“Preprints for Agriculture and Allied Sciences.”
Category Archives: oa.agriculture
eROSA Project at a Glance | Aginfra Erosa
“The strategic goal of e-ROSA is to provide guidance to EU policies by designing and laying the groundwork for a long-term programme aiming at achieving an e-infrastructure for open science in agriculture that would position Europe as a major global player at the forefront of research and innovation in this area….”
eROSA project releases Vision Document “Towards an e-Infrastructure for Open Science in AgriFood” | Agricultural Information Management Standards (AIMS)
“The eROSA project on it’s 2nd stakeholder workshop in November 2017 at Wageningen UR has released a Vision Paper “Towards an e-Infrastructure for Open Science in AgriFood”. This documents outlines the necessary developments until 2030 to reach a state in which “food systems will produce healthy nutritious foods for all, produced through input-efficient methods and supporting a thriving environment. Food Systems will operate as collaborative networks that are constantly seeking to improve their economic, environmental and social performance”. Based on this Vision Paper, the project team will elaborate Roadmaps to information infrastructures with summer 2018. The Vision paper has been released for comments from all stakeholders. It is accessible at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nnHl_h1nzSBqfiw9fFE2XVVt8S-LFrtwunM2b5TNEcE/edit. “
Calestous Juma: Kenyan-born Harvard technology scholar has died — Quartz
Although this obituary doesn’t mention it, Juma was an important advocate for OA, especially in medicine, agriculture, and the global south. See https://goo.gl/ycDpV2 .
Open Access India Projects
The community of practice, Open Access India had taken up few crowdsourced projects viz., Forum for Open Access in SAARC Countries, National Open Access Policy for India, AgriXiv – Preprint Repository for Agriculture, CrowdSource project on mapping the ISSN Journals from India
Open Access India Projects
The community of practice, Open Access India had taken up few crowdsourced projects viz., Forum for Open Access in SAARC Countries, National Open Access Policy for India, AgriXiv – Preprint Repository for Agriculture, CrowdSource project on mapping the ISSN Journals from India
FFAR awards $1 million grant to create open source technology for gene discovery in plants | Crops | hpj.com
“The starting point will be approximately 1,000 human kinase inhibitors carefully selected from a library of chemical compounds donated to the partnership from eight pharmaceutical companies. The set will be distributed without restriction to scientists studying other plants and traits, thus serving as a broadly useful platform. The team has agreed to operate under open access principles —specifically prohibiting filing for IP on any of the results and will communicate the results widely….”
The Open Source Ethos | A Growing Culture
“The internet now provides a free platform for sharing knowledge. How is it possible—or even socially just—that so many of us can’t get access to scholarly research? Isn’t society propelled forward by access to the science, literature, and art of the world’s scholars? What if that research is publicly funded? These are the primary concerns that drive the open access movement.
What would these concerns look like if we removed them from the scholarly communications circle and applied them to realms beyond the ivory tower like nature, society, technology, and ultimately the intersection of those things—agriculture. How does resource sharing affect biodiversity? How does knowledge exchange drive community resilience? How is information access—delivered via technologies—an equalizer among the underrepresented, marginalized, and oppressed? How does our ability to feed a growing planet depend on a culture of openness? Let me work my way back.”
Tanzania workshop on Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) | Agricultural Information Management Standards (AIMS)
“The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO of the UN) in conjunction with several partners organized a series of training workshops in 2016 and 2017 across Asia, Africa and Latin America focused on access to research in agriculture and fisheries. Earlier, workshops were held in Namibia, Myanmar, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Laos PDR, Honduras and Guatemala.
The workshops are aimed at drawing attention to the scope of free online agricultural information available on Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) and International System for Agricultural Science and Technology (AGRIS) and in effectively using these resources. Alongside this core focus, the workshops raise awareness of key trends in scientific publishing in agriculture, fisheries and forestry, with a look at the further range of resources available to researchers in agricultural research, and on Research4Life.
The most recent workshop was held at Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH), 26-27 July 2017. In the United Republic of Tanzania, 115 national institutions are registered for free access to scientific journals and e-books through AGORA and Research4Life.”
Open risk assessment: methods and expertise – Verloo – 2016 – EFSA Journal – Wiley Online Library
Abstract: Risk analysis and risk governance face a decline in social trust at both the scientific and policy levels. The involvement of society in the process has been proposed as an approach to increasing trust and engagement by making better use of available data and knowledge. In this session, EFSA explored the challenges in building trust and engagement and the latest thinking and methodologies for increasing openness that can help the organisation to move beyond traditional dialogue and towards a more sustainable stakeholder and society interaction. The discussion centred on the needs of EFSA and of target audiences throughout the process, from risk assessment initiation through societal decision-making and communication. The main focus of the session was on methodologies and approaches that would enable EFSA to increase its scientific rigour and build trust from additional inputs gained by opening up its risk assessments at the level of data gathering, data analysis, expertise and innovation. This will require an approach that moves beyond traditional risk assessment practices that rely on a long chain of static information and knowledge such as scientific articles, reviews, expert groups and committees.