Posts Tagged ‘Scientific method’

Re-inventing the anatomy of a research article.

Saturday, December 29th, 2018

The traditional structure of the research article has been honed and perfected for over 350 years by its custodians, the publishers of scientific journals. Nowadays, for some journals at least, it might be viewed as much as a profit centre as the perfected mechanism for scientific communication. Here I take a look at the components of such articles to try to envisage its future, with the focus on molecules and chemistry.

(more…)

The challenges in curating research data: one case study.

Friday, April 28th, 2017

Research data (and its management) is rapidly emerging as a focal point for the development of research dissemination practices. An important aspect of ensuring that such data remains fit for purpose is identifying what curation activities need to be associated with it. Here I revisit one particular case study associated with the molecular structure of a product identified from a photolysis reaction[1] and the curation of the crystallographic data associated with this study.

(more…)

References

  1. Y. Legrand, A. van der Lee, and M. Barboiu, "Single-Crystal X-ray Structure of 1,3-Dimethylcyclobutadiene by Confinement in a Crystalline Matrix", Science, vol. 329, pp. 299-302, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1188002

The provenance of scientific data – establishing an audit trail.

Thursday, March 30th, 2017

In an era when alternative facts and fake news afflict us, the provenance of scientific data becomes ever more important. Especially if that data is available as open access and exploitable by others for both valid scientific reasons but potentially also by those with other motives. Here I consider the audit trail that might serve to establish data provenance in one typical situation in chemistry, the acquisition of NMR instrumental data. 

(more…)

Managing (open) NMR data: a working example using Mpublish.

Monday, August 1st, 2016

In March, I posted from the ACS meeting in San Diego on the topic of Research data: Managing spectroscopy-NMR, and noted a talk by MestreLab Research on how a tool called Mpublish in the forthcoming release of their NMR analysis software Mestrenova could help. With that release now out, the opportunity arose to test the system.

(more…)

LEARN Workshop: Embedding Research Data as part of the research cycle

Monday, February 1st, 2016

I attended the first (of a proposed five) workshops organised by LEARN (an EU-funded project that aims to ...Raise awareness in research data management (RDM) issues & research policy) on Friday. Here I give some quick bullet points relating to things that caught my attention and or interest. The program (and Twitter feed) can be found at https://learnrdm.wordpress.com where other's comments can also be seen. 

(more…)