“This post describes four different notions of AI democratisation currently in use: democratisation of AI use, democratisation of AI development, democratisation of AI benefits, and democratisation of AI governance. Although these different concepts of democratisation often complement each other, they sometimes conflict. For example, if the public prefers for access to certain kinds of AI… Read More What Do We Mean When We Talk About “AI Democratisation”? by Elizabeth Seger

Introducing the FAIR Principles for research software Abstract Research software is a fundamental and vital part of research, yet significant challenges to discoverability, productivity, quality, reproducibility, and sustainability exist. Improving the practice of scholarship is a common goal of the open science, open source, and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) communities and research software… Read More Paper: The principles of being: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) for research software

Sense about Science has written an open letter to Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak calling for a commitment to greater transparency and accountability in the decisions government makes. A press release about this is here and the letter itself, here.

To discuss initiatives to further model comparison, documentation, reproduction, checking, validation etc. especially when in a policy context. Conference website at: https://ssc2021.uek.krakow.pl/ (registration necessary, but I think there will be no fees). All welcome to this online event.

This paper that defines four levels of reproducibility, suggesting criteria to help you decide which level your research software should be at, and recommending practices to reach these levels of reproducibility. https://zenodo.org/record/4761867

Thee House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has published its first report on the use of scientific advice to government in the COVID19 crisis (https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/135/science-and-technology-committee-commons/publications/). This looks at the evolution of structures for transmitting and discussing scientific advice in government, but worries about the longer-term openness of this process. They say (p.18): “…it remains… Read More Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee worries about long term openness of scientific advice to Government

There is a lot of talk about the “new open science”, but a study from the LSE does not find more openness in terms of data https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/11/30/covid-19-where-is-the-data/

https://forum.comses.net/t/uk-s-software-sustainability-institute-s-annual-collaborations-workshop-2021-cw21/8649