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diff --git a/posts/2018-04-10-update-open-research.org b/posts/2018-04-10-update-open-research.org new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4b078d5 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/2018-04-10-update-open-research.org @@ -0,0 +1,185 @@ +#+title: Updates on open research + +#+date: <2018-04-29> + +It has been 9 months since I last wrote about open (maths) research. +Since then two things happened which prompted me to write an update. + +As always I discuss open research only in mathematics, not because I +think it should not be applied to other disciplines, but simply because +I do not have experience nor sufficient interests in non-mathematical +subjects. + +First, I read about Richard Stallman the founder of the free software +movement, in [[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596002879.do][his +biography by Sam Williams]] and his own collection of essays +[[https://shop.fsf.org/books-docs/free-software-free-society-selected-essays-richard-m-stallman-3rd-edition][/Free +software, free society/]], from which I learned a bit more about the +context and philosophy of free software and its relation to that of open +source software. For anyone interested in open research, I highly +recommend having a look at these two books. I am also reading Levy's +[[http://www.stevenlevy.com/index.php/books/hackers][Hackers]], which +documented the development of the hacker culture predating Stallman. I +can see the connection of ideas from the hacker ethic to the free +software philosophy and to the open source philosophy. My guess is that +the software world is fortunate to have pioneers who advocated for +various kinds of freedom and openness from the beginning, whereas for +academia which has a much longer history, credit protection has always +been a bigger concern. + +Also a month ago I attended a workshop called +[[https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/conferences/open-research-rethinking-scientific-collaboration][Open +research: rethinking scientific collaboration]]. That was the first time +I met a group of people (mostly physicists) who also want open research +to happen, and we had some stimulating discussions. Many thanks to the +organisers at Perimeter Institute for organising the event, and special +thanks to +[[https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/people/matteo-smerlak][Matteo +Smerlak]] and +[[https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/people/ashley-milsted][Ashley +Milsted]] for invitation and hosting. + +From both of these I feel like I should write an updated post on open +research. + +*** Freedom and community + :PROPERTIES: + :CUSTOM_ID: freedom-and-community + :END: +Ideals matter. Stallman's struggles stemmed from the frustration of +denied request of source code (a frustration I shared in academia except +source code is replaced by maths knowledge), and revolved around two +things that underlie the free software movement: freedom and community. +That is, the freedom to use, modify and share a work, and by sharing, to +help the community. + +Likewise, as for open research, apart from the utilitarian view that +open research is more efficient / harder for credit theft, we should not +ignore the ethical aspect that open research is right and fair. In +particular, I think freedom and community can also serve as principles +in open research. One way to make this argument more concrete is to +describe what I feel are the central problems: NDAs (non-disclosure +agreements) and reproducibility. + +*NDAs*. It is assumed that when establishing a research collaboration, +or just having a discussion, all those involved own the joint work in +progress, and no one has the freedom to disclose any information +e.g. intermediate results without getting permission from all +collaborators. In effect this amounts to signing an NDA. NDAs are +harmful because they restrict people's freedom from sharing information +that can benefit their own or others' research. Considering that in +contrast to the private sector, the primary goal of academia is +knowledge but not profit, NDAs in research are unacceptable. + +*Reproducibility*. Research papers written down are not necessarily +reproducible, even though they appear on peer-reviewed journals. This is +because the peer-review process is opaque and the proofs in the papers +may not be clear to everyone. To make things worse, there are no open +channels to discuss results in these papers and one may have to rely on +interacting with the small circle of the informed. One example is folk +theorems. Another is trade secrets required to decipher published works. + +I should clarify that freedom works both ways. One should have the +freedom to disclose maths knowledge, but they should also be free to +withhold any information that does not hamper the reproducibility of +published works (e.g. results in ongoing research yet to be published), +even though it may not be nice to do so when such information can help +others with their research. + +Similar to the solution offered by the free software movement, we need a +community that promotes and respects free flow of maths