Mark asked on Quora\non how can cancer research be open-sourced.\nSo, far I found Quora to be rather noisy, even after signing up only to science\nrelated groups, themes, whatever it is called. However, every now and then there\nis an interesting question like this one.
\n\nThe question resonated with discussions I had earlier this week. During Peter’s\nSymposium the discussion was restarted on why publishing data in databases is\ncurrently not rewarded. I think the answer is really simple: there is no independent\norganization counting citation statistics. What if Thomson did not calculate\ncitation counts and impact factors? Would we be using them to judge the careers\nof fellow scientists? If FooBar would calculate H-indices based on data citations\nwould we ignore that? I hardly think so. However, FooBar does not exists, and\nFooBar is not getting rich because of its citation counts.
\n\nFrom a scientist point of perspective, we see people hold back data and source\ncode, because releasing it reduces the time for the scientist to bring the idea\nto Nature and Science. Now, in cheminformatics this is hardly a problem, because\nNature and Science do generally not recognize fundamental, methodological work\nfrom informatics and statistics, despite their now crucial role in many Nature\nand Science papers. However, for data this is different. By releasing your data\nOpenly (think Panton Principles), you remove your intellectual property that\ngives you a nice list of co-author papers for your publication list long tail.\nMind you, this is not an argument I make up here, but actual practice: “Sure\nyou can use my data/method, but I like to be co-author on your paper then.”
\n\nWhy this is actual practice? Even a paper in the long tail is rewarding. “Wow,\nhe has 250 papers!” As Rich nicely characterizes it: game\ntheory.
\n\nSo, what if we would replace the papers in that publication list long tail,\nby points for releasing Open Data and Open Source? I’m all in favor. And no\nworries about Handles and DOIs. Forget about them. We had Thomson calculate\nimpact factors very long before we had DOIs.
\n\nMy reply to Mark’s question?
\n\n\n", "summary": "Mark asked on Quora on how can cancer research be open-sourced. So, far I found Quora to be rather noisy, even after signing up only to science related groups, themes, whatever it is called. However, every now and then there is an interesting question like this one.", "date_published": "2011-01-19T00:00:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2011-01-19T00:00:00+00:00", "tags": ["opendata","opensource","publishing"], "authors": [ { "name": "Egon Willighagen", "url": "https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7542-0286" } ] } ] }First thing that needs to be changed is the academic reward system. At this\nmoment, it is rewarding to hold back information, source code, etc. Because\nif you do, you make yourself more competitive with respect to publishing in\nhigh-ranked journals. Now, if we would reward releasing data into public\n(Open) databases, that would change. Likewise for software. The new journal\nhttp://www.openresearchcomputation.com/\nis an attempt at changing this situation (disclaimer: I’m on the editorial\nboard). Of course, there are many kind of rewards. BMC giving out awards for\nOpen Data is another. Another important reward would be financial. If\norganizations, foundation, etc, would start giving out financial support for\nOpen projects, that will be a great change too. We are starting to see this\nwith a couple of national founding agencies in Europe to have dedicated\nfunding for Open Access publishing
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