What is VeRSI?

February 23, 2010 at 10:27 am · Filed under collaboration, data, e-science, eresearch

Overview of VeRSI from VeRSI on Vimeo.

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Data-Intensive Research: how should we improve our ability to use data

February 22, 2010 at 4:32 pm · Filed under data

Today there is a growing abundance of data often in large-scale collections or with great complexity. It is pertinent to every pressing strategic challenge, to the deep questions that research addresses and the urgent application sciences. A great deal of thought is needed to improve our capabilities to use data well in a wide variety of research endeavours. The workshop will bring together practitioners, theoreticians and technologists with a wide range of viewpoints to shape a strategy for the thinking and research that is needed.
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Scientists dispute climate sceptic’s claim that US weather data is useless

February 16, 2010 at 9:56 am · Filed under blogs, data

An interesting twist on the Climate Change debate. When data is made public, so too is the basis in which this data was collected. Data is part of a scientific argument; it isn’t ‘absolute truth’.

It appeared to have shaken the credibility of one of the most important global warming data sets in the world. A blog-inspired campaign by amateur climate sceptics seemed to show that numerous weather stations across the US were so poorly located they could not be relied upon (link).

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Leaked climate change emails scientist ‘hid’ data flaws

February 2, 2010 at 12:26 am · Filed under data, eresearch

This is one of the reasons we have eScience and citable, re-usable (and verifible) data.

Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.

A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia’s climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced (link to Guardian).

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Tim Berners Lee on free data and the BBC’s Virtual Revolution

January 27, 2010 at 2:11 am · Filed under data, governance

Tim Berners-Lee discusses the launch of the government’s new open data project, and Dan Gluckman explains why the BBC was so keen to open the development of a new series about the social history of the web (link) Also see: http://data.gov.uk/

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Ordnance Survey maps to go free online

November 18, 2009 at 12:46 pm · Filed under creative commons, data, digital humanities

The government is to explore ways of making all Ordnance Survey maps freely available online from April, in a victory for the Guardian’s three-year Free Our Data campaign. The move will bring the UK into line with the free publication of maps that exists in the US.

Gordon Brown announced the change at a joint event in London today with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, who is now information tsar advising on the handing over of private government data to the public (thanks to Andy W for the link).

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Open Science and Data

November 10, 2009 at 11:00 pm · Filed under Virtual Reseach Environments, data, e-science, eresearch

As part of JISC’s ‘Research 3.0 – driving the knowledge economy’ activity
which launches at the end of November, a new Open Science report released
today trails key research trends that could have far-reaching implications for
science, universities and UK society.

The report written by UKOLN at the University of Bath and the Digital Curation
Centre, identifies open-ness, predictive science based on massive data
volumes and citizen involvement as being important features of tomorrow’s
research practice.

It is hoped that this document will stimulate and contribute to community
discussion in the UK, which is ranked second in the world for its output of
quality research, but also fuel the open science debate on the global stage.
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Open Access enhances scholarly communication by making the results of research electronically available

October 26, 2009 at 6:15 pm · Filed under data

The rhetoric within this JISC promotion of Open Access is a little naive (ie. as if researchers haven’t always communicated their research results), but still there is some good information here about JISC’s initiatives.  Also, check out the podcast by Harvard Historian Robert Darnton (link).

Opening the knowledge base to all means more researchers can build on it and there is less duplication of effort. Researchers can reach a greater audience and find that their work is more widely read and cited, institutions gain an enhanced reputation as their research becomes more visible, funding agencies see a greater return on their investment, and publishers find that the impact of their journals increases (link).

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Free London’s Data. Now!

October 9, 2009 at 4:35 am · Filed under data

Help us free London’s Data
Saturday 24th October 2009 10.00 am
London’s Living Room
City  Hall
The Queens Walk
London SE1 2AA

The Greater London Authority is currently in  the process of scoping London’s DataStore. Initially we propose to release as much GLA data as possible and to encourage other public agencies in London to  do the same and we’d like your  help!

We want the input of the developer community from the outset prior to making any decisions on formats or  platform. We would therefore like to invite interested developers to City Hall so that we  can talk to you about what we want to do, get your  views, and seek your input on the best way to deliver for  London.

On the  day we’ll be running a requirements specification workshop and a high  level technical design session to explore how we might do this in a way that  makes sense for the end users – you

The event will take place in London’s Living Room at 10 am on the morning of Saturday 24 October. If you would like to attend please register your interest.(link).

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Dealing with Data

June 9, 2009 at 7:39 pm · Filed under data, digital humanities, humanities computing, matadata

A seminal report for those who deal with data; published by JISC in June 2007.

This Report explores the roles, rights, responsibilities and relationships of institutions, data centres and other key stakeholders who work with data. It concentrates primarily on the UK scene with some reference to other relevant experience and opinion, and is framed as “a snapshot” of a relatively fast-moving field. It is strategically positioned to provide a bridge between the high-level RIN Framework of Principles and Guidelines for the stewardship of research data, and practitioner-focussed technical development work1. For ease of cross-reference, the number(s) of the relevant RIN Principle(s) are given against each of the recommendations (link).

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