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Some New Year’s resolutions

31 December 2007 4 Comments

I don’t usually do New Year’s resolutions. But in the spirit of the several posts from people looking back and looking forwards I thought I would offer a few. This being an open process there will be people to hold me to these so there will be a bit of encouragement there. This promises to be a year in which Open issues move much further up the agenda. These things are little ways that we can take this forward and help to build the momentum.

  1. I will adopt the NIH Open Access Mandate as a minimum standard for papers submitted in 2008. Where possible we will submit to fully Open Access journals but where there is not an appropriate journal in terms of subject area or status we will only submit to journals that allow us to submit a complete version of the paper to PubMed Central within 12 months.
  2. I will get more of our existing (non-ONS) data online and freely available.
  3. Going forward all members of my group will be committed to an Open Notebook Science approach unless this is prohibited or made impractical by the research funders. Where this is the case these projects will be publically flagged as non-ONS and I will apply the principle of the NIH OA Mandate (12 months maximum embargo) wherever possible.
  4. I will do more to publicise Open Notebook Science. Specifically I will give ONS a mention in every scientific talk and presentation I give.
  5. Regardless of the outcome of the funding application I will attempt to get funding to support an international meeting focussed on developing Open Approaches in Research.

Beyond the usual (write more papers, write more grants) I think that covers things. These should even be practical.

I hope all of those who have had a holiday have enjoyed it and that all those who have not are looking forward to one in the near future. I am looking forward to the New (Western, Calendar) Year. It promises to be an exciting one!

I am now off to cook lots of lovely Chinese food (and yes I know that is calendarically inappropriate – but it will still taste good!). Happy New Year!


4 Comments »

  • Jean-Claude Bradley said:

    Thanks for continuing to spread the word in your talks and deeds! I look forward to how ONS will play out in your lab and with your collaborators.

  • Jean-Claude Bradley said:

    Thanks for continuing to spread the word in your talks and deeds! I look forward to how ONS will play out in your lab and with your collaborators.

  • Shirley Wu said:

    Hi Cameron,

    I’ve recently become interested in open science and have been following the various blogs with interest. It was quite exciting to hear about the grant proposal, and I hope it is accepted! You and others have inspired me to start a blog of my own (co-authored with other lab members), which is only a week old, but I hope that it will help us organize our thoughts on open science – http://onebiglab.blogspot.com

    Since you mentioned organizing an international meeting on the subject and publicizing open science, I’m curious what your thoughts (and anyone else’s who reads this!) would be on participating in a session on Open Science at the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing at PSB. They don’t traditionally cover non-primary research/methods tracks, but they do pride themselves on being at the cutting edge of biology and biocomputing, so I am hoping they will be amenable to the idea. If there was support from, shall we say, the founders of this movement, I think it would help a great deal towards making it happen.

    Of course, it doesn’t have to happen at PSB, and I would welcome the opportunity to participate in a session at some other meeting, but I like the idea of PSB because the attendees will likely be very interested in the topic, and the meeting is always held in Hawaii. ;) The next meeting is Jan 5-9, 2009, and the deadline for session proposals is Feb 8th.

  • Shirley Wu said:

    Hi Cameron,

    I’ve recently become interested in open science and have been following the various blogs with interest. It was quite exciting to hear about the grant proposal, and I hope it is accepted! You and others have inspired me to start a blog of my own (co-authored with other lab members), which is only a week old, but I hope that it will help us organize our thoughts on open science – http://onebiglab.blogspot.com

    Since you mentioned organizing an international meeting on the subject and publicizing open science, I’m curious what your thoughts (and anyone else’s who reads this!) would be on participating in a session on Open Science at the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing at PSB. They don’t traditionally cover non-primary research/methods tracks, but they do pride themselves on being at the cutting edge of biology and biocomputing, so I am hoping they will be amenable to the idea. If there was support from, shall we say, the founders of this movement, I think it would help a great deal towards making it happen.

    Of course, it doesn’t have to happen at PSB, and I would welcome the opportunity to participate in a session at some other meeting, but I like the idea of PSB because the attendees will likely be very interested in the topic, and the meeting is always held in Hawaii. ;) The next meeting is Jan 5-9, 2009, and the deadline for session proposals is Feb 8th.