Fair Use & Figures: When Is It OK? (Part One: Copyright)

When is it OK to post a figure from a paper in a blog post? Always thought this contravened copyright if no permission given. OK though?

— Andrew Maynard (@2020science) January 4, 2015

Last week I spent some time in conversations that began with Andrew Maynard’s posting a question to Twitter: “When is it OK to post a figure from a paper in a blog post?”

There were a lot of interesting thoughts and responses (before the conversation detoured off into mac’n’cheese and samurai swords). Things along the lines of, “What!? You mean research figures are different from pictures?” and “Isn’t it OK if you give a citation?” and “Well, my journal won’t allow it, but maybe some others do.” And what did the answer turn out to be? “It depends.” Isn’t that the truth – intellectual property issues always seems to depend on a variety of factors and situations. But answers to the various responses and questions were also sometimes not what was expected.

Does giving a citation to the source make it ok to share? Turns out it is irrelevant, in the sense of what is required legally, although it is expected as part of being active in scholarly culture as a matter of courtesy.

https://twitter.com/CopyrightLibn/status/551746994608549888

Now, more about posting research figures in blogs. I found quite a lot of information online to help explain part of how this works (or doesn’t). I’ll include small quotations that I found particularly helpful in understanding this better. Please not, IANAL (“I Am Not A Lawyer”!), so hopefully someone with more legal experience will contribute thoughts in the comments or will reply in another post.

“REUSE OF FIGURES, IMAGES, AND OTHER CONTENT”

The absolutely most helpful piece I found was from MIT Libraries.

MIT Libraries, Scholarly Publishing: Reuse of figures, images, and other content in theses http://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/publishing/copyright-publishing-guide-for-students/reuse-of-figures-images-and-other-content-in-theses/

Please note, this is describing rights to re-use content in THESES, not blogposts, so it might be a little different. The MIT resource emphasized two main points (copyright, and fair use), with a pointed twist (oops, figures ARE different!).

Point 1: Is it copyrighted?

You see, if it isn’t copyrighted, if an image is in the public domain, you don’t have a problem — it is content you can use. That is more likely to apply to items that are quite old, or created by government employees in the performance of their job. But copyright gets complicated. What if the journal is from Australia instead of the United States? Whether or not a piece is copyrighted may change based on the country in which it was created.

Even if it is copyrighted, if it is licensed for open use, you are fine. Probably. OK, I’m going to show an image here that ought to be OK, and hope it really is. This stuff is tricky. If someone complains, I’ll blur out whatever part they are concerned about.

PubMed screenshot of:
Benjamin Pulli and John W Chen. Imaging Neuroinflammation – from Bench to Bedside. J Clin Cell Immunol. Author manuscript; available in PMC Dec 16, 2014. Published in final edited form as: J Clin Cell Immunol. 2014; 5: 226. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25525560

This is a screenshot from PubMed. PubMed is an open database developed and created by the US government. I had talked with our lawyers about using screenshots from databases in teaching and blogging about database interfaces. I was told (off the record) that it was probably OK to use the screenshots without asking for permissions as part of fair use. The idea was that even if the database legally has copyright protection for their user interface design (as they most assuredly do), that I am teaching and blogging about it is unlikely to impact on their sales negatively, which is one of the markers of “Fair Use” assessment. Chances are, if anything, my teaching and blogging about their database would serve as free advertising, increasing awareness and profits rather than reducing them. That assumes, of course, that I am saying good things about them. So, maybe it would be a different matter and not fair use if I was criticizing the database?

PubMed does this nifty thing where you can find images of research figures in the citations, if the original source is an article in PubMed Central, an extension of PubMed’s database that includes open access articles deposited by the publishers. (More info here about how they are different.) For the images displayed as thumbnails in PubMed, if you mouse over them, they get big and beautiful. This is what I’m showing in this screenshot.

This screenshot is of a citation record for an article that is open access and published in PubMed Central. Does the copyright permissions for screenshots in PubMed extend to the content? That this article is open access would mean that the article is copyrighted, but open for people who want to read it, and also available to re-use under specific guidelines. The guidelines given for the article are, “This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.” By the rules, I need to include a full citation with the image. I have done so, both in Flickr, where I put the screenshot, and here in the blogpost. BUT.

BUT. But what? But this figure from the open access research article says that a portion of the image was modified from another source, WITH PERMISSION. Does that permission extend to me, since it was in an open access journal? I’m not sure. I’m not sure if I need to get two sets of permission to use this image, or none. Do I need to go back to the original authors of that portion and request permission myself? Do I need to blur out that portion of the image? Or did the process of these authors getting permission to use in an open access journal publication cover subsequent re-use? Do I need to check the policies for the journal where the source image was published? It’s … complicated.

