Category Archives: open issues

Oh Dear … Patent on Name2Structure conversion

Posted on October 15, 2007 by pm286

Chemspider has reported a new patent which claims the conversion of chemical names to structures. (BTW I am genuinely grateful for this post, as for several of the others). He writes: Name to Structure Conversion – and What One Little … Continue reading →

Posted in open issues | 2 Comments

Indexing Open Access and Free Access articles

Posted on October 15, 2007 by pm286

I reported that Chemspider had been asked to take down indexes of scientific articles (based presumably on chemical names) and stated that I did not think this was reasonable. (My language was probably rather more heated – I shall choose … Continue reading →

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Open-Data-driven science and a brokering system for ONS

Posted on October 14, 2007 by pm286

Cameron Neylon and Jean-Claude Bradley have blogged about a directory of Open Notebook Science (ONS) where projects including this approach can register. Growing a community – Open Notebook Science directories 21:19 14/10/2007, Cameron Neylon, As has been flagged up by … Continue reading →

Posted in blueobelisk, data, open issues, open notebook science | 6 Comments

ODOSOS and an article on OA

Posted on October 14, 2007 by pm286

Egon reminds us of the importance of the intensity of purpose that we need in the Blue Obelisk. (ODOSOS is our mantra: Open Data, Open Source, Open Standards). I won’t add very much new to that but I’ll also add … Continue reading →

Posted in blueobelisk, open issues | 1 Comment

ACS: Why it matters

Posted on October 14, 2007 by pm286

I have posted as an outsider why I am concerned about the current state of governance at ACS, particularly with regard to truth and integrity in the scholarly process. You may ask “why is this Brit slagging off a society … Continue reading →

Posted in open issues | 1 Comment

OPSIN/OSCAR: you + us = we; please help

Posted on October 14, 2007 by pm286

I’m exploring how you and we may be able to work to improve OSCAR and OPSIN. Even if you aren’t interested in chemical names, you may find the general principles useful. One of the drawbacks of full Open Source and … Continue reading →

Posted in chemistry, open issues, oscar, programming for scientists, XML | Leave a comment

The thing about Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work.

Posted on October 14, 2007 by pm286

A correspondent asked my opinion about Freebase: This blog entry may be of interest, about Freebase a collaborative database project which may or may not be open.  Are you familiar with it? http://brianna.modernthings.org/article/20/freebase-wikipedia-and-the-right-to-fork Also see http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/09/technology/09data.html?ex=1331096400&en=a87d4f61e6052888&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss I must admit to … Continue reading →

Posted in data, open issues | 4 Comments

OPSIN: why we need it and why we shouldn't

Posted on October 14, 2007 by pm286

NOTE: even if you are not a chemist, this should be worth reading… Rich Apodaca evangelises the value of JRuby as a simple way of glueing together the Java offerings in our Open toolkit. Here he shows how easy it … Continue reading →

Posted in open issues | 4 Comments

My outrage against "Open Access Publisher" continues

Posted on October 14, 2007 by pm286

[Peter Suber, I’d be grateful if you could comment on what it is legal to index without publishers’ permission. And what it is reasonable to expect from someone who labels themselves an Open Access publisher.] In my post Outrage: Repurposing … Continue reading →

Posted in chemistry, open issues | 5 Comments

Open NMR

Posted on October 13, 2007 by pm286

As I have already blogged (WWMM calculation of spectra) we are hoping to provide Jean-Claude Bradley and others an Open service to calculate NMR spectra from structure. This  needs a lot of software components and a lot of glueware. With … Continue reading →

Posted in blueobelisk, nmr, open issues, open notebook science, programming for scientists, theses | 6 Comments