This seems like a step in the right direction for the world of academic publishing. ResearchGate News announces, “Peer Review Isn’t Working—Introducing Open Review.” We know that increasingly, papers based on shoddy research have been making it into journals supposedly policed by rigorous peer-review policies. Now, ResearchGate has launched a countermeasure—Open Review brings the review process to the public. The write up happily tells us:
“We’re excited to announce the launch of Open Review today. It’s designed to help you openly voice feedback and evaluate research that you have read and worked with, bringing more transparency to science and speeding up progress.
There are legal ways to download books on the Internet without having to resort to Pirate Bay or other P2P networks. If you visit Open Culture, you will discover that there are over “550 Free eBooks: Download Books For Free.” Before you get on your soapbox and explain that most books available for free on are usually in the public domain, thus old and less than exciting to read. While that is true for these books, there are also more contemporary authors listed, such as Ray Bradbury, Agatha Christie, Neil Gaiman, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
If you are also interested in studying up on the Harvard Classics, because of this idea:
“During his days as Harvard’s influential president, Charles W. Eliot made a frequent assertion: If you were to spend just 15 minutes a day reading the right books, a quantity that could fit on a five foot shelf, you could give yourself a proper liberal education. The publisher P. F. Collier and Son loved the idea and asked Eliot to assemble the right collection of works.”
You will find that all of these classics are available for easy reading and download on the Internet. That Internet has made it easier to educate yourself with the amount of free classes, books, movies, and other content that can be obtained legally.
The crowdsourced data collection platform Ushahidi, now assisting activists worldwide, was first created to facilitate public accountability and social activism during crises in its home nation, Kenya. Not surprisingly, Ushahidi is also the name of the non-profit behind the open-source project. Open-Steps.org interviewed the organization’s director of data projects, Chris Albon, about the platform. The article prefaces the dialogue with a brief explanation:
“In a nutshell, it allows citizens to make reports in a collaborative way, creating crowdsourced interactive maps. With a very intelligent approach, Ushahidi gives citizens the possibility to use the web, their smartphones and even SMS to gather data, which makes this technology accessible almost everywhere and for everyone. Originally created in Kenya to serve as an instrument for social activism and public accountability in crisis situations, the software has proven to be a great companion worldwide in bringing advocacy campaigns to a successful end. The team behind Ushahidi has not only created a world-changing technology but also they share it with others since it is released as Open Source.”
Albon tells us that the core Ushahidi platform is now being used in 159 countries and has been translated into 35 languages, and explains it is being used by groups from small, election-monitoring non-profits to global organizations tracking disaster relief efforts. Journalists also make use of the platform. Albon notes that his group helped build iHub in Nairobi, an “innovation hub” and community workspace designed to facilitate collaboration and community growth. See the article for more on this and Ushahidi’s other projects, Crowdmap, Swiftriver, Ping, and BRCK. The interview wraps up with something to look forward to: the next generation of the Ushahidi core platform, v3, is on its way.
Using Social Media to Predict Economic Activity in Cities
Economic indicators in most developing countries are often outdated. A new study suggests that social media may provide useful economic signals when traditional economic data is unavailable. In “Taking Brazil’s Pulse: Tracking Growing Urban Economies from Online Attention” (PDF), the authors accurately predict the GDPs of 45 Brazilian cities by analyzing data from a popular micro-blogging platform (Yahoo Meme). To make these predictions, the authors used the concept of glocality, which notes that “economically successful cities tend to be involved in interactions that are both local and global at the same time.” The results of the study reveals that “a city’s glocality, measured with social media data, effectively signals the city’s economic well-being.”
OpenText announces its new product: OpenText Tempo. The new file sharing collaboration platform is highlighted in the press release, “Social Collaboration Combined With Secure Files Sync and Share: Introducing OpenText Tempo.” OpenText describes Tempo as a project that required teamwork from all over the world.
OpenText Tempo will be able to:
“…provides an engaging user experience that combines the convenience of secure file sync and share with social collaboration and seamless integration to Content Server. It connects people with each other and with their content in a secure, compliant environment that enables open dialogues to take place, extending the value of content through the process of collaboration.”
It is the company’s first EIM application with integration for other products, including Tempo Note, Tempo Social, and Tempo Box. OpenText also says it improves Web site management, web experience management, and portal applications.
It is a commercially secure file sharing and social platform. Will Dropbox and other free services be able to something similar on at an appealing price point?
