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ASAP Awards: Rewarding and acknowledging novel uses of Open Access resources

The Accelerating Science Award Program | Image from the ASAP Website (click to go to ASAP website)
The Accelerating Science Award Program | Image from the ASAP Website (click to go to ASAP website)

Those of you who know PLOS know that PLOS is a big advocate of Open Access – making research and findings available to everyone. To support Open Access work, and to highlight innovative and creative uses of OA, PLOS recently announced the new Accelerating Science Award Program (ASAP), three $30,000 award aimed at highlighting three exceptional ways that individuals have used OA research in fields as diverse as science and medicine, technology or even at the societal level.

Nominees can be individuals, teams or cross-disciplinary groups – as long as the Program Rules are met, it’s all fair game! I wanted to highlight this award for our readers, as I’m sure there are some of you using OA research in innovative ways, and I strongly encourage all of you to consider nominating yourself (or others) for this award.

I also ask that you spread the word through your institutions, organizations and other connections – this is a great initiative and can help promote excellent Open Access work that is occurring worldwide.

The deadline for ASAP nominations is June 15, 2013, using an online form located on the ASAP website.

Some specific details about the award: The project/idea must be based on research articles or content published through Open Access before May 1st, 2013 in a peer-reviewed journal or in a repository recognized in the Open Access community. If the use results in a publication, the publication must be Open Access. For those interested, there are details available on the Program Rules.

From the ASAP FAQ, here are some examples. These are for illustrative purposes only and don’t refer to anyone in particular, and there are other projects that would fit the ASAP requirements. If you are unsure, you can contact ASAP[at]plos.org to check.

The health minister of a low income country was able to confidently and quickly change cancer treatment protocols based on an oncology research article detailing successful uses of a repurposed cancer drug published by a peer reviewed, Open Access journal, which had been translated into multiple languages by a group of retired language teachers.

A climate policy expert took original figures and examples from a recent Open Access climate change research paper — correlating temperature increases with rises in ocean depth — and repurposed these findings in a policy-focused presentation at a conference of experts from 25 Asian and Oceanic countries – leading to the adoption of stricter emissions standards by several participating countries.

A technologist used the APIs provided by Open Access publishers and aggregators to chart trending topics in environmental science research. He then mapped these research priorities against NSF and RCUK grants to show how grant monies impact what areas researchers pursue.

A team of bioinformatics researchers utilized tissue samples from an Open Access repository to obtain tumor DNA sequence abnormality data, which they repurposed to create a new web-based app for oncologists to analyze a new patient’s tumor cells – thus facilitating personalized cancer treatment.

I’m excited to see the nominees for this award, and I can’t wait to see how people have used OA research in new and creative ways. Good luck to all the nominees!

Ed note: This post was posted simultaneously on PLOS Blogs Sci-Ed

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Mathematical Literacy: A necessary skill for the 21st century

Abacus

My Grade 9 math teacher was a jolly British man, and probably taught me one of the most useful things I ever learnt in high school: how to do basic math in my head (or, since I was in the British educational system, it was Grammar School). Every so often we’d go into our math class and find little bits of paper on every desk. This was a harbinger of doom – it meant we were having a 20 question surprise quiz. And not just any quiz, a mental arithmetic quiz. He would read a question out loud twice, and then we’d have to do the math. He’d give us some leeway (you didn’t have to be exact), but man did I ever hate those quizzes. At the time, they seemed impractical and a colossal waste of time. In retrospect, they were incredibly useful.

Now, being on the other side of the divide, I see something that concerns me. I regularly TA undergraduate and graduate students in statistics, and I notice that many of them, while they have all the skills to do math, are absolutely terrified of it. And as soon as you fear a subject, or don’t want to learn it, you won’t. Your mind will shut down and every instinct you have will prevent you from engaging in the material. As a result, I spend the first hour of any class I’m teaching talking to the students and determining what it is they don’t understand to tailor my sessions accordingly. But the comments generally involve variations on:

“I just don’t get math.”
“I’ve never been any good at math.”
“I don’t like it.”

Of these, the first two concern me. The third I can’t help – I don’t need my students to love math, but I do want them to understand enough to pass the course and feel comfortable interpreting statistical analyses. There’s a culture among schoolkids to dislike math and the perception that it’s largely useless. While in chemistry you can see stuff blow up, and in biology you can dissect animals, math is a largely abstract concept. That perception then manifests as a lack of interest, which results in poorer performance, and that puts people off math.

Click here to continue reading!

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New Post On Gradifying: Applying For Funding: Big Bang Theory GIFs and The Joy of Personal Statements

Applying for funding is a tough, but necessary, part of the graduate school experience. But luckily, I’m going to be writing about it in my post today, with GIFs from The Big Bang Theory!

If you hope to continue in academia, constantly applying for funding will be a reality you’ll face until retirement, so might as well start enjoying it. And if you’re in your Masters and thinking about a PhD, you’ll probably be applying for funding for that too, so this cycle never really ends. It’s tough, it sucks, but here are a few tricks you can use to make the whole process much more enjoyable. I’ll be talking mainly about my experiences with OGS and CIHR as those are the funding bodies I’m most familiar with, but if you have experience with NSERC or SSHRC (or any others), please feel free to comment below.

