most welcome. Open research is the concept of scientists sharing their research with the world as soon as they record it for themselves. This sharing invites open collaboration with other researchers and others across the Web.
 * Basic idea: The efficiency of open versus closed science has never been tested systematically. How could such a test be done?
 * Description

One practical example was the Polymath Project, whose initiator commented that "[i]t feels as though this process is to normal research as driving is to pushing a car."

There is some more evidence suggesting that open science can well be more efficient than traditional science, but it is merely anecdotal, and this hypothesis as such has never been tested systematically, nor have suitable conditions been identified.

The aim of this session is to develop a framework for (a) showing that open science can under some conditions be more efficient than traditional approaches and (b) exploring the space of those conditions in a systematic fashion, and (c) actually putting open research to an efficiency test versus traditional science.

Data should provide a better basis for changing attitudes towards open science, of people who are mostly concerned with efficiency, than anecdotes or advocacy are.
 * Motivation

Participants will collect ideas for key elements of a project to test the efficiency of open versus traditional science. The plan is to use this as the seed for a grant proposal aimed at actually implementing such a test (or perhaps a series of such tests).
 * Outcomes

After a brief introduction on open science and on measuring research outcomes, participants would work in groups on identifying (a) areas or kinds of problems for which open science might be particularly likely to outperform normal science (b) at least some parameters likely to influence the relative performance of open and closed science (c) measures of research efficiency (d) funding schemes that may be suitable for testing the relative performance of both approaches.
 * Structure

The session would spread knowledge about open science and would bring together people to move it forward as a group.
 * Narratives and streams

Formalization + Automation = Reproducibility
Konrad Förstner (please feel free to join)
 * Facilitators


 * Session description


 * Session motivation


 * Session outcomes


 * How would the session be structured?

Example
Era uma casa muito engraçada blablabla...