Science Library Pad

Open Data Exchange 2013 - Twitter list

NOTE: This 2013 draft blog post is being published in 2022; it may be incomplete and the information is certainly out of date.

Open Data Exchange 2013 was a one-day conference in Montreal organised by Sauvé Scholar Naomi Kincler and developer Ted Strauss.

Twitter

• Michael Lenczner @mlenc - CEO, Ajah
• James McKinney @mckinneyjames -  Technical Lead, Open North@opennorth
• Michael Roberts @michaeloroberts - Acclar@acclar & IATI
• Pete Forde (session moderator) @peteforde - Hacker Tourist
• Sébastien Pierre - fondateur, FFunction@ffunction & Montréal Ouvert
• Guillaume Ducharme @GuillaumeAQESSS - gestionnaire dans le réseau de la santé et membre du collectif Démocratie Ouverte
• Josée Plamondon @joplam - co-conceptrice, ContratsNet@ContratsNet
• Jean-Noé Landry (l’animateur de discussion) - fondateur, Montréal Ouvert et Québec Ouvert @qcouvert
• Corey Chivers @CjBayesian - PhD candidate, Biology, McGill & Montreal R User Group
• Tracey Lauriault @TraceyLauriault - Open Data advocate & Postdoctoral Fellow, Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre, Carleton University
• Petko Valtchev - Professor, Computer Science, UQAM
• Ted Strauss (moderator) @trudatted - Co-founder, Trudat
• Diane Mercier @carnetsDM - chargée de projet principale en données ouvertes@MTL_DO , Ville de Montréal
• Trina Chiasson @trinachi - InfoActive
• Christian Gendreau @christgendreau - Canadensys@Canadensys
• Trevor Bekolay @TrevorBekolay - Waterloo University
• Steve Reitano @Beautifuldata - Open Data Survey
• Anton Dubrau @ant6n - cat-bus.com
• Heri Rakotomalala @heri - MTL NewTech
• Julia Evans @b0rk - MTL all-girl hack night
• Roberto Rocha @robroc - Montreal Gazette
• Edward Ocampo-Gooding @edwardog - Open Data Ottawa

• Sauvé Scholars @SauveScholars

2022 G7 Science Ministers’ Communiqué

German G7 Meeting
Frankfurt am Main, 12-14 June 2022

G7 Science Ministers’ Communiqué - BMBF

Directly link to PDF: Microsoft Word - G7 Science Ministers Declaration_20220613 (bmbf.de)

Canada is represented by Dr. Mona Nemer, the government's Chief Science Advisor.

Selected highlights related to open science.

1. Promoting and protecting freedom, integrity and security in science and research

...

We ... have decided to explore a Working Group to strengthen the cooperation between the G7 partners on
effective science communication. The focus is on the promotion of an evidence
informed development of science communication practice and enhanced science
literacy.

We support the work and results achieved so far by the G7 Open Science Working
Group. The group has made noticeable progress in examining data-sharing
infrastructures, research evaluation policies and open science incentives, and lessons
of research on research, and has identified barriers, challenges and enablers for
practicing open science that deserve and require common action (see Annex). We
encourage the group to continue its exploratory work and follow up with tangible
recommendations based on good practices and guiding principles.

Annex to the G7 Science Ministers` Communiqué 2022

https://www.bmbf.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/de/2022/220613-g7-annex.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=3

II. Open Science and Open Science Working Group (OSWG)

 

We will continue to promote open science with open and rapid sharing of knowledge,
data and tools. We recognize and reacknowledge the importance of our universities,
research organisations and science academies, as well as the industrial sector and civil
society groups. We jointly pursue these common goals, with renewed vigour and
determination in the continuation of previous declarations on international
cooperation in research and innovation.

We recognize open science as an essential enabler of scientific integrity and good
science communication. Making scientific research available to scientists, innovators,
students, educators, government and non-government entities, the private sector,
and the general public therefore providing the transparency necessary to build trust
in science. It also helps to ensure that scientific results are communicated in ways
that are open and equitably accessible to all based on mutual trust and confidence.

 

...

 

science podcasts 2019

My blog tells me that podcasting basically went mainstream in 2005.

• May 5, 2005  podcasting in the mainstream media
• June 28, 2005  Apple iTunes 4.9 with podcasting support

In 2006 I wrote about podcasts I listen to, so 13 years later it seems like it may be time for an update.

There are a lot of good BBC Radio science shows, but ever since BBC Radio added ads to its podcasts outside the UK, I listen to all BBC Radio content directly on the website (which does not currently have advertisements).

I use Castro for podcasts on my iOS devices because 1) Apple Podcasts app now tracks every podcast you listen to

Podcast Analytics begins gathering data as soon as users play content in the Podcasts app (iOS 11 or later), in iTunes 12.7 or later (macOS and Windows), or on HomePod.

Apple - Podcast Analytics Beta Help

and 2) Castro is a much better application for selecting specific episodes to listen to when you subscribe to a large number of podcasts

Science Podcasts

I listen to pretty much every episode of Spacepod.