For me, today, I’m electing to go ahead and use the image, trusting and hoping that the permissions cover this use. If someone complains, I will go back and blur out that portion of the image, and then replace it.

Many publishers have processes by which they establish policies that guide whether or not they give permission easily or if you have to jump through hoops or purchase permission. If you want to find out what the policies are for a journal with a figure you’d like to use, the place to check is SHERPA. If you want to know if a journal is open access, the you may want to check the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals).

SHERPA/RoMEO – Publisher copyright policies & self-archiving http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/

DOAJ: http://doaj.org/

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Part Two will look more deeply at the idea of Fair Use in using research figures. That’s where it gets really interesting, so stay tuned! For now, I hope you have a better sense of the two-pronged sword of copyright in using research figures:

– Yes, it’s OK to use research figures that are copyright-free, public domain, or open access;
– BUT, sometimes those categories are less than straightforward.

Strategies for Better Science Blogging: Part One, Best Practices & Guidelines

Last week, there was a kerfuffle around an IFLScience blogpost about rare diseases, and the responses from the rare disease community. In that post, I mentioned that I’d been looking for guidelines, checklist, style guides, and other similar types of tools for effective and appropriate science blogging, but that I wanted to make it a separate post. This is that promised post.

Before I get in too deep, here is a search strategy I used, and which you can use to poke around more in this, if you wish.

(“science blogging” OR “blogging about science”) (“style guide” OR checklist OR guidelines OR “best practices” OR rules)

(1)

Let’s start with the best introduction and brief overview I’ve found, written by Andrew Maynard. In these two posts, Andrew distills the most important lessons learned from years of working with graduate students and collaborating with other bloggers to give feedback on his “Mind the Science Gap” course and blog.

Anyone can blog about science. But it takes effort and diligence to blog well.

When I was teaching the Mind The Science Gap blogging course at the University of Michigan, it became clear early on that, no matter how enthusiastic or knowledgeable you are, there are some basic guidelines that can help make the difference between a great piece and a train wreck (thankfully we never had any of the latter). Over time, these developed into the Mind The Science Gap Good Practice Guide for writing Science Blog Posts.

So you want to write better science blog posts … http://www.riskscience.umich.edu/want-write-better-science-blog-posts/

Good Practice Guide for Writing Science Blog Posts http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/style-guide/good-practice-guide-for-writing-science-blog-posts/

Here is a distillation of his main points in my own words.

PREPARING:
Read broadly.
Read quality.
Skim beyond the basics.

GENERAL:
Don’t imply expertise you don’t have.
Don’t give advice.
If you give opinions, SAY THEY ARE OPINION.

WRITING:
Stick to the facts.
Include multiple voices & sources.
Report on controversies fairly.
CITE THEM.
Be generous with credit to others.

PICTURES:
Choose images to support the story.
Get permission.
Cite your images, also.

LAST STEPS:
Re-read your writing.
Find a proofreader.
Ask yourself if what you said was fair, accurate, scientifically defensible, and honest (FASH).

AFTER:
If you made a mistake, own it.
If you correct a mistake, say so in the post.
Say thanks to whoever raises useful questions.

(2)

Including many of the above, but enriching them with many practical tips from a rich set of interviews with successful science bloggers, this next one is also fabulous. I’d love to see “Blogging Tips” made into an infographic / checklist where I could post it for easy access.

Blogging Tips for Science Bloggers, From Science Bloggers http://www.scilogs.com/from_the_lab_bench/blogging-tips-for-science-bloggers-from-science-bloggers/

(3)

There are a lot of people concerned with the quality of science blogs right now. Andrew Maynard (1) has been teaching classes on science blogging. SciLogs (2) had that series of interviews with best practices. And at Science Online this year, there was a workshop devoted to the topic of standards in science blogging. They used the hashtag #SCIOstandards to extend the conversation through Twitter. I’ve picked just a couple example tweets with good points, but really, it is worth going to the #SCIO Standards Storify and reading through the whole thing!

Do you have to read the paper you're blogging about? YES! You don't have to understand it all, but you do have to try #sciostandards #scio14

— Dana Smith (@SmithDanaG) March 1, 2014

Taxonomy of the Science Post: Should we create #tags to demarcate opinion v. fact journalism in science blogs? #sciostandards #scio14

— Luis Quevedo (@luis_quevedo) March 1, 2014

Just because you're blogging, doesn't mean you shouldn't check sources. Even greater opportunity to link-out online #scioStandards #scio14

— Dana Smith (@SmithDanaG) March 1, 2014

@ScienceOnline Blogging Best Practice proposed: Always link to original sources so audience can assess for themselves #ScioStandards

— Gretchen Goldman (@GretchenTG) March 1, 2014

Link link link! Just like an academic paper, reference your sources #sciostandards #scio14

