#27124
Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to Science
Scientists who study encryption or computer security or otherwise reverse engineer technical measures, who make tools enabling them to do this work, and who report the results of their research face new risks of legal liability because of recently adopted rules prohibiting the circumvention of technical measures and manufacture or distribution of circumvention tools. Because all data in digital form can be technically protected, the impact of these rules goes far beyond encryption and computer security research. The scientific community must recognize the harms these rules pose and provide guidance about how to improve the anticircumvention rules.
Samuelson, Pamela. Science (2001). Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright
#31927
Are You Job Hunting or Job Fishing?
Landing the best jobs, like snagging the best fish, takes hard work and patience.
Fiske, Peter. Science (2000). Careers>Interviewing
#27095
A Brief History of US Fair Use
In our role as writing teachers, we’ve been asked to adopt 'post-modern practice' by releasing old-fashioned notions of single authorship and obsolete pedagogy that forbids plagiarism under a 'detect-and-punish' regime. Instead, we are to teach 'digital ethics' and Fair Use. But what exactly is 'Fair Use'? This is a doctrine we as writing teachers need to understand because while public figures such as Lawrence Lessig, Jessica Litman, and Siva Vaidhyanathan argue that the law needs to be changed, in the meantime we have classes to teach. Writing teachers increasingly teach writing on networked computers, and therefore our need to understand the basic doctrine of Fair Use is as great as our need to understand the rules of anti-plagiarism. This paper first reviews current US Copyright Law, and then briefly traces the concept of 'Fair Use' from its inception as 'fair abridgment' in 1700’s England to its current interpretation in US case law. US Copyright policy, the regime legally defining invention, imitation, compilation, and appropriation, is set through complex interactions between a variety of players. These influential interactions include the habits of writers. The tension between stakeholders who wish to share, and stakeholders who wish to contain and control information is viewed as a 'battle,' 'war,' and 'fight'. In this fight, the writing student and teacher thus become actors, willingly or not, determining how copyright operates. Because we as teachers are key players in the continual remediation of copyright policy, we should have a basic critical understanding of US Copyright Law and how Fair Use is situated within our copyright regime.
Rife, Martine Courant. Social Science Research Network (2006). Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright>History
#27280
Building a Biodiversity Content Management System for Science, Education, and Outreach 
We describe the system architecture and data template design for the Animal Diversity Web (http://www.animaldiversity.org), an online natural history resource serving three audiences: 1) the scientific community, 2) educators and learners, and 3) the general public. Our architecture supports highly scalable, flexible resource building by combining relational and object-oriented databases. Content resources are managed separately from identifiers that relate and display them. Websites targeting different audiences from the same database handle large volumes of traffic. Content contribution and legacy data are robust to changes in data models. XML and OWL versions of our data template set the stage for making ADW data accessible to other systems.
Parr, C.S., R. Espinosa, T. Dewey, G. Hammond and P. Myers. Data Science Journal (2005). Articles>Content Management>Scientific Communication
#25310
Controlled Languages in Industry
A Controlled Language is a form of language with special restrictions on grammar, style, and vocabulary usage. Typically, the restrictions are placed on technical documents, including instructions, procedures, descriptions, reports, and cautions. One might consider formal written English to be the ultimate Controlled Language: a form of English with restricted word and grammar usages, but a standard too broad and too variable for use in highly technical domains. Whereas formal written English applies to society as a whole, CLs apply to the specialized sublanguages of particular domains.
Wojcik, Richard H. and James E. Hoard. Oregon Health and Science University (2005). Articles>Language>Technical Editing>Controlled Vocabulary
#31923
The Cover Letter: Door Opener Par Excellence
Although we are allowed to put more into a cover letter than can appear on a magazine cover, the challenge is still to keep it succinct. In fact, writing something that is powerful and yet short is the single most difficult kind of business writing. You already know that although it's easy to go on and on in a company memorandum, saying the same thing in half the space can make your work twice as powerful.
