Q&A series with ECS OpenCon 2017 speakers

Dina Paltoo, director, Division of Scientific Data Sharing Policy, Office of Science Policy,
National Institutes of Health

ECS will be hosting its first ever OpenCon event on October 1 in National Harbor, MD. OpenCon will be ECS’s first, large community event aimed at creating a culture of change in how research is designed, shared, discussed, and disseminated, with the ultimate goal of making scientific progress faster.

During ECS’s OpenCon, Dina Paltoo, director of the Division of Scientific Data Sharing Policy at the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Science Policy, will give a talk on open and government.

The following conversation is part of a series with speakers from the upcoming ECS OpenCon. Read the rest of the series.

ECS: Why are you interested in OpenCon?

Dina Paltoo: OpenCon will bring together various stakeholders to learn about recent updates and current activities in open science and public access. Science is generating a vast amount of data, and these data are becoming increasingly digital. The digitization of these data, along with advances in bioinformatics and information technology, as well changes to scientific ethos and practices, are allowing for increased access to and analyses of data. Thus, these data may be used to answer additional research questions which can advance science and benefit the public. It is important for the scientific community to understand the benefits of open science and public access to data.

ECS: The bio and life sciences, as well as the math and physics community, have been early adopters of tools in the open science paradigm. Do you think there are easily transferrable lessons for other scientific disciplines?

DP: I would agree that some scientific communities have been ahead of others, with regards to the open science paradigm. Within the biological sciences for example, the genomics community has been openly sharing data for a number of years. A culture change is needed in many scientific disciplines, and the math and physics community could definitely provide case studies and lessons learned which other disciplines can adopt.

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Q&A series with ECS OpenCon 2017 speakers

Meredith Morovati, executive director of Dryad

ECS will be hosting its first ever OpenCon event on October 1 in National Harbor, MD. OpenCon will be ECS’s first, large community event aimed at creating a culture of change in how research is designed, shared, discussed, and disseminated, with the ultimate goal of making scientific progress faster.

During ECS’s OpenCon, Meredith Morovati, executive director of Dryad, will give a talk on open data.

The following conversation is part of a series with speakers from the upcoming ECS OpenCon. Read the rest of the series.

ECS: How and why did Dryad get its start; and how has it grown since then?

Meredith Morovati: Editors from journals in the fields of evolution and life science—some of them competing journals—were becoming concerned that it was difficult to find data that supported the literature; the “policy” of asking an author to share data after the fact was a failure. In 2011, twelve of these editors came together to remedy this, and developed the Joint Data Archive Policy (JDAP). JDAP required, as a condition of publication, that data be archived in an appropriate public archive and stated that data are products of the scientific enterprise in their own right. These editors argued that data must be preserved and usable in the future. JDAP is now a model for requiring data as a condition of publishing an article.

The use of Dryad was not stipulated as part of this policy, but Dryad became the preferred solution due to its one-to-one relationship with data and scholarly literature. In addition, Dryad curates data to ensure high quality metadata and is committed to discoverability.

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Q&A series with ECS OpenCon 2017 speakers

Brian Nosek, co-founder of the Center for Open Science

ECS will be hosting its first ever OpenCon event on October 1 in National Harbor, MD. OpenCon will be ECS’s first, large community event aimed at creating a culture of change in how research is designed, shared, discussed, and disseminated, with the ultimate goal of making scientific progress faster.

Brian Nosek, co-founder of the Center for Open Science, will be one of the featured speakers at the upcoming ECS OpenCon.

The following conversation is part of a series with speakers from the upcoming ECS OpenCon. Read the rest of the series.

ECS: What was the “aha moment” when you knew the Center for Open Science (COS) was needed?

Brian Nosek: COS began as two laboratory projects with a minimal budget, and a simple idea of testing the reproducibility of current research and building some tools to improve it. From the start, we wanted to help build a future in which the process, content, and outcomes of research are openly accessible by default. All scholarly content would be preserved and connected and transparency would stand as an aspirational good for scholarly work. All stakeholders would be included and respected in the research lifecycle and share the pursuit of truth as the primary incentive and motivation for scholarship.

For the launch of COS, it was less “aha” and more “whoa, we can do this?” Our lab projects received some media attention. One of the outcomes of that was that a number of funders contacted us with interest in the work. In particular, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation offered to support us and provided a very generous donation to elevate our aspirations from small lab effort to nonprofit organization.

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Q&A series with ECS OpenCon 2017 speakers

Ashley Farley, open access program associate at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

ECS will be hosting its first ever OpenCon event on October 1 in National Harbor, MD. OpenCon will be ECS’s first, large community event aimed at creating a culture of change in how research is designed, shared, discussed, and disseminated, with the ultimate goal of making scientific progress faster.

During ECS’s OpenCon, Ashley Farley, open access program associate at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will deliver the keynote talk, “The Importance of Open Science in a Changing Scholarly Communictions Paradigm.”

The following conversation is part of a series with speakers from the upcoming ECS OpenCon. Read the rest of the series.

ECS: Why are you interested in OpenCon?

Ashley Farley: I have greatly admired OpenCon, since I first learned about open access of scholarly communications. A critical part of any movement is a strong community and OpenCon has done an excellent job at forming and supporting a community that strives to achieve goals in the open science environment. OpenCon is particularly important to early career researchers or open access advocates starting their career and I have definitely benefited from this network. I appreciate the fact that I can give back to the OpenCon community, while still learning, engaging and partnering with others.

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Q&A series with ECS OpenCon 2017 speakers

Dan Schwartz, Boeing-Sutter Professor and director of the Clean Energy Institute at the University of Washington

ECS will be hosting its first ever OpenCon event on October 1 in National Harbor, MD. OpenCon will be ECS’s first, large community event aimed at creating a culture of change in how research is designed, shared, discussed, and disseminated, with the ultimate goal of making scientific progress faster.

During ECS’s Open Con, Dan Schwartz, director of the Clean Energy Institute at the University of Washington, will give a talk on the open science movement and academia. In addition to speaking at OpenCon, Schwartz will also co-organize the ECS Data Sciences Hack Day.

The following conversation is part of a series with speakers from the upcoming ECS OpenCon. Read the rest of the series.

ECS: When we say “data sciences,” what does this encompass?

Dan Schwartz: “Data science” is shorthand for the scientific and engineering principles that underpin efficient creation, visualization, analysis, and sharing of data. I have a conjecture—unevaluated but euphemistically called “Schwartz’s law” around here—that every PhD I graduate produce more data than the sum of all prior PhDs. Basically, each year cameras and detectors have deeper bit depth, equipment and software get more automated, more of the software tools allow data and simulation to be animated, etc. In short, both experimentalists and simulation people are seeing huge growth in data they need to analyze, visualize, and share with collaborators.

ECS: Specifically, what areas of electrochemistry and/or solid state science can most benefit from the various components of data sciences, such as open data, open source software and cloud-based computing tools, etc.?

DS: I believe we can accelerate progress and improve reproducibility of all ECS science and technology through open data, open software, and access to shared computational resources. A critical part of this is building the ECS community that establishes standards for data repositories, creates, peer evaluates, and improves software tools.

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