— Dana Smith (@SmithDanaG) March 1, 2014

Adjacent to issues related to standards in fact checking content, what about standards in writing/grammar? #sciostandards #scio14

— John Borghi (@JohnBorghi) March 1, 2014

PI doesn't want to talk to you? Ask a grad student on the paper! They would LOVE to talk about their research #sciostandards #scio14

— Dana Smith (@SmithDanaG) March 1, 2014

@SmithDanaG @NerdyChristie agree in theory, but there are also issues that come with talking to grad students. context, inexperience w/media

— Virginia Hughes (@virginiahughes) March 1, 2014

There is a lot more! Here is one of several Tweets connecting to the Storify. There are also many spin-off conversations without the hashtag. You can see these by browsing from the individual tweets, and reading the replies to them.

Interesting & useful reminders in this storify of the #scio14 session on blogging standards http://t.co/wY2YXuaFku #scioStandards

— Grant Jacobs (@BioinfoTools) March 7, 2014

For more background about this workshop, check out this link.

Background Reading in Science Blogging – #scioStandards http://www.scilogs.com/next_regeneration/background-reading-in-science-blogging-sciostandards/

(4)

Given that what started all this were questions of science blogging ethics and how blogging can work (or not) within a community, it seemed appropriate to draw attention to the community guidelines and harassment policy from one of the leading science blogging communities and forums, Science Online. It might seem a bit strange to include the concept of harassment in the context of science blogs best practices, but just think for a moment. What is your goal? If it is to inflame controversy and grab attention, then perhaps harassing people is one way to succeed in that goal. If your goal is, however, to accurately communicate science information in an engaging way, then you want to reach a broad audience and you want them to believe you. Making enemies may not be the best path towards that goal. In the case of last week’s IFLScience upset, it is unfortunate that there is a significant audience that felt persecuted and harassed. I don’t believe that was intentional, but it wouldn’t hurt for IFLscience (and the rest of us) to stop and consider whether or not our posts could be interpreted as willfully contentious or harassing as part of those final steps in our checklist before clicking “post.”

Science Online Community Guidelines: http://scienceonline.com/community-guidelines/

Mission:
“ScienceOnline cultivates science conversations both online and face-to-face. At our face-to-face events, we provide an atmosphere that encourages creativity, collaborations, connections, and fun. Through social media, we listen, support, share, recommend, and reach out. Through all of this, we celebrate science.”

Values:
“Respect. Generosity. Acceptance. Open-mindedness. Compassion. Kindness. Curiosity. Enthusiasm. Humor, Wit. Inclusivity. Collaboration. Open-mindedness, Humility. Support. Sharing. Cooperation, rather than competition. Encouragement, Transparency, Engaging all with science. Inclusive, Encouraging Individuality, Cooperation, Creative, Innovative, Engagement. Critical, challenging, enthusiastic. Passion, Great at connecting the dots in a pattern that makes sense 🙂 Principled, Generous, Profound, Profoundly fun.”

Science Online: Harassment Policy: http://scienceonline.com/scienceonline-harassment-policy/

Harassment Policy:
“Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to ethnicity, religion, disability, physical appearance, gender, or sexual orientation in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome attention.”

(5)

I’ve said many times that my favorite piece on how to respond to negative comments on a blog post is the Air Force guidelines shared by Jeremiah Owang.

That said, while it provides a strong general foundation, there are special characteristics to science blogs that may benefit from a slightly different context or require different types of responses. This is especially true when you consider the community and culture of science, and compare that with the broader communities and cultures in which science occurs. Here is a recent post I found by Juliana Houghton, which discusses these issues from the viewpoint of students blogging about science. It’s worth reading.

Student Post: Science Blogging — A Veritable Troll Bridge for the Modern Age: http://www.engage-science.com/student-post-science-blogging-a-veritable-troll-bridge-for-the-modern-age/

“But when we’re writing about things like science, and especially the parts of science that we individually find inspiring and enlightening, we might not expect inflammatory comments that seemingly come out of nowhere. To complicate matters, in science we are trained to question and to respond to questions. It is doubt and questioning that pushes science forward and keeps us from resting on our laurels. Q&A sessions following scientific talks often contain questions that get at the very fabric of our research. We can (and should!) say “I don’t know” when we really don’t, but we also work hard to think carefully about those comments and not dismiss them just because we might prefer our present point of view.”

I loved that paragraph which placed science blogging in the context and culture of doing science. This next snippet is what echoes the Air Force policies mentioned above.

“Ask yourself, is this commenter presenting an alternate viewpoint or just a personal attack. If the latter, it’s ok to just leave a comment unanswered. Another way is to set up strict commenting rules on your site and follow through with moderating. If your rule is that comments must address the article’s topic and the comment simply calls the author a nasty name, then it never even needs to appear on the webpage (or can be quickly taken down by the moderator, depending on your settings).”