I listen to selected episodes of:

• Les années lumière – Radio-Canada – It has the distinction of being the only Canadian radio I listen to
• La conversation scientifique – France Culture
• Long Now Seminars About Long-Term Thinking – because they have experts talking at length about scientific and technical topics
• Science at AMNH (American Museum of Natural History)
• The Science Show – Australia ABC Radio National (RN) – I use the Separate Stories version so I can listen just to the stories I want
• La Tête au carré – France Inter

Open Science in 2017 G7 Science Ministers' Communiqué

The G7 Open Science Working Group was created in the 2016 Science Ministers' Communiqué, the Tsukuba Communiqué (PDF)

1. Establish a working group on open science with the aims of sharing open science policies, exploring supportive incentive structures, and identifying good practices for promoting increasing access to the results of publicly funded research, including scientific data and publications, coordinating as appropriate with the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) and Research Data Alliance (RDA), and other relevant groups

The 2017 Science Ministers' Communiqué (PDF) is now available, with a statement about Open Science as well as a summary of the G7 Open Science Working Group (G7 OS WG) report.  The Communiqué directs the Open Science Working Group to continue its work.

19. We recognize that ICT developments, the digitisation and the vast availability of data, efforts to push the science frontiers, and the need to address complex economic and societal challenges, are transforming the way in which science is performed towards Open Science paradigms. We agree that an international approach can help the speed and coherence of this transition, and that it should target in particular two aspects. First, the incentives for the openness of the research ecosystem: the evaluation of research careers should better recognize and reward Open Science activities. Secondly, the infrastructures for an optimal use of research data: all researchers should be able to deposit, access and analyse scientific data across disciplines and at the global scale, and research data should adhere to the FAIR principles of being findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.

20. We support the work and results achieved so far by the G7 Open Science Working group. The OS Working Group has identified priorities that deserve and require common aligned actions, both in encouraging openness and data skills in scientific research practice, through workforce development and training. We encourage the OS WG to follow-up actions taken by G7 members according to the WG’s recommendations and to collect good practices, in order to report to the next G7 Science Minister’s Meeting. In particular, we support the OS WG deepening its efforts on the two topics identified above (paragraph 19), namely the incentives for openness of the research ecosystem, including the role of research indicators and metrics relevant to open science, and the infrastructures and standards for optimal use of research. The summary report of the OS working group is attached to this Communiqué.

To extract specific priorities and direction:

• priority - incentives - "the evaluation of research careers should better recognize and reward Open Science activities"
• priority - research data infrastructure - "all researchers should be able to deposit, access and analyse scientific data across disciplines and at the global scale, and research data should adhere to the FAIR principles"
• direction - G7 OS WG - follow up (monitor) G7 member states' actions related to the WG recommendations
• direction - G7 OS WG - collect good practices
• direction - G7 OS WG - report back to the 2018 G7 Science Ministers' Meeting
• direction - G7 OS WG - deepen efforts on incentives, including research indicators and metrics relevant to open science
• direction - G7 OS WG - deepen efforts on infrastructures and standards for optimal use of research (with a particular emphasis on research data)

The statement "The summary report of the OS working group is attached to this Communiqué." is a bit confusing - the summary report is actually a separate annex document, it's not part of the main Communiqué PDF.

The summary report (PDF) also contains a key opening recommendation:

Overall, the G7 Open Science Working Group recommends that each G7 nation convene and engage with relevant stakeholders who can support moves towards incentivizing the increased adoption of Open Science in their national context.

as well as potential future discussion for the G7 in the areas of incentives and infrastructure for Open Science:

Incentives -

Potential future discussion at the G7 level: Consider approaches towards developing principles, for measuring the quality and impact of research enabled by Open Science practices. Discussions could also include means to identify, promote and implement best practices for Open Science, for example, through codes of conduct that build on existing procedures. This might lead to international consensus on the roles and responsibilities of researchers, institutions, and funders under Open Science.

Infrastructure -

Potential future discussion at the G7 level: Establish a forum for continued multilateral discussion to share information about major research data infrastructure initiatives in G7 countries and beyond. Discussion objectives could include:

• Development of a common understanding of Open Science and the related infrastructure requirements (e.g. for whom? Under which conditions?), including consideration of best practices in different disciplines of science and technology as well as in social sciences, humanities and the arts.

• Agreement to promote the FAIR principles for data resulting from government- funded research, increase discussion on sustainability and working towards shared guidelines for incorporating FAIR principles into the operations of infrastructure that support Open Science.

• Raising awareness of the necessity of well-qualified human resources and professional expertise for curation, annotation and other management of research data and incorporate them in the research processes.

Disclaimer: I was one of the Canadian representatives on the G7 Open Science Working Group in 2016-2017.

SIDEBAR: The FAIR principles mentioned are that data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable.  See e.g. https://www.force11.org/fairprinciples  END SIDEBAR

The G7 will be held in Canada in 2018.  The dates and location for the 2018 Science Ministerial have not been announced.

