Two Reports on the Open Science panels:

1. Open Quake- Welcoming OpenQuake and OpenGEM as new members in Open Science group. 

The Open Quake project summarise discussions at the OKCon Open Science Panel and the issues they face in open data: volunteer computing, licensing and user interfaces. Volunteer-based projects in scientific research can be improved by using a platform like BOINC which allows open-source computing solution. As for interfaces, the actual challenge comes down to making open data usable.

2. Citizen Cyberscience

Francois Grey- on the distinction between open science and citizen cyberscience. Playing with the liminal space between professional and amateurish science, openness should primarily enhance the possibilities for praxis. As Grey states, “I’m not interested in openness as an end in itself, but rather as a means to an end”: in this case, widening the circle of experts. Empowering the „have-nots” is not enough, as access must come along with real opportunities of participation. „In short, Open Science is about making sure there are no locks on the doors to science. Citizen cyberscience is about making sure as many people as possible walk through those doors.”

Original post can be found here.

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Other Reports from OKCon

Interested in hearing more from Open Knowledge Conference 2011? Below you can find listed reviews, comments on speakers and presentations, but also ideas to be further developed.

·         On his blog, Nikolay Georgiev (Open Source Ecology) brings together the presentations related to Open Hardware, from principles of freedom to FabLabs and RepRap machines. Follow his slideshare, and consider his argument for having different levels of openness for Hardware.

·         Part of the LOD2 team (who presented this year in Berlin the Open Government Data Stakeholder Survey) Martin Kaltenboeck writes more on Andreas Blumauer’s presentation on open data for enterprises. Here.

·         DataMinerUk presents Nicola Hughes’s stand for open data in journalism. Find out why infographics and other interactive tools are only a superficial effort towards data journalism, reading her extracted points from the speakers Simon Rogers, Stefan Candea, Caelainn Barr, Liliana Bounegru and Mirko Lorenz.

·      Here,   James Harriman-Smith maps OKCon2011 around the Open Shakespeare’s annotation system, asking whether subjective opinion can be processed as (open) data as well, in the ecosystem of openness

·        In this post from http://www.lanetscouade.com, Samuel Goëta summarizes top 5 speakers, starting with Richard Stallman’s intriguing talk on fundamental liberties vs. Open Source. (Article in French).

·         For DataOne research, Richard Littauer relates his experience of the OKCon2011, taking the pulse of legal matters. Find out why we will soon need a database of Open Knowledge-relevant lawsuits: https://notebooks.dataone.org/workflows/2011/07/12/okcon-recap/

·         An extensive, critical blogpost from Michael Gurstein. Who is the end-user for whom we fight to open-up data?

·           Stefan Merten offers full details on some compelling presentations, and forecasts a soon-to-come big boom for open hardware. On http://www.keimform.de/2011/report-from-open-knowledge-conference-2011/ and here.

·          Rolf from Open for Change links OKCon presentations on governmental data with the beta version of the Open for Change Manifesto, as a way to better create autonomy, control and empowerment: http://openforchange.info/node/341

·         For details on backstage meetings at OKCon2011, and on how OKF design its organizational DNA, find out more in Peter Murray-Rust article here (also blogged by Glyn Moody).