knowledge, in +the spirit of the [[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/][four essential +freedoms]], a community that rejects NDAs and upholds reproducibility. + +Here are some ideas on how to tackle these two problems and build the +community: + +1. Free licensing. It solves NDA problem - free licenses permit + redistribution and modification of works, so if you adopt them in + your joint work, then you have the freedom to modify and distribute + the work; it also helps with reproducibility - if a paper is not + clear, anyone can write their own version and publish it. Bonus + points with the use of copyleft licenses like + [[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/][Creative Commons + Share-Alike]] or the [[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html][GNU + Free Documentation License]]. +2. A forum for discussions of mathematics. It helps solve the + reproducibility problem - public interaction may help quickly clarify + problems. By the way, Math Overflow is not a forum. +3. An infrastructure of mathematical knowledge. Like the GNU system, a + mathematics encyclopedia under a copyleft license maintained in the + Github-style rather than Wikipedia-style by a "Free Mathematics + Foundation", and drawing contributions from the public (inside or + outside of the academia). To begin with, crowd-source (again, + Github-style) the proofs of say 1000 foundational theorems covered in + the curriculum of a bachelor's degree. Perhaps start with taking + contributions from people with some credentials (e.g. having a + bachelor degree in maths) and then expand the contribution permission + to the public, or taking advantage of existing corpus under free + license like Wikipedia. +4. Citing with care: if a work is considered authorative but you + couldn't reproduce the results, whereas another paper which tries to + explain or discuss similar results makes the first paper + understandable to you, give both papers due attribution (something + like: see [1], but I couldn't reproduce the proof in [1], and the + proofs in [2] helped clarify it). No one should be offended if you + say you can not reproduce something - there may be causes on both + sides, whereas citing [2] is fairer and helps readers with a similar + background. + +*** Tools for open research + :PROPERTIES: + :CUSTOM_ID: tools-for-open-research + :END: +The open research workshop revolved around how to lead academia towards +a more open culture. There were discussions on open research tools, +improving credit attributions, the peer-review process and the path to +adoption. + +During the workshop many efforts for open research were mentioned, and +afterwards I was also made aware by more of them, like the following: + +- [[https://osf.io][OSF]], an online research platform. It has a clean + and simple interface with commenting, wiki, citation generation, DOI + generation, tags, license generation etc. Like Github it supports + private and public repositories (but defaults to private), version + control, with the ability to fork or bookmark a project. +- [[https://scipost.org/][SciPost]], physics journals whose peer review + reports and responses are public (peer-witnessed refereeing), and + allows comments (post-publication evaluation). Like arXiv, it requires + some academic credential (PhD or above) to register. +- [[https://knowen.org/][Knowen]], a platform to organise knowledge in + directed acyclic graphs. Could be useful for building the + infrastructure of mathematical knowledge. +- [[https://fermatslibrary.com/][Fermat's Library]], the journal club + website that crowd-annotates one notable paper per week released a + Chrome extension [[https://fermatslibrary.com/librarian][Librarian]] + that overlays a commenting interface on arXiv. As an example Ian + Goodfellow did an + [[https://fermatslibrary.com/arxiv_comments?url=https://arxiv.org/pdf/1406.2661.pdf][AMA + (ask me anything) on his GAN paper]]. +- [[https://polymathprojects.org/][The Polymath project]], the famous + massive collaborative mathematical project. Not exactly new, the + Polymath project is the only open maths research project that has + gained some traction and recognition. However, it does not have many + active projects + ([[http://michaelnielsen.org/polymath1/index.php?title=Main_Page][currently + only one active project]]). +- [[https://stacks.math.columbia.edu/][The Stacks Project]]. I was made + aware of this project by [[https://people.kth.se/~yitingl/][Yiting]]. + Its data is hosted on github and accepts contributions via pull + requests and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, + ticking many boxes of the free and open source model. + +*** An anecdote from the workshop + :PROPERTIES: + :CUSTOM_ID: an-anecdote-from-the-workshop + :END: +In a conversation during the workshop, one of the participants called +open science "normal science", because reproducibility, open access, +collaborations, and fair attributions are all what science is supposed +to be, and practices like treating the readers as buyers rather than +users should be called "bad science", rather than "closed science". + +To which an organiser replied: maybe we should rename the workshop +"Not-bad science". |