2016, 2017 and 2018 Science Communiqué Websites and Links

The 2016 Communiqué website is http://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/others/communique_en.html and there were two annexes to the Communiqué:

• Tsukuba Communiqué(PDF：169KB)
• Attachment 1 to Tsukuba Communiqué(PDF：82KB) - G7 follow-up workshop on mapping, coordination and joint activities in the field of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and Poverty-Related Infectious Diseases (PRDs)
• Attachment 2 to Tsukuba Communiqué(PDF：126KB) - Recommendations – G7 expert workshop on future of the oceans and seas

 The 2017 Communiqué website is http://www.g7italy.it/en/documenti-ministeriali and there were four annexes to the Communiqué:

• G7 Science Communiqué
• Annex 1 - Future of the Seas and Oceans
• Annex 2 – Report of the group of senior officials on global research infrastructures
• Annex 3 - WG Neglected Tropical Diseases and Poverty Related Diseases
• Annex 4 - WG Open Science

UPDATE 2017-10-03: You can also find a standalone page about the Science Ministerial at http://www.g7italy.it/en/news/the-ministerial-meeting-on-science-has-ended END UPDATE

UPDATE 2018-02-08: There is also an Italy 2017 Science Ministerial page at http://www.g7italy.it/en/science-ministerial-meeting but the link on that page to the Communiqué is currently broken.  END UPDATE

The 2018 G7 website is http://www.international.gc.ca/g7/ - updated to https://g7.gc.ca/

Twitter:

• @G7Canada - for the duration of the 2018 Canadian G7, Twitter will be @G7
• Peter Boehm, the Deputy Minister for the 2018 G7 Summit, tweets @G7Sherpa

Chief Science Advisor - Government of Canada

The Government of Canada appointed Dr. Mona Nemer as Chief Science Advisor on September 26, 2017.

This fulfills a commitment in the mandate letter for the Minister of Science, as well as one of the items in the Open Science commitment in the 2016-2018 Open Government Plan (in both it is described as "Chief Science Officer").

The Office of the Chief Science Advisor is hosted at Innovation, Science and Economic Development.  Although the website lists a brief mandate, more detail on the key functions of the position can be found in the backgrounder to the Prime Minister's announcement:

The Chief Science Advisor’s key functions will be as follows:

• provide advice on the development and implementation of guidelines to ensure that government science is fully available to the public and that federal scientists are able to speak freely about their work;

• provide advice on creating and implementing processes to ensure that scientific analyses are considered when the Government makes decisions;

• assess and recommend ways to improve the existing science advisory function within the federal government; and

• assess and recommend ways for the Government to better support quality scientific research within the federal system.

Furthermore, the Advisor will:

• deliver an annual report to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Science on the activities of the Office of the Chief Science Advisor and the state of federal government science, including the federal science workforce and federal scientific infrastructure;

• provide and coordinate expert advice to the Minister of Science and members of Cabinet, as appropriate and requested, on key scientific issues, including the preparation of research and foresight papers for public dissemination; and,

• promote a positive and productive dialogue between federal scientists and academia, both in Canada and abroad, and raise awareness of scientific issues relevant to the Canadian public.

I have highlighted "guidelines to ensure that government science is fully available to the public" due to its overlap with Open Science.

The annual report mentioned above will be made public (this is stated in the Prime Minister's announcement).

This is primarily an advisory role to Cabinet.  The Chief Science Advisor reports to both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Science.  The term of office is three years.

Contact information for the Office of the Chief Science Advisor is available on the office website.

Dr. Nemer has also begun tweeting using official account @ChiefSciCan

Previously:
March 23, 2017  Chief Science Advisor in Budget 2017
December 5, 2016  Canadian National Chief Science Advisor competition announced

Montreal Neuro Institute launching open access platform

The Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) has announced that it will launch a new publishing platform called MNI Open Research.

The partnership is another step in The Neuro’s goal of becoming an open science institution. In December, The Neuro launched the Tanenbaum Open Science Institute (TOSI), an initiative that will facilitate the sharing of neuroscience findings worldwide to accelerate the discovery of better treatments for neurological diseases. The publishing of research results, including negative results, without restriction, is a founding pillar of TOSI.

By launching MNI Open Research, The Neuro joins Wellcome, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health in creating open research publishing platforms with the collaboration of F1000. The platforms are based on the publishing model first used on F1000Research.

McGill - Onward to open science - August 30, 2017

In a blog post for F1000, MNI Director Guy Rouleau describes some objectives for MNI Open Research:

a platform where our researchers can rapidly publish any research outputs they wish to share. Research results will be published within days of submission and invited peer review will take place on an open basis, ensuring transparency. All meaningful data, including negative results, will be made public so other scientists can avoid the same pitfalls.

Twitter:

• @TheNeuro_MNI
• @F1000

Previously:
March 24, 2017  rapid access to scientific results including Gates Foundation open access journal

Ontario seeks Chief Scientist

The Province of Ontario is seeking a Chief Scientist.  They are using an executive search firm.

The Chief Scientist will advise on the long term vision and strategic research agenda for Ontario and provide scientific expertise on a range of provincewide issues including the aging population, transformative technologies and climate change. They will also work to ensure the province remains a top destination for global research talent and help advance Ontario's reputation as a jurisdiction that believes investing in knowledge and science is the key to success and economic prosperity.

from Ontario Recruiting First Chief Scientist - July 20, 2017

In the proposed mandate, the Chief Scientist reports to the Minister of Research, Innovation and Science on an ongoing basis and to the Premier on key scientific matters.

Sidebar: This is my 2400th blog post.

Previously:
December 6, 2016  Ontario Chief Science Officer

Chan Zuckerberg - Meta and preprints

The Chan Zuckerberg initiative will be funding science in various areas, with a particular focus on diseases.

To accelerate this progress, we will bring scientists and engineers together in new ways, create computational and experimental tools to empower the scientific community and build a movement to support basic science research.

from https://chanzuckerberg.com/initiatives/

Chan Zuckerberg has launched with an initial US$3 billion commitment to basic research, as reported in Inside Philanthropy.