Jensen, David G. Science (2002). Careers>Resumes>Cover Letters
#31934
CVs for Postdocs Leaving Academia
How do I present my academic experience and background in a way which won't turn employers off? I've found lots of example CVs on the Web, but none that shows how to promote postdocing to the "outside world".
#31924
Resume and CV writing is a huge subject, and thousands of books have been written about it. My goal in this column is to give you a brief refresher on some of the most common concerns that you may have regarding the preparation of your own personal "marketing materials." And please don't be put off by that description. Despite the low regard you may have for sales and marketing, it is exactly this job that a resume or CV needs to do when it arrives at its destination.
Jensen, David G. Science (2000). Careers>Resumes
#27289
The Design and Development of a Project-Oriented Information System
In this paper, the idea of building a project-oriented information system based upon a specialized information database was discussed. It attempts to provide tools for helping researchers use Internet resources effectively in the course of their research. Based on this idea, a web-based project-oriented information system was constructed. The paper systematically expounds the design and development process of the project-oriented information system. Furthermore, examples of utilizing the project-oriented information system to obtain useful information and suggestions for specific projects were described. According to our discussion and utilization of the system, we believe that building a project-oriented information system can help researchers with their research projects.
Zhao, Yuehong, Chao Liu, Hao Wen, Hezhen Zhang and Zhihong Xu. Data Science Journal (2003). Articles>Project Management>User Centered Design
#27282
Designating User Communities for Scientific Data: Challenges and Solutions
Defining a 'designated user community' for a data collection is essential to good scientific data stewardship. It enables data managers to determine what information is necessary to ensure the usability of the data now and into the future. It helps managers present and enable access to the data and may determine the format of the data. However, defining a community is difficult, and it is impossible to predict how the use of a data collection may change over time. This creates a series of data management problems for data stewards that may be mitigated by a set of best practices.
Parsons, M.A. and R. Duerr. Data Science Journal (2005). Articles>Communication>Scientific Communication>Collaboration
#27278
Digital Object Identifiers for Scientific Data
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a system for identifying content objects in the digital environment. DOIs are names assigned to any entity for use on Internet digital networks. Scientific data sets may be identified by DOIs, and several efforts are now underway in this area. This paper outlines the underlying architecture of the DOI system, and two such efforts which are applying DOIs to content objects of scientific data.
Paskin, Norman. Data Science Journal (2005). Articles>Publishing>Standards>Online
#27286
The Essentials of a Database Quality Process
Many steps are involved in the process of turning an initial concept for a database into a finished product that meets the needs of its user community. In this paper, we describe those steps in the context of a four-phase process with particular emphasis on the quality-related issues that need to be addressed in each phase to ensure that the final product is a high quality database. The basic requirements for a successful database quality process are presented with specific examples drawn from experience gained in the Standard Reference Data Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Blakeslee, Dorothy M. and John Rumble, Jr. Data Science Journal (2003). Articles>Information Design>Databases>Usability
#31935
From an Employer's Wish-List to Your CV
In this column I'll give you my strategy for preparing a CV and point you towards useful resources, but first of all let me assume that you are planning to start your career within the UK job market. CV styles vary across the world.
Science (2003). Careers>Resumes>Regional>United Kingdom
#25653
The Guide to Effective Illustration: Images for Presentation and Publication
An important part of modern communication is the use of images, both with oral presentations and in publications, to convey the essence of the author's message. As the methods of preparing, transmitting, and presenting images proliferate, we are all challenged to make the best use possible of each imaging technology.
Walworth, Vivian, Mary McCann, John McCann and Louis Rosenblum. Society for Imaging Science and Technology, The (1999). Books>Information Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
#31919
It's your main marketing tool -- and a sink for potentially endless tweaking and anxiety. Here's some advice from our experts on how to put together that all-important résumé/CV (and its frequent traveling companion, the cover letter).
#31930
The process leading up to your first faculty job is almost guaranteed to be a nerve-racking ordeal. Many applicants don't know how to make a good first impression. It is common--and reasonable--to question whether you have the right set of skills and credentials for a particular faculty job. Whether at a large research-intensive university on the West Coast or a small teaching college in New England, the recruitment process is much the same all across the country.
