Dov Greenbaum et al, Computer security in academia—a potential roadblock to distributed annotation of the human genome, Nature Biotechnology 22, 771 - 772 (2004). (Access restricted to subscribers.) Greenbaum and colleagues discuss how threats to computer security such as viruses, worms, hacks and the like increase the cost of computer maintenance to institutions and imperil openness and interoperability for researchers wishing to access each other's data. "Free and broad dissemination of ideas between independent laboratories and the public is the hallmark of research," they write. Apart from dire scenarios of overstretched IT departments, and increasing restrictions that may result, the authors suggest "creating a community-wide system of identity management and authentication (perhaps via Shibboleth). This would greatly help in the interoperation of tools within a federated database framework."
Posted by
Garrett at 6/03/2004 11:19:00 AM.
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.