There is a particular emphasis on funding high-risk ideas:

Forty-seven investigators will receive up to US$1.5 million each in the next five years from the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a partnership between the couple’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and three universities: Stanford, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, San Francisco. Together, the biohub grants announced on 8 February total more than $50 million.

“We told researchers, give us your riskiest ideas,” says biohub co-leader Stephen Quake, a bioengineer at Stanford.

from Nature - 'Riskiest ideas' win $50 million from Chan Zuckerberg Biohub - February 8, 2017

Several projects and technologies have been announced, including:

Chan Zuckerberg Biohub - this appears to be the central focus for the science activities

Meta - a science search engine that Chan Zuckerberg purchased and has promised to make available to the public for free.  It is planned it will become a sort of AI analysis tool for the science literature.

There is no open science policy statement available that I can find on any of the Chan Zuckerberg sites.  There is apparently a requirement to post preprints at time of submission.

The biohub investigators must post their manuscripts on open-access preprint servers, such as the arXiv, as soon as they submit the paper to a peer-reviewed journal. But researchers are permitted to file for patents, which would be owned jointly by the biohub and the scientists’ home institution.

from Nature - 'Riskiest ideas' win $50 million from Chan Zuckerberg Biohub - February 8, 2017

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Manager of Computational Biology, Jeremy Freeman, has made some statements about making data and code available.

Will all your research be peer-reviewed, published in journals and published for all to see?
We are absolutely committed to open dissemination of data and code and knowledge; that’s something I have been committed to all the time I’ve been a scientist.

The Guardian - Mark Zuckerberg’s man in the lab: ‘I want science to happen faster’ - March 5, 2017

Scientific research is still shared using a system developed more than a hundred years ago: the academic paper. “That’s how we disseminate knowledge, it’s a PDF document,” Freeman said. The data, the code and the interactive elements of the research should all be interactive, he argued. “There’s an obvious need to modernise and scale-up the technology we’re using,” Freeman said.

Wired - Meet the man tasked with speeding-up science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative - March 12, 2017

So for the moment it looks like preprints, open code (open source?) and open data.  But still not clear about open access.

A unified position statement from Chan Zuckerberg on their website about their open science approach would provide some clarity.  This could be a page along the lines of the Gates Foundation Open Access Policy.

UPDATE 2017-04-26: An announcement today from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) that Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will be providing funding for the development and expansion of the bioRxiv preprints server and that "All software developed through this collaboration will be made available as open source."

Nature has a bit more information in BioRxiv preprint server gets cash boost from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, including the possibility of better enabling bioRxiv for text mining and connecting it to Meta.

Previously:
February 17, 2017  Many preprint services

rapid access to scientific results including Gates Foundation open access journal

The Gates Foundation will be launching its own open access journal, Gates Open Research.

https://gatesopenresearch.org/

"a platform for rapid author-led publication and open peer review of research"

The Gates Foundation joins the Wellcome Trust in launching this approach, and they are both using the same underlying platform, F1000.

https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/

(Note that this is in addition to the previous announcement that the Gates Foundation will be paying Science to enable open access to Gates-funded research in what were previously closed-access journals.)

In a Times Higher Education story, Jean-Claude Burgelman suggests the European Commission might also create its own open access journal.

Nature News also covered the story: Gates Foundation announces open-access publishing venture.

These two journals will also gain the capability for open peer review that is part of the F1000 platform.  There is a short blog post on the F1000 site: Gates Open Research: the journey continues.

Related to this announcement there is also a (free) Economist Babbage podcast item on preprints and open peer review

https://soundcloud.com/theeconomist/babbage-ubers-trail-of-woes#t=1:04 (from 1:04 to 7:46)

and (not at all free) - three articles in the Economist:

March 23, 2017 Economist cover item (what the Economist calls a Leader): “Science’s publishing problem” – Leaders consist of a summary article and a more detailed article

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21719480-and-how-cast-them-shackles-scientific-journals

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21719438-about-change-findings-medical-research-are-disseminated-too

It happens that the Economist also did a piece about altmetrics in the same issue (altmetrics aren’t discussed in the podcast)

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21719441-alternative-metrics-extend-concept-citation-beyond-journal

Previously:
February 17, 2017  Many preprint services

Chief Science Advisor in Budget 2017

Canada's Chief Science Advisor and associated office get a mention in Budget 2017.

Budget 2017 proposes to establish an annual budget of $2 million for the Chief Science Advisor and related secretariat.

There's some additional text but nothing substantially beyond what has already been established in mandate letters and the job advertisement.

As part of her/his mandate, the Chief Science Advisor will provide advice on how to ensure that government science is open to the public, that federal scientists are able to speak freely about their work, and that science is effectively communicated across government.

The Chief Science Advisor will be responsible for providing advice to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Science, and will serve primarily in an advisory and coordinating capacity.

above from Budget 2017 - Strengthening Science in Government

Previously:
December 5, 2016  Canadian National Chief Science Advisor competition announced

LIGO Open Science Center as a model for communication and engagement

I am really impressed with the work that the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration has done to demonstrate the possibilities of open science communication and engagement.

