Peter Murray-Rust, John B.O. Mitchell, and Henry S. Rzepa, Chemistry in Bioinformatics, a preprint. Abstract: 'Chemical information is now seen as critical for most areas of life sciences. But unlike Bioinformatics, where data is Openly available and freely re?usable, most chemical information is closed and cannot be re?distributed without permission. This has led to a failure to adopt modern informatics and software techniques and therefore paucity of chemistry in bioinformatics. New technology, however, offers the hope of making chemical data (compounds and properties) Free during the authoring process. We argue that the technology is already available; we require a collective agreement to enhance publication protocols.'
Same authors, Communication and re-use of chemical information in bioscience, also a preprint. Abstract: 'The current methods of publishing chemical information in bioscience articles are analysed. Using 3 papers as use-cases, it is shown that conventional methods using human procedures, including cut-and-paste are time-consuming and introduce errors. The meaning of chemical terms and the identity of compounds is often ambiguous. valuable experimental data such as spectra and computational results are almost always omitted. We describe an Open XML architecture at proof-of-concept which addresses these concerns. Compounds are identified through explicit connection tables or links to persistent Open resources such as PubChem. It is argued that if publishers adopt these tools and protocols, then the quality and quantity of chemical information available to bioscientists will increase and the authors, publishers and readers will find the process cost-effective.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/20/2005 08:39:00 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.
