Academic Productivity

After a few months of private testing, Mendeley announced the public release of their open API. This will allow developers and researchers to build applications and data analysis on top of a massive database of human-annotated scientific references.

We are excited to see our friends at Mendeley push forward on the open science front by making their database accessible to third parties and I look forward to seeing what developers will build on top of this data goldmine. In the meantime, check out the Mendeley Developer Portal or follow the dedicated twitter account for updates.

There is only a bunch of tickets left for one of the most exciting annual events in the area of ICT for science. Hosted by Mendeley, Nature and the British Library, the second edition of Science Online London (3-4 September 2010) promises to bring together hackers, academics, publishers and startups in the field of software/services for scientists to discuss “how the Web is changing the way we conduct, communicate, share, and evaluate research”. I will be attending and would love to meet other AcaProd readers there.

Donald Knuth announced he would make an earthshaking announcement at TUG 2010. The breaking news is the plan to release the next-generation TeX engine. Read the comments and a brief summary of the announcement in perfect Stevenote style from Slashdot.

Project SOAP (Study of Open Access Publishing) is a two-year project, funded by the European Commission under FP7. The project is currently running a survey to understand the perception of Open Access publishing in the academic/research community. You can participate in the survey by following this link. Participants sharing their email address for further collaboration with the project automatically enter a prize draw for an Apple iPad.

Judith Simon and Diego Ponte from the LiquidPub project are seeking participants for a a survey about scientific publishing and the Web 2.0.

The aim of the survey is to gauge the potential acceptance of a Web 2.0 inspired production and dissemination of scientific publications by different scientific communities and by practitioners. The survey is hence tailored for researchers in all domains as well as for people working in the publishing industry.

Judith promised to report back on the results of the survey