The LIGO Open Science Center includes the following elements:

• data, including usage notes and data releases with accompanying documents
• some data releases have associated DOIs, e.g. event GW150914 data has doi:10.7935/K5MW2F23
• tutorials on how to work with the data, including a variety of cloud and downloadable software options
• some of the tutorials are Jupyter (iPython) notebooks, which combine data and code
• a way to query and extract time-based metadata (timeline) including an offer to host data
• a webservice to query and extract data (MySources)
• software examples and downloadable packages
• examples of data analysis projects including
  an online course
• list of publications with links to both final publications and preprints, plus (sometimes) science summaries
• the science summaries are sometimes even available in multiple languages

The one thing that I have been unable to find is a clear license for data use, although they do provide guidance on how to cite data that you use.

Going beyond the Open Science Center, they have many other channels of communication and engagement.

They did a Reddit AMA on the 2nd gravitational wave detection and they have a running crowdsourcing/citizen science project on Zooniverse called Gravity Spy.  As well there is a page listing just the papers related to the detection events; the page indicates open access papers clearly, but doesn't link to preprints.

They also have the usual social media, including YouTube with documentaries, public talks, podcasts, panels, and classes.

Taken all together, this provides a really good example of the scope that open science covers - it's not just releasing data, it's releasing accompanying software, tutorials, and analysis examples, as well as providing summaries of the science and reaching out through many different channels to engage the public.  (And this is just at the publication stage of the research lifecycle; there are many other stages at which open science applies.)

You can't just release the data, you have to also teach the data.  You can't just release the science, you have to also explain the science.

All of these activities require a whole set of skills in software, websites, plain language explanation and public engagement, beyond just the scientific expertise in and of itself.

---

If we take the observation of gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger (event GW150914) as an example, you can, just from the LIGO site (not counting the multiple news reports available)

• start with a step-by-step explanation of LIGO and gravitational waves
• read a science summary (in English, French, Chinese, German, Japanese and Spanish)
• read the full scientific paper as it is open access with a CC-BY license
• read the preprint that was posted to arXiv (although in this case it appears likely the preprint and full paper are the same, as they're from the same day)
• see what other LIGO documents are related to the full scientific paper
• access the data including being able to cite the data using a DOI, and learn how to work with the data using the Jupyter notebook software tutorials

Ontario Chief Science Officer

In the Ontario September 2016 Mandate letter: Research, Innovation and Science it provides some information about the Chief Science Officer (CSO):

• Defining the role of the Chief Science Officer to lead the government’s efforts to advance both basic and applied science and working with the Secretary of the Cabinet to recruit that individual by spring 2017. Consulting with and engaging the scientific community and the broader public as you develop the mandate of the Chief Science Officer.
• Working with educators, communities, other ministries and the Chief Science Officer to promote science literacy throughout the province.

The Ontario provincial Chief Science Officer is expected to be supported by team.  The competition (recruitment) for the CSO has not yet been announced.

See also:
December 5, 2016  Canadian National Chief Science Advisor competition announced

Canadian National Chief Science Advisor competition announced

Canada's Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan has announced the competition is open for the position of Chief Science Advisor (CSA) to the Canadian government.

Applications can be made through the Governor in Council appointments process.  Closes January 27, 2017.

The news release provides additional information:

• The Chief Science Advisor will report to both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Science.
• The Chief Science Advisor will be responsible for providing scientific advice to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Science and members of Cabinet.
• The office [of the CSA] will be supported by a team of scientists and policy experts.

Video of the announcement is available on Facebook.

The role of the CSA (formerly called "Chief Science Officer") is as indicated in the Ministerial Mandate Letter.

The letter says "Create a Chief Science Officer mandated to ensure that government science is fully available to the public, that scientists are able to speak freely about their work, and that scientific analyses are considered when the government makes decisions."

The job posting says "The Chief Science Advisor's main function will be to advise the government on how to ensure that government science is fully available to the public, that scientists are able to speak freely about their work, and that scientific analyses are considered when the government makes decisions."

IT, innovation, science and more - Gov of Canada 2016 consultations

Many Government of Canada consultations are underway.  This post is updated as they close and new ones are announced.

• Innovation - unknown deadline
• including Global Science Excellence ideas
• Fundamental Science Review – closes September 30, 2016
• Government of Canada [Information Technology] Cloud Adoption Strategy - closes September 30, 2016 - "Feedback on the strategy will be collected until September 30, 2016, and will be used to finalize the Government’s approach." - see press release for more info
  • feedback by email to [email protected]
• Government of Canada Information Technology (IT) Strategic Plan 2016-2020 – closed September 30, 2016 – “all feedback will be considered when the plan is updated in 2017”
  • feedback by email to [email protected]
• CRTC – differential pricing (or ‘zero-rating’) – closes September 30, 2016
• Cyber Security - closes October 15, 2016
• National Housing Strategy - closes October 21, 2016
• Official Languages – closing extended to November 14, 2016
• Shared Services Canada (SSC) IT Transformation - closes October 31, 2016 - also see (now closed) IT Strategic Plan and Cloud Adoption Strategy above
• Federal employees can provide feedback using http://www.ittransformationconsultation.ca/federal-employees
• Canada Post – closes December 31, 2016
• Clean Resources / Clean Tech / Clean Energy – unknown deadline - closed October 31, 2016
• Canadian Content in an Online World – consultation launched September 13, 2016 – unknown deadline
  • http://www.canadiancontentconsultations.ca/
  • Facebook Live events October 28, 2016 and November 7, 2016
• Budget 2017 – unknown deadline

Disclaimer: I work at Environment and Climate Change Canada.

