Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Thursday, May 13, 2004

More on OA to data

Peter Rees, Will Banking Data Improve Research Output? Research Information, April 2004. Excerpt: "Experimental results have always gone missing or, perhaps, have simply not been properly recorded. If the margin of Diophantus' Arithmetica had been wider, Fermat might have been able to write out his proof of his last theorem. Being able to check Fermat's reasoning might then have spared generations of mathematicians from tearing their hair out in search of the missing solution. But what if all the important details of a scientific experiment could be captured electronically from the beginning, and published in a digital library for all to read, thus saving duplicated effort and erroneous conclusions? This could be one of the outcomes of eBank, a 12-month project that will look at how research data could be used over and over again for further research and teaching." eBank will use the open-source ePrints software, which will make the the data archive not only open access but also interoperable with other OAI-compliant archives.