Category Archives: oa.agriculture

Microorganisms | Free Full-Text | Microbiome Research: Open Communication Today, Microbiome Applications in the Future

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Abstract:  Microbiome research has recently gained centre-stage in both basic science and translational applications, yet researchers often feel that public communication about its potential overpromises. This manuscript aims to share a perspective on how scientists can engage in more open, ethical and transparent communication using an ongoing research project on food systems microbiomes as a case study. Concrete examples of strategically planned communication efforts are outlined, which aim to inspire and empower other researchers. Finally, we conclude with a discussion on the benefits of open and transparent communication from early-on in innovation pathways, mainly increasing trust in scientific processes and thus paving the way to achieving societal milestones such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the EU Green Deal. View Full-Text

 

Home – CABI.org

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“CABI is an international, inter-governmental, not-for-profit organization that improves people’s lives worldwide by providing information and applying scientific expertise to solve problems in agriculture and the environment.

Our approach involves putting information, skills and tools into people’s hands. CABI’s 50 member countries guide and influence our work which is delivered by scientific staff based in our global network of centres.”

Home – CABI.org

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“CABI is an international, inter-governmental, not-for-profit organization that improves people’s lives worldwide by providing information and applying scientific expertise to solve problems in agriculture and the environment.

Our approach involves putting information, skills and tools into people’s hands. CABI’s 50 member countries guide and influence our work which is delivered by scientific staff based in our global network of centres.”

Opening up Agricultural Research and Data Tickets, Wed, Nov 11, 2020 at 2:00 PM | Eventbrite

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“The world’s growing population will need more and better food, from less farmable land, being produced by fewer farmers, in a far more volatile and changing climate. A more efficient and equitable agricultural system, in harmony with the environment, requires a step-change in how research is conducted and?how its outputs and data are?shared.

Opening up agricultural research and data is key to accelerating new discoveries and translating them into practice in the field. Other scientific disciplines have adopted?open science but agriculture, although making some progress, is lagging behind.

This webinar?debates the?benefits and opportunities inherent in “open agriculture” and also reviews?some of the?obstacles to change:

• Incentive structures for academic researchers perpetuate?a?restrictive and closed approach, discouraging early data sharing, with low uptake of preprint?and data-sharing initiatives

• The?majority of agricultural research is still published in pay-walled journals?which have established impact factors, copyright transfer, and perverse incentive schemes

• The?corporate sector?conducts important research and development, but commercial constraints inhibit more open sharing of data and insights

• How can open agricultural knowledge and data improve development outcomes for women?

• Open science presents both opportunities and challenges for researchers in low- and middle-income countries

• What would be the ideal open frameworks for agriculture?…”

Opening up Agricultural Research and Data Tickets, Wed, Nov 11, 2020 at 2:00 PM | Eventbrite

Posted on by

“The world’s growing population will need more and better food, from less farmable land, being produced by fewer farmers, in a far more volatile and changing climate. A more efficient and equitable agricultural system, in harmony with the environment, requires a step-change in how research is conducted and?how its outputs and data are?shared.

Opening up agricultural research and data is key to accelerating new discoveries and translating them into practice in the field. Other scientific disciplines have adopted?open science but agriculture, although making some progress, is lagging behind.

This webinar?debates the?benefits and opportunities inherent in “open agriculture” and also reviews?some of the?obstacles to change:

• Incentive structures for academic researchers perpetuate?a?restrictive and closed approach, discouraging early data sharing, with low uptake of preprint?and data-sharing initiatives

• The?majority of agricultural research is still published in pay-walled journals?which have established impact factors, copyright transfer, and perverse incentive schemes

• The?corporate sector?conducts important research and development, but commercial constraints inhibit more open sharing of data and insights

• How can open agricultural knowledge and data improve development outcomes for women?

• Open science presents both opportunities and challenges for researchers in low- and middle-income countries

• What would be the ideal open frameworks for agriculture?…”

Researchers’ attitudes and perceptions towards data sharing and data reuse in the field of food science and technology – Melero – 2020 – Learned Publishing – Wiley Online Library

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Abstract:  This work analyses the perception and practice of sharing, reusing, and facilitating access to research data in the field of food science and technology. The study involved the coordination of a focus group discussion and an online survey, to understand and evince the behaviour of researchers regarding data management in that field. Both the discussion group and the survey were performed with researchers from several institutes of the Spanish National Research Council. The lack of a data sharing culture, the fear of being scooped, and confusion between the concepts of the working plan and the data management plan were some of the issues that emerged in the focus group. Respondents’ previous experience with sharing their research data has been mainly in the form of appendices to peer?reviewed publications. From the survey (101 responses), the most important motivations for publishing research data were found to be facilitating the reproducibility of the research, increasing the likelihood of citations of the article, and compliance with funding body mandates. Legal constraints, intellectual property, data ownership, data rights, potential commercial exploitation, and misuse of data were the main barriers to publishing data as open data. Citation in publications, certification, compliance with standards, and the reputation of the data providers were the most relevant factors affecting the use of other researchers’ data. Being recent or recently updated, well documented, with quality metadata and ease of access were the most valued attributes of open research data.

 

Proprietary Grapes Come With Draconian End User License Agreement

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“A company put an end user license agreement (EULA) on a bag of grapes: “The recipient of the produce contained in this package agrees not to propagate or reproduce any portion of this produce, including ‘but not limited to’ seeds, stems, tissue, and fruit,” read the EULA on a bag of Carnival brand grapes….”

Grant to fund digitization of early 20th?century Extension publications | WSU Insider | Washington State University

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“A recent grant from the Center for Research Libraries’ Project CERES will allow Washington State University Libraries to digitize some 41,000 documents of early Washington State College Extension home economics publications as well as reports of the then-named Tree Fruit Experiment Station, today’s WSU Wenatchee Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center.

The digital collection will be of interest to farmers, nutritionists, historians and cultural studies researchers looking for Extension material from the first half of the 20th century….”

Preprints South Asia Survey 2020: A Report

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Abstract:  A survey on conducted to know the status of awareness and attitude particularly towards preprints among the research scholars, scientists and librarians in the South Asian region during the months of April and May 2020 had maximum responses from India (83.71%) and majority of Agricultural Sciences (54%) discipline. Respondents ranked ‘Journal’s Impact Factor’ at the top factor for selecting journals to publish. Seventy five percent had at least 25% of their publications in Open Access and had paid the APCs (65.33%) for publications and the source of funds are personal pooling (30.34%). While 61.72% read preprints, 27.03% have not heard about preprints and 11.26% never read the preprints. However, those read, 64.42% trust the preprints. And why they share preprints is because of ‘belief in open access’ (39.91%), ‘rapid feedback’ (23.53%) and ‘timely sharing results’ (21.72%). With regard to citing preprints, 60.36% never cited any preprints and 79.73% respondent’s preprints were never cited. However, the respondents mentioned that indexing, citing, visibility, consideration in assessment & evaluation will motivate the authors to share preprints.