See also:
June 23, 2016  Innovation Strategy consultation in Canada
June 13, 2016  Review of Canada Federal Support for Fundamental Science

Some of these consultations can be found on the government's open dialogue site ConsultingCanadians.gc.ca

post based on information from my personal blog

Review of Canadian Federal Support for Fundamental Science

the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science, today launched an independent review of federal funding for fundamental science. The review will assess the program machinery that is currently in place to support science and scientists in Canada. The scope of the review includes the three granting councils along with certain federally funded organizations such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

press release - Government of Canada Launches Review of Federal Support for Fundamental Science - June 13, 2016

Website is http://www.sciencereview.ca/ although that is currently just a rather awkward redirect to the clunk-URL ISED site http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/059.nsf/eng/home

UPDATE 2016-08-16: Ideas consultation has closed.  Site now has role-specific questions.  Consultation closes September 30, 2016.  ENDUPDATE

There are two questions in the mandate

The panel has been provided with the following overall questions to consider as part of its review:

1. Are there any overall program gaps in Canada's fundamental research funding ecosystem that need to be addressed?
2. Are there elements or programming features in other countries that could provide a useful example for the Government of Canada in addressing these gaps?

You can sign up for a mailing list.  It's possible you have to reply with a completely blank (no subject, no body) email, from the signed-up email address, in order to complete the subscription.

You can also fill in an online form to submit ideas.  Email contact address is the mellifluous [email protected]

Twitter:

• Minister of Science @ScienceMin
• there is no departmental Twitter account for Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED)

Data archiving and sharing - Le partage du savoir - Dominique Roche - Les années lumière

Canada's national French language public radio Radio-Canada has a science show, Les années lumière.

Every episode has some standard segments, including Doc / Post-Doc, which is an interview with a doctoral or post-doctoral researcher.

For February 21, 2016 the researcher was Dominique Roche, specifically about his research on Policies and practices surrounding data archiving and sharing.

You can see his academic home page at Université de Neuchâtel: http://www2.unine.ch/ethol/lang/en_GB/dominique_roche

and his Twitter is @dom_roche

Relevant papers on this topic are:

• Data deposition: Fees could damage public data archives - Nature 502, 171 (10 October 2013) - doi:10.1038/502171a - Published online 09 October 2013 (closed access)
• Troubleshooting Public Data Archiving: Suggestions to Increase Participation - Roche DG, Lanfear R, Binning SA, Haff TM, Schwanz LE, Cain KE, et al. (2014) Troubleshooting Public Data Archiving: Suggestions to Increase Participation. PLoS Biol 12(1): e1001779. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001779
• Public Data Archiving in Ecology and Evolution: How Well Are We Doing? - Roche DG, Kruuk LEB, Lanfear R, Binning SA (2015) Public Data Archiving in Ecology and Evolution: How Well Are We Doing? PLoS Biol 13(11): e1002295. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002295

You can visit the segment page for the Feb 21, 2016 Doc / Post-Doc on Roche, but the JavaScript popup audio player may cause problems depending how your system is set up.

Here is a direct link to a web page that should take you to the specific audio segment, but it requires Flash for playback on desktop computers.

An easier option may be to go to the audio segment in the podcast.  It runs from approximately 36:02 to approx. 43:13.

• direct MP3 link
• general podcast feed link (you'll have to pick the right episode)
• iTunes general podcast link (you'll have to pick the right episode)
• iTunes specific episode podcast link (note that this doesn't always work)

2015 Ministerial Mandate Letter - Minister of Science

Canadian heads of government issue ministerial mandate letters to convey their expectations of priorities and behaviour.

As far as I know, these have not historically been released to the public, but they have been recently for Ontario

Mandate Letters 2014-2015

and for Canada (federal level)

2015 Ministerial Mandate Letters

For the Canadian federal Mandate Letters, the starting paragraphs are (on a quick scan) all the same (with adjustments to address each Minister), including

We have also committed to set a higher bar for openness and transparency in government.  It is time to shine more light on government to ensure it remains focused on the people it serves.  Government and its information should be open by default.

The specific direction to the Minister of State for Science (Minister of Science) Kirsty Duncan is:

We are a government that believes in science – and a government that believes that good scientific knowledge should inform decision-making.  We believe that investments in scientific research, including an appropriate balance between fundamental research to support new discoveries and the commercialization of ideas, will lead to good jobs and sustainable economic growth. As Minister of Science, your overarching goal will be to support scientific research and the integration of scientific considerations in our investment and policy choices.  Support for science is an essential pillar in our strategy to create sustainable economic growth and support and grow the middle class.

In particular, I will expect you to work with your colleagues and through established legislative, regulatory, and Cabinet processes to deliver on your top priorities:

• Create a Chief Science Officer mandated to ensure that government science is fully available to the public, that scientists are able to speak freely about their work, and that scientific analyses are considered when the government makes decisions.
• Support your colleagues in the review and reform of Canada’s environmental assessment processes to ensure that environmental assessment decisions are based on science, facts, and evidence.
• Support the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour in efforts to help employers create more co-op placements for students in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business programs.
• Support your Ministerial colleagues as they re-insert scientific considerations into the heart of our decision-making and investment choices.
• Lead the establishment of new Canada Research Chairs in sustainable technologies, working with the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.
• Work in collaboration with the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to examine the implications of climate change on Arctic marine ecosystems.
• Examine options to strengthen the recognition of, and support for, fundamental research to support new discoveries.

