... According to the National Science Foundation, cyberinfrastructure is “like the physical infrastructure of roads, bridges, power grids, telephone lines and water systems that support modern society,” but “refers to the distributed computer, information and communication technologies combined with the personnel and integrating components that provide a long-term platform to empower the modern scientific research endeavor.” (People in other countries use different terms for roughly the same concept; in the UK and Australia, for instance, cyberinfrastructure is referred to as “e-science” and “e-research,” respectively.) ...
Of course, there is a network that we can use for sharing scientific data: the Internet. What’s missing here is infrastructure — but not in the purely technical sense. We need more than computers, software, routers and fiber to share scientific information more efficiently; we need a legal and policy infrastructure that supports (and better yet, rewards) sharing.
At Science Commons, we use the term “cyberinfrastructure” — and more often, “collaborative infrastructure” — in this broader sense. Elements of an infrastructure can include everything from software and web protocols to licensing regimes and development policies. Science Commons is working to facilitate the emergence of an open, decentralized infrastructure designed to foster knowledge re-use and discovery — one that can be implemented in a way that respects the autonomy of each collaborator. We believe that this approach holds the most promise as we continue the transition from a world where scientific research is carried out by large teams with supercomputers to a world where small teams — perhaps even individuals — can effectively use the network to find, analyze and build on one another’s data. ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 3/25/2008 08:16:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
