Visions of a semantic molecular future
I already have a post on the Journal of Cheminformatics but this looked like it needed a separate post.
This thematic issue arose from a symposium held in the Unilever Centre [for Molecular Science Informatics, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge] on 2011-01-15/17 to celebrate the career of Peter Murray-Rust. From the programme:
This symposium addresses the creativity of the maturing Semantic Web to the unrealized potential of Molecular Science. The world is changing and we are in the middle of many revolutions: Cloud computing; the Semantic Web; the Fourth Paradigm (data-driven science); web democracy; weak AI; pervasive devices; citizen science; Open Knowledge. Technologies can develop in months to a level where individuals and small groups can change the world. However science is hamstrung by archaic approaches to the publication, redistribution and re-use of information and much of the vision is (just) out of reach. Social, as well as technical, advances are required to realize the full potential. We’ve asked leading scientists to let their imagination explore the possible and show us how to get there.
This is a starting point for all of us – the potential of working with the virtual world of scientists and citizens, coordinated through organizations such as the Open Knowledge Foundation and continuing connection with the Cambridge academic community makes this one of the central points for my future.
The pages in this document represent vibrant communities of practice which are growing and are offered to the world as contributions to a bsemantic molecular future.
We have combined talks from the symposium with work from the Murray-Rust group into 15 articles.
Quickly, just a couple of the articles with abstracts to get you interested:
“Openness as infrastructure”
John Wilbanks Journal of Cheminformatics 2011, 3:36 (14 October 2011)
The advent of open access to peer reviewed scholarly literature in the biomedical sciences creates the opening to examine scholarship in general, and chemistry in particular, to see where and how novel forms of network technology can accelerate the scientific method. This paper examines broad trends in information access and openness with an eye towards their applications in chemistry.
“Open Bibliography for Science, Technology, and Medicine”
Richard Jones, Mark MacGillivray, Peter Murray-Rust, Jim Pitman, Peter Sefton, Ben O’Steen, William Waites Journal of Cheminformatics 2011, 3:47 (14 October 2011)
The concept of Open Bibliography in science, technology and medicine (STM) is introduced as a combination of Open Source tools, Open specifications and Open bibliographic data. An Openly searchable and navigable network of bibliographic information and associated knowledge representations, a Bibliographic Knowledge Network, across all branches of Science, Technology and Medicine, has been designed and initiated. For this large scale endeavour, the engagement and cooperation of the multiple stakeholders in STM publishing – authors, librarians, publishers and administrators – is sought.
It should be interesting when generally realized that the information people have hoarded over the years isn’t important. It is the human mind that perceives, manipulates, and draws conclusions from information that gives it any value at all.