There is no specific mention of open data; it is mentioned in the Mandate Letters for both the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and the President of the Treasury Board.  See blog post 2015 Ministerial Mandate Letters - open data.

CFI Cyberinfrastructure consultations Jan 20-22, 2015

The Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) has a draft call for cyberinfrastructure proposals, closing January 26, 2015.

• A limited number of research data infrastructure projects that, in collaboration with Compute Canada, enable communities of researchers, along with data scientists, data analysts, software developers and other experts to devise optimal ways of organizing and using research data resources; and,
• Upgrading and modernizing the computational and data storage capacities of the pan-Canadian advanced research computing platform, managed by Compute Canada.

The CFI is holding accompanying information sessions Jan 20-22, 2015 across Canada.

See background at http://www.innovation.ca/en/AboutUs/News/CyberinfrastructureInitiativeinformationsessionscomingcitiesacrossCanadaweek and list of dates and cities at the bottom of http://www.innovation.ca/en/OurFunds/CFIFunds/CFIcyberinfrastructureinitiative.

Previously:
December 5, 2014  Open Science in 2014 Science, Technology, Innovation Strategy

scholarly cyberinfrastructure - Geoff Bilder - #shakingitup14

Raw notes on presentation "Mind the Gap"  by Geoff Bilder (@gbilder) at Shaking It Up 2014.

Scholarly cyberinfrastructure

Bilder uses ORCid as an example of some success in this area.

Ideas developed with Cameron Neylon & Jennifer Lin from PLoS

wikipedia - cyberinfrastructure

need to transcend individual institutions

can't actually do simple things, let alone grand transformation

there is a reluctance to address infrastructure

1) infrastructure is boring
2) associated with huge bureaucracy

anti-pattern: when we talk about infrastructure
funder invites - future of scholarly communication
but researchers don't want to think about infrastructure

funder -> money into A (infrastructure)
researcher -> studying B (research)
researcher tries to overlap A and B

but research projects don't actually produce sustainable infrastructure

when the grant runs out, the server goes down, and the "infrastructure" they built disappears

cloud makes this even worse (not even a hard drive in an office somewhere you can recover)

"open", "distributed", "lightweight", "framework" makes things sound reasonable

Distributed begets centralized, because otherwise it doesn't work.

People trying to punt difficult decisions about infrastructure.

If you don't acknowledge from the start that distributed will be centralized...
you don't realize that you can be co-opted

minimal distributed - need many shims and adapters

trust issues

(there were) big problems with trust and ORCid (that had to be addressed)

ORCid initially CrossRef author DOIs

approach to address trust: principles

10 ORCid principles
http://orcid.org/about/what-is-orcid/our-principles

what would a scholarly infrastructure organisation be like?

coverage
transcending disciplines, geography, institutions, stakeholders

have to get beyond discipline silos

geography is an issue because funders are national

governance
should be stakeholder-governed
non-discriminatory membership

transparent operations (within constraints of privacy)

organisation cannot lobby
- because people fear organisations that just try to keep themselves alive

infrastructure organisation should have a living will

formal incentives to fulfil mission & wind-down

sustainability

time-limited funds are used only for time-limited activities

goal to generate surplus
- breakeven is an incredibly fragile position

goal to create contingency fund to support operations for 12 months

revenue based on services, not data
- need to ensure data remains open

revenue generation should be consistent with the mission

insurance
- open source: forkability

open source
open data (within constraints of privacy)
available data (within constraints of privacy)

insurance policy:
(with open data and open source) if you can bring the community with you (to a new location/organisation), you can win (control of your information and system)

patent non-assertion

Geoff says: if I were a funder, I would look for these principles

need to build foundation

stop asking researchers how to fund infrastructure

get people who are good at infrastructure to do infrastructure
get over the fear of directly funding infrastructure

thanks to
@cameronneylon
@jenniferlin15

Open Science in Canada's 2nd Open Gov Plan

Minister Clement has announced the 2^nd Open Government Action Plan (OGAP2).  It covers the years 2014-2016.

Building on the first Open Government Action Plan (released April 2012), there are the following new developments relevant to Open Science:

• The Directive on Open Government has been issued (effective Oct 9, 2014).  To the Policy on Information Management and the Recordkeeping Directive, the Open Government Directive adds specific requirements.  It requires departments to:
  • Maximize the release of Government of Canada open data and open information
  • Maintain comprehensive inventories of data and information resources of business value
  • Publish and annually update a departmental Open Government Implementation Plan (OGIP)
• There is an Open Science commitment in OGAP2, with Environment Canada and Industry Canada as co-leads.  The headline phrase is "maximize access to federally funded scientific research".  It includes:
• the development of an Open Science Implementation Plan
• launch of open access to publications and data resulting from federally-funded scientific activities
• establishing an online service to enable one-stop search for publications and data resulting from federal scientific activities
• publishing and updating an online list of peer-reviewed articles by Government of Canada scientists, dating back to 2012
• In addition, the existing commitment to provide a Virtual Library of all government publications is extended: "This new service will provide access to federal publications through an online, searchable repository of published federal documents of all kinds."

