The recording for the Open Research Forum on Wednesday 9th March 2022 is now available to watch via Stream (University of Reading members only):
Ersilia, a hub of Open Source AI/ML models for infectious and neglected diseases
Ersilia – Slideshow
Presented by Gemma Turon, a co-founder of Ersilia, and an appointee to a Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship.
The Ersilia Open Source Initiative is a non-profit organisation which provides artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) models to support health research and strengthen research capacities in Low and Middle Income Countries.
While low and middle income countries suffer the greatest impact from infectious diseases, they produce less than 10% of the scholarly output in this field, leading to a significant western bias in biomedical research, and drug development.
Ersilia seeks to redress this imbalance by providing reusable Open Source AL/ML models, building community tools and governance models, and improving the documentation and accessibility of resources.
One Image: Exploring Open Source Digital Imaging for Research
One Image 2022 – Slideshow
Presented by Eva Kevei, Associate Professor in Biomedical Sciences, and a member of the Open Hardware community at the University of Reading.
The One Image project, funded for 12 months by the University of Reading, was launched in January 2022 with the purpose of designing, building and testing imaging instruments for a variety of scientific applications and disciplines using Open Hardware design principles.
Money for research is always limited, even in the developed world, and existing, often bespoke, imaging equipment can be prohibitively expensive. One Image’s output will be cheap, accessible and customisable, with design files, code and documentation being made available under open licences. Open hardware makes experimental research more accessible at lower cost and has a role to play in correcting the existing bias in research towards higher income countries.
Annotating for Transparent Inquiry in qualitative research: making archival documents accessible
Annotating for Transparent Inquiry – Slideshow
Presented by Joseph O’Mahoney, Lecturer, Politics, Economics and International Relations, and Open Research Champion at the University of Reading
The Annotation for Transparent Inquiry Initiative developed a tool for qualitative researchers that enables them to create enhanced annotations in articles and link to digital copies of archival sources in trusted repositories.
One problem in archives-based research is the accessibility of primary resources: often the sources only exist as a single, physical copy which can only be accessed in person with no digital surrogates, which raises questions about the authenticity and credibility of quotations and citations in scholarly output.
The Annotation for Transparent Inquiry augments papers with an interactive overlay which provides extended metadata, annotated notes and facsimiles of the document, providing a much needed context for the source material.
Joseph was involved in the project to pilot this valuable tool and has published a practical guide based on his experience. You can find more information in his Open Research Case Study.
Open Research Champions business / updates
Open Research Survey
Marcello De Maria and Kirsty Hodgson presented the findings of the 2021 Open Research Survey to a meeting of the Committee on Open Research and Research Integrity on 8th March. It was extremely well received and generated a great deal of discussion at the Committee, particularly in respect of the gaps in perceptions and requirements that were observed across different demographics represented in the survey.
Electronic Lab notebooks
A question was raised regarding the employment of electronic lab notebooks. Christiana Bercea discussed her pilot project using OneNote, which was recently undertaken in the School of Chemistry, Food and Pharmacy. This pilot was discussed at the 7th July 2021 Forum. It has proved successful, with a number of participating lab groups committed to continued use of OneNote.
Thank you 2021 Champions!
Your work this year has been invaluable, we are extremely grateful to everybody for their contributions over the last year under what have not been the easiest of circumstances.
2022 Research Champions Applications
While the Open Research Forum took place before the closing date for applications, we would like to thank everyone who showed interest and submitted applications.
The Next Open Research Forum
Date TBC
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