Click here to continue reading!!

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New Post on Gradifying: Hitting the Wall: The Graduate School Marathon

The statue of the Tired Man

We’ve talked a lot about resources that are all available for new students, in terms of settling in, finances etc. What we haven’t talked about are things that might affect returning students or those who are approaching the end of the degree. Given that we all hope to be at that point in the near future it’s worth discussing it here.

About half way through your degree you might realize that you put in a long time and effort but have very little to show for it. In marathon running this point is known as “hitting the wall” – the point where when you run out of energy to continue your race.

Click here to continue reading!!

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New Post on Gradifying: Picking A Supervisor and Other Concerns

One of the crucial factors in graduate school success is a good supervisor. While some faculties mandate that you come in with an identified supervisor, others let you start your program and identify a supervisor several months into your degree. Picking a supervisor is a very difficult decision and one that shouldn’t be made lightly.

Sometimes there is an obvious person; especially if you have a defined research interests in mind. However, if you don’t really know, or you have a multitude of interests, your options are quite broad. At that point the question is not “what would you like to study” but “who will give you the best environment to study in.”

I’ll highlight what I think is important to talk about with your potential supervisor, or to at least consider, before you make any decisions. However, everyone has different perspectives, and I encourage you to give your opinions in the comments section below. I’ve also discussed this issue on my other blog (Mr Epidemiology) and I encourage you to take a read of that.

Click here to continue reading!!

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Hey Mr Epid! What should I bring to a conference?

It’s conference time! Which means three things: 1) you’re frantically applying to every travel award, scholarship and bursary available to help fund your trip, 2) you’re trying to put together your poster and/or powerpoint at the last minute and 3) if this is your first academic conference, you’re wondering what to bring with you. This post is dedicated to the last point (inspired by Ars and other sites).

I like to pack light at conferences. You spend most of your time shuttling between rooms and the more you have with you, the more you have to worry about. That being said, I like to have the following 7 things with me at every conference:

Here’s my conference loadout. Macbook, iPhone, satchel, USB key, business cards and water bottle 🙂 (item #7 not shown)

Continue reading “Hey Mr Epid! What should I bring to a conference?” →

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Should Bloggers Publicize Their Own Work?

We’re not as adorable as this kitty, so I don’t know if we can get away with this sort of behaviour.

Science blog royalty SciCurious recently had a post up about whether it was okay for science bloggers to blog about their own work. Travis brought it up on his Science of Blogging site as well, and I started thinking about it.

One of the big issues we struggle with as researchers is getting our research out there, and having people understand not only what we did, but why we did it. While Sci and Travis talked about it in terms of blogging, this isn’t a new issue: Georg Franck wrote about it back in 1999 in terms of promoting your research with the media.

We want the public to know that not only is research important, but that it has practical implications, even if those aren’t apparent immediately. The last thing we want is a repeat of the “Squirrel Sex Research” story that came out in 2006. While publishing in reputable scientific journals is rewarded and encouraged, the lag time between submission and publication can range from 3 months to 2 years. So it makes sense to talk about your work so that the public can understand what you’re doing.

Continue reading “Should Bloggers Publicize Their Own Work?” →

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Guest Post: Dear (Food) Diary …

Mr Epidemiology: Today, I’m welcoming Natalie Causarano to the blog. You can find out more about Natalie at the end of this post.

The summer is finally on its way, bringing us BBQs, cottages, and …wait for it…the often dreaded BATHING SUIT SEASON! That moment of truth when we must face the effects of our winter hibernation (which might make us want to stay in hibernation).

Vanity aside, the benefits of maintaining a normal weight is a long-championed public health message. Yet the combined effects of increased portion sizes and our increasingly sedentary lifestyle are making it difficult for us to maintain a healthy weight. So, where should we start to lose? The diet industry seems to be growing as fast as the obesity epidemic and the price of weight loss products is even more discouraging.

One inexpensive weight loss strategy is to self-monitor with a food and / or exercise diary, which has been found to be an effective weight loss strategy by numerous studies (1). I know what you’re thinking, there’s no more room in your purse or murse for a food journal!

Fear not, the internet has the solution!

Continue reading “Guest Post: Dear (Food) Diary …” →

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Interesting reads: MSF Scientific Day Edition!

I’m not going to post my usual collection of links this week. Instead, I’m going to encourage all my readers to check out the MSF Scientific Day. It’s looking to be an interesting event, and the Agenda and posters cover a broad range of topics. They’ve been holding interviews on Twitter with the presenters (#MSFSD), and it’s been well received so far.

I’d strongly recommend participating if you can. You don’t have to watch the whole day (I know I won’t due to meetings and work), but if you have some time to kill, stop by their live stream, ask some questions on Twitter or Facebook and expand your horizons.

You can follow along online on the MSF Facebook page, Twitter @msf_uk or by using the hashtag #MSFSD.

Have a great weekend! And for those of you running in the Ottawa Race Weekend, good luck!!

-Atif

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