For more information, including the complete text of the Open Science commitment, see the new portal at open.canada.ca

UPDATE 2015-07-25: The easiest direct link to the open science commitment is to use the Open Government Partnership site - http://www.opengovpartnership.org/country/canada/commitment/open-science

Open Science and Open by Default in Canada

On October 9, 2014 the Government of Canada issued the Directive on Open Government. It is the "Open by Default" directive, stating

Departments must maximize the release of open data and open information by ensuring that all data and information resources specified [in Appendix B] are considered for release.

The directive covers all government data and information. In addition, the draft 2nd Open Government Action Plan lists some specific focus areas with deliverables, including C.1. Open Science.

Deliverables to be completed in 2014-2016:
C.1.1 Develop and publish a government-wide Open Science Implementation Plan which lays out strategies and milestones
C.1.2 Establish an online service to enable a one-stop search for publications and data resulting from federally-funded scientific activities.
C.1.3 Establish common Open Access requirements for federally funded scientific research.
C.1.4 Develop inventories of scientific data, and initiate the public release of data supporting scientific research publications.
C.1.5 Publish and maintain a consolidated online list of peer-reviewed articles by Government of Canada scientists dating back to 2012.

The draft is open for consultation until noon Eastern time, Monday October 20, 2014. You can contribute to the consultation by leaving a comment at the bottom of the draft document. (Note: this is the fourth and probably final phase of consultation on the 2nd Open Gov Action Plan.)

starting a new open science policy position

As of Monday September 15, 2014 I have joined Environment Canada for a one-year Interchange (a kind of temporary work assignment).  I will be working on policy and planning related to the Open Science proposal for the 2nd Canadian Open Government Action Plan.  The open science initiative includes open access and open research data.  To quote from the proposal

The Government of Canada proposes to maximize the release of federal scientific data and make more federally funded, peer-reviewed scientific articles and research publicly available ... free of charge.

If you're a Government of Canada employee, you can find information and provide feedback on the government wiki GCpedia as well as joining the discussion group on GCconnex.

Members of the public and GC employees can also leave a comment about the proposed activities at http://data.gc.ca/eng/Open_Science

Previously:
Sept 6, 2014  update on Open Science and Open Access for Government of Canada research
June 18, 2013  2013 G8 Science Ministers Statement

update on Open Science and Open Access for Government of Canada research

This is a bit of a complicated trail, but here goes:

Open science is in the Digital Canada 150 strategy.

Open science was a proposed idea in the phase 2 ideas consultation for the 2nd Open Government Action Plan.

Open science is now a proposed action (proposed commitment) in the phase 3 activitives consultation.  This is the last phase of online consultation.  The next step will be to issue the OGAP 2 plan.

The feedback on the proposed idea does not carry over to the proposed action.  If you want to be heard again, you have to post comments on the proposed action: Open Science.

UPDATE 2014-09-20: The action consultation (phase 3 consultation) is now closed, as of Sept. 19, 2014.  However, the data.gc.ca mailing list has announced that there will be a 4th phase of consultation "to request public input on the draft version of Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government 2.0" from Oct. 6-17, 2014 Oct 9, 2014.  ENDUPDATE

There are also still in-person consultations to be completed.  You can read about them here and here.

I do not have the exact schedule.  Contact [email protected] for the correct information.

It looks something like this, but there may be changes:

Round Table #6

September 11 – Halifax (1841 Argyle St., Halifax City Hall, Halifax Hall)

3 hour session

September 12 – Saint John, New Brunswick ?

Round Table #7	October – Edmonton (date and location to be confirmed)	3 hour session
GTEC	October – Ottawa (details forthcoming)	Workshop
Round Table #8	Lethbridge (date and location to be confirmed)	3 hour session

okfest14 - Open Digital Science - notes

Open Knowledge Festival 2014 - July 16, 2014

Session "Open, Digital Science - moving beyond open access" by Celina Ramjoué and Silvia Luber.

Sched entry.

Etherpad https://pad.okfn.org/p/Open,_Digital_Science

Dr. Ramjoué and Dr. Luber presented the progress on open science in the EU to date

• full open access mandate in Horizon 2020 research program
• also pilot on open research data in Horizon 2020 - see Guidelines on Data Management in Horizon 2020 (PDF)
• now working on next step: Open Digital Science
• public consultation: http://www.consultation-science20.eu/ closes 30 September 2014

They presented a framework of the larger set of issues involved when you look at the impact of digital technologies on all of science:

The session was mainly group discussions; these are summarized in the Etherpad.

The question of what policy actions are needed to support this new scientific ecosystem is an interesting one; it's a complex system and we are still figuring out necessary pieces.

csvconf 2014 - The Content Mine - notes

csv,conf 2014 - July 15, 2014

14:00 The Content Mine by Peter Murray-Rust @petermurrayrust

Presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/petermurrayrust/csvconf

• "liberating scientific facts for humanity"
• crawl, then data mine the literature, publish resulting facts CC0
• uses technology to extract information from PDFs, "can now turn PDFs into science"
• information will go to Wikipedia and as linked open data to DBpedia
• site is contentmine.org

Peter is using the UK Exceptions to Copyright for Research (PDF), specifically the text and data mining exception.