I had a pretty ropey day today. Failing for 45 minutes to do some simple algebra. Transformation overnight that didn’t work…again…and just generally being a bit down what with the whole imploding British science funding situation. But in the midst of this we did one very cool and simple experiment, one that worked, and one that actually has some potentially significant implications. The only things is…I can’t tell you about it.

The rationale behind open approaches is the way it enables you to make unexpected connections and to find otherwise hidden shortcuts. People, data, code, and expertise can be more effectively connected when the information is out there and discoverable. Here I wanted to document a little collaboration that was sparked on twitter and carried through using an entirely open toolset.

If we imagine what the specification for building a scholarly communications system would look like there are some fairly obvious things we would want it to enable. Registration of priority, archival, re-use and replication, and filtering. Some of these the current system can do well, some of them not so. Can thinking about how we would design a system from the ground up help us to think about what we can do today to build a better and more effective record?

Issues surrounding the relationship of Open Research and replication seems to be the meme of the week. Abhishek Tiwari provided notes on a debate describing concerns about how open research could damage replication and Sabine Hossenfelder explored the same issue in a blog post. The concern fundamentally is that by providing more of the details of our research we may actually be damaging the research effort by reducing the motivation to reproduce published findings or worse, as Sabine suggests, encouraging group think and a lack of creative questioning.
I have to …

On Monday I am speaking as part of a meeting on Use Cases for Provenance (Programme), which has a lot of interesting talks scheduled. I appear to be last. I am not sure whether that means I am the comedy closer or the pre-dinner entertainment. This may, however, be as a result of the title I chose:
In your worst nightmares: How experimental scientists are doing provenance for themselves
On the whole experimental scientists, particularly those working in traditional, small research groups, have little knowledge of, or interest in, the issues …

I should be putting something together for the actual sessions I am notionally involved in helping running but this being a very interactive meeting perhaps it is better to leave things to very last minute. Currently I am at a hotel at LAX awaiting an early flight tomorrow morning. Daily temperatures in the LA area have been running around 25-30 C for the past few days but we’ve been threatened with the potential for well below zero in Chapel Hill. Nonetheless the programme and the people will more than make …

On Monday 1 September we had a one day workshop in Southampton discussing the issues that surround ‘Open Science’. This was very free form and informal and I had the explicit aim of getting a range of people with different perspectives into the room to discuss a wide range of issues, including tool development, the social and career structure issues, as well as ideas about standards and finally, what concrete actions could actually be taken. You can find live blogging and other commentary in the associated Friendfeed room and information …

So a bit of a first for me. I can vaguely claim to have contributed to two things into the print version of Nature this week. Strictly speaking my involvement in the first, the ‘From the Blogosphere‘ piece on the Science Blogging Challenge, was really restricted to discussing the idea (originally from Richard Grant I believe) and now a bit of cheerleading and ultimately some judging. The second item though I can claim some credit for in as much as it is a Q&A with myself and Jean-Claude Bradley that …

So Michael Nielsen, one morning at breakfast at Scifoo asked one of those questions which never has a short answer; ‘So how did you get into this open science thing?’ and I realised that although I have told the story to many people I haven’t ever written it down. Perhaps this is a meme worth exploring more generally but I thought others might be interested in my story, partly because it illustrates how funding drives scientists, and partly because it shows how the combination of opportunism and serendipity can make …

An update on the Workshop that I announced previously. We have a number of people confirmed to come down and I need to start firming up numbers. I will be emailing a few people over the weekend so sorry if you get this via more than one route. The plan of attack remains as follows:
Meet on evening of Sunday 31 August in Southampton, most likely at a bar/restaurant near the University to coordinate/organise the details of sessions.
Commence on Monday at ~9:30 and finish around 4:30pm (with the option of discussion …