#scholrev: Contribution from @openscience

Exciting comment on this blog: I’ve copied it whole as I want to keep discussion very active. I’ll read in detail in the morning. In #scholrev there is no centre, certainly *I* am not running things. We couldn’t possibly get all ideas collected in a 40-minute session and it’s great to have contributions by blog.

I strongly support the metaphor of a commons for #scholrev. I don’t see it as a cathedral, but a bazaar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar ). I’ll blog later about the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Obelisk model which has a very bazaar-like structure. I’ll only add that #scholrev is absolutely not limited to science but that may not be relevant to this offer.

This comment has been cowritten from an IRC chat in the wake of #scholrev. We are part of the collective who tweet @openscience and admin web infrastructure for OSF and related groups, such as OKFN and PLOS, but neither we nor these suggestions represent anyone officially.

We would like to see #scholrev start by using Commons In A Box @CBOX — @kfitz had discussed CBOX at #btpdf2 — with which we also have experience. We have contributed to BuddyPress and WordPress for science since 2008 and for example, Mark’s Science 3.0, from which grew @figshare, used a precursor of CBOX https://plus.google.com/117417705451874519785/posts/EyxbLSe8uhD Together, we have built a few dozen networks like these, extending them with federation, integrating science relevant bits such as Zotero for reference management, and such.

PMR would be familiar with the OKFN network, a WordPress implementation with 95 sites, including e.g. that for Panton Principles. A couple of us are admins there. From a quick look, it is probably not CBOX compatible in terms of some of the live sites, while it could be eventually. Federating with the network is doable but probably on the scale of “in 2013.” Otherwise, we should suggest starting #scholrev within OKFN’s network; federating with OKFN in the longer term is regardless a generally desirable technical and organizational goal.

For @openscience the organization, we run a couple federations, comprised of similar networks — one for student scientists and the other for everyone else (per privacy, safety, school policies, etc.). For example, see http://futurescienceleaders.org/ which is federated with networks including http://studentbioexpo.org/ and http://u20science.org/ Not entirely different to the purpose of OKFN’s open science training in early career or for grad students, except for an even younger set who are also mentored, in those examples.

Our role is sometimes design, development, tech support; in all cases we are hosting and maintaining the stack below WordPress and its scripts, and most often we are also maintaining at the WP level. In the examples listed so far, our work and the hosting are volunteered and donated. Unless Sloan or some other angel wants to swoop in, or an existing org had room to foot the hosting bill, we would assume our services and work for #scholrev to also be pro bono and donated. We are not averse to being compensated individually but are not for profit in our work.

Federation in these cases means shared web services, codebase, and also shared users and authentication. It can mean more integration, at the option of participating blogs, sites, networks, or the fact of federation can be invisible. About our code: it is in the WordPress or otherwise appropriate repositories, but making federation work is rather involved and onerous to document properly. A better, still longer term goal both for us and CBOX itself is fully decentralized, distributed social networking and publishing, such that we could easily federate with implementations like OKFN’s and without wizardry by the network admin. Federation should eventually be managed through the CBOX code and with a UI. We have also contributed to attempts such as Social River to do this including but not requiring WordPress; those are longer roads. We can at least do something open and federated for #scholrev now, if not yet decentralized.

If #scholrev is to grow from a commons: ScholarlyCommons.org, .com, and kin are available. If it is not too domain specific to science, ScienceCommons.org is unused — archived content, redirected URLs aside — as is @sciencecommons on Twitter since 2010. We believe this is the proper brand to represent the intent and to pin the online hub of #scholrev. Creative Commons have a new science advisory, which includes Peter. We are glad to see it! but short of Science Commons being resurrected as it was, let it spring again from the grassroots. Let’s renew ScienceCommons.org and @sciencecommons as a functioning commons for science.

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7 Responses to #scholrev: Contribution from @openscience

  1. Chris Rusbridge says:

    Science Commons is perhaps not a good choice as it will confuse thigs with the Creative Commons offshoot of that name. ScholarlyCommons sounds good to me!

  2. Brian Glanz says:

    Personally I’d help regardless of scope. If there were reason for a Science Commons alongside a Scholarly Commons, with the scheme above that’s easy. I can imagine reasons and like the thought of using “Science Commons” in this way. CC own the trademark, not my prerogative but I like it.
    More on naming: Good for U of Illinois if less for us, they have a “Scholarly Commons,” http://www.library.illinois.edu/sc/ and @scholcommons. As scholarlycommons.org is available and there is no trademark, we could still do that and invite them.
    This needs a domain name but does it need a Twitter handle? I think not today, #scholrev is unique enough for a chan and being decentralized is part of the point. If we might use an account later, we could set it aside. @scholcomm is open but could be confused with scholarly communications. I have a hunch who registered @Commons, it’s abandoned, or we could ask as with @ccess.
    “Scholarly Revolution” has in the past few years often been attached to the Open Access movement, while helpfully not as specific to any event or campaign as for example, “Academic Spring.” The domains scholarlyrevolution.xyz are open, as are scholrev.xyz to match the hashtag. But I’m not sure ‘revolution’ makes as much sense in the domain as it does in the hashtag.
    Revolutions aim to win, right? (Aside from that Jeffersonian notion of permanent revolution, echoed in Marx et al.) If winning would include a commons, our chan is #scholrev but we should build a commons.
    Last thought for now, should this be on an email list? a couple dozen addresses were collected? if so, then please copy me. But I prefer these blog posts, comments, open communications to email until we do have a platform; anyone else might join.

    • pm286 says:

      Thanks Brian,
      Let’s blog for 2-3 days during which we’ll hope a home will emerge.

      • Brian Glanz says:

        It reads over recent conversation like people generally may be deciding against building a new home, a commons for #scholrev at its own web address, to rather use our own blogs or other existing platforms. Is it that a specific commons would be or feel too centralized? or am i misreading sentiments?
        On one merit of gathered, relevant community, I think of Stian’s post which had some useful interaction when shared in the Open Science Community https://plus.google.com/107702703184747130690/posts/Snw5jfYbknM
        I think Google+ falls too short of Open to be a platform for the #scholrev commons, if there should be a dedicated space. Web conferencing is great there and I don’t think using it as a tool for some purposes conflicts with it not being our commons. Someone mentioned a Force11 hosted discussion; I went to join discussions there and was sent to a Google Group, to which I could then request membership from Elsevier. I see NeuroLex but is that the wiki someone was suggesting we use?
        If there already is a #scholrev email list or wiki, I’d like to join it! but can’t find either. Findability is another a merit of having a home 🙂

        • pm286 says:

          Brian,
          These are great points. I think it’s critical to have a home. Someone has to build it. I thougbt it was a good idea not to use existing homes such as FORCE11 or OKFN until we’d had some chance to discuss. OneLaboratory offered a home at the meeting and I was expecting they might take it further – if they had set something up we would be using it – but they haven’t so we should look elsewhere.
          If you have ideas let’s have them 🙂 The odd day is not critical.
          And I also agree that Google+ has limitations.
          If *I* were building this I would use OKFN technology but it’s important it’s not me.

  3. Phil Lord says:

    You might be interested in the tools from my kblog project. We have a good referencing solution (kcite), and another (kblog-metadata) which provides rich metadata for every post, including multi-author support and the like, implemented as wordpress plugins.
    Also, we have http://greycite.knowledgeblog.org which provides a (possibly) decentralised replacement for CrossRef’s metadata services. It can provide bibliographic metadata for any URL. Currently, there are only two clients (my own kcite, and Carl Boettigers knitcitations for R). More are possible.
    We can do this stuff on the open web. Why don’t we?

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