Fazekas, Andrew. Science (2006). Careers>Interviewing>Academic
#31920
Writing a bad résumé is easy. Writing a good résumé is hard. It will take time and many drafts. Because research scientists are often targeting several very different career paths simultaneously, it is important to have several different résumés that accent different skills.
Fiske, Peter. Science (1996). Careers>Resumes
#25651
This page presents a brief description of how JPEG compresses images. JPEG, unlike other formats like PPM, PGM, and GIF, is a lossy compression technique; this means visual information is lost permanently. The key to making JPEG work is choosing what data to throw away.
Society for Imaging Science and Technology, The. Articles>Graphic Design>Standards
#27284
Knowledge Management and Life Long Education in Science
In 1998 ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment, launched an e-learning platform with the mission of sharing scientific knowledge among everyone, not just workers but also students and the unemployed, in order to use its research results to support competitiveness and sustainable development. In 6 years, more than 20.000 users have followed one or more of the 46 on line courses. Many agreements with schools, universities, private and public training organisation are now under way to improve the dissemination of scientific knowledge and to build an open data base of scientific learning objects that anyone can use.
Moreno, Anna and Sergio Grande. Data Science Journal (2005). Articles>Knowledge Management>Education>Scientific Communication
#27288
Materials Data on the Internet
The availability of the Internet has provided unprecedented opportunities for both data compilers and users. With respect to materials data, this paper explores: how do we know what is available? how can data be accessed, interpreted, exchanged? what novel modes of presentation are now available? what organizations are active in this field and what are their programs? what improvements are needed? where do we go from here and how? Examples will be illustrated of specific materials databases available on the Internet from a variety of materials data fields, e.g. fundamental data, engineering design properties, environmental data, and materials safety data. While there is no question that large and widely varied bodies of data are accessible on the Internet, significant improvements are needed promptly. The paper concludes by summarizing these problems and possible means for their alleviation.
Westbrook, J.H. Data Science Journal (2003). Articles>Scientific Communication>Online>Engineering
#21897
Murder Most Foul: How Not to Kill a Grant Application
Grappling with grant applications at your desk is as central to scientific success as is wrestling with experimental conundrums at the bench. In the fight for research dollars, grant writing can make or break a research career no matter how good or innovative a scientist's ideas are.
#31926
Notes From a Recruiter's Diary: A Plethora of CVs
Competition is tight and readers are right to be concerned. But the numbers sound scarier than they really are.
Jensen, David G. Science (2002). Careers>Resumes
#27279
Overview of the IMSA Project, A Patient-Oriented Information System
This paper proposes an overview of the IMSA application, a patient-oriented medical information system. IMSA stands for Interactive Multimedia System for Auto-medication and aims to provide a health-care Internet tool for the end-user. This system proposes an environment that integrates on-line health information, medical and pharmaceutical databases and a knowledge-based system for medical diagnosis. The implementation process focuses on cognitive science, knowledge representation and human-computer interaction.
Curé, Oliver. Data Science Journal (2002). Articles>Scientific Communication>User Centered Design
#29255
Plain Language in Science: Signs of Intelligible Life in the Scientific Community?
'The importance of the work is inversely proportional to the number of people who can understand it' is an outdated attitude in today's scientific arena. The trend toward plain language is gathering force in government, academe, and scientific journals.
Locke, Joanne N., Lily Whiteman and Devora Mitrany. Science Editor (2001). Articles>Scientific Communication>Rhetoric>Minimalism
#27281
Heterogeneous research environments, interests and locations do not necessarily coincide, thus hitherto the primary method of communication amongst researchers has been email. In this article a novel unified polythematic, real-time, synergistic, data telecommunication system is proposed with peer-reviewed, bidirectional fuzzy feedback for research scientists, to facilitate scientific information exchange via the extensible markup language (XML) on multiple scientific topics, e.g. in mathematics, physics, biology and chemistry.
Petratos, Panagiotis. Data Science Journal (2003). Articles>Knowledge Management>Scientific Communication>Collaboration