(6)

Last but not least, let’s look at science blogging in the broader context of academic and scholarly blogging. There are best practices and courses for those environments, also! Virtually all of what appears in the literature on academic blogging is relevant to science blogging. Jessie Daniels and Polly Thistlethwaite drafted a quite nice overview at Just Publics 365, which provides context beyond much of what has already been said — about the target audience, your readers, differences in writing styles between blogs and professional research venues, and more. They’ve made this available in a variety of formats.

A Guide to Blogging for Academics http://justpublics365.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2014/06/30/academic-guide-to-blogging/

1. Talk to Me: Acknowledge the Reader.
2. Just Say It: Don’t lead with a disclaimer or qualifier.
3. K.I.S.S. : Keep it Simple Scholar
4. Get in & Get Out.
5. No, It’s Not All Important
6. If You Have Something to Say, Say It
7. Don’t Let Perfection Be The Enemy of The Good
8. Scholarly Writing vs. Public Writing

The Academic’s Guide to Writing Online http://sociologysource.squarespace.com/storage/Academics_Guide_To_Writing_Online.pdf

Illustrated Blogging Advice for Researchers
http://justpublics365.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2013/09/11/illustrated-blogging-advice-for-researchers/

Media Skills for Scholars http://mediaskillsforscholars.pressbooks.com/

Just to connect that back to the science context, there is an older article about science blogging that has some similar insights, and which discusses why scientists blog. I found it interesting and useful to just break out the section headings from that article.

Bonetta, Laura. Scientists Enter the Blogosphere. Cell 129 (May 4, 2007):443-445. http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(07)00543-0

Meet the Bloggers
Blogging to E-ducate
What is the Impact?
Why Aren’t You Blogging?
Blogging to Talk Shop
Communities of Bloggers

Closing thoughts

Do you know why you are blogging? Are there any of these best practices that you wish you did better? There are for me! We all have strengths and weaknesses, may be good at one thing and not so strong in other areas. I don’t usually have anyone read over my work before it goes live, and there are likely to be a lot of possible errors as a result of that. So far, I’ve scraped by, and I’m grateful that this is just a personal blog and that I don’t face the kind of audience and attention that IFLScience have. I’m not sure I’d do any better with the scrutiny than they are currently.

I did find many other resources along these lines. These are more the high profile pieces and overall context. I hope to have another post to simply share a lot of links that might be of further interest.

MedX, and TEDMED, and the Inauguration, Oh, MY!!

Last week I was privileged to listen in on a press conference for the upcoming TEDMED. Tomorrow is the Symposia for the Inauguration of UM’s new President, Mark S. Schlissel, with Harold Varmus as a guest speaker! Later tomorrow and this weekend, I’ll be watching Stanford’s Medicine X (#MedX) through their Global Access program. Next week the UM Medical School will be hosting a viewing of TEDMED. I feel like I’m swimming in an intellectual biomedical broth!

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Inaugural Symposia: Sustaining the Biomedical Research Enterprise and Privacy and Identity in a Hyperconnected Society

HASHTAG: #UMPres14
LIVESTREAM (1): http://umich.edu/watch/
LIVESTREAM (2): http://www.mgoblue.com/collegesportslive/?media=461850

The Inaugural Symposia for President Schissel’s investiture (8:30am ET to 12:00 noon ET) are composed of two very interesting topics and even more interesting collections of speakers. The first part, “Sustaining the Biomedical Research Enterprise,” is the section including the famous Harold Varmus, but also five other notable researchers from on campus, experts in chemistry, genetics/genomics, neuroscience, statistics, and biomedical imaging. (I’m excited that three of the five have expertise related to genomics!)

The focus of the first symposia centers around a recent article from Varmus and colleagues entitled, “Rescuing US biomedical research from its systemic flaws.”

The provocative abstract states:

“The long-held but erroneous assumption of never-ending rapid growth in biomedical science has created an unsustainable hypercompetitive system that is discouraging even the most outstanding prospective students from entering our profession—and making it difficult for seasoned investigators to produce their best work. This is a recipe for long-term decline, and the problems cannot be solved with simplistic approaches. Instead, it is time to confront the dangers at hand and rethink some fundamental features of the US biomedical research ecosystem.”

Those three ‘simple’ sentences imply an enormity of challenges which impact both locally and globally. I guarantee it will be fascinating to hear this panel discuss these and brainstorm ways in which the University of Michigan might work towards addressing them here.

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Stanford Medicine X 2014

HASHTAG: #MedX
LIVESTREAM: Available with pre-registration through the MedX Global Access program: http://medicinex.stanford.edu/2014-global-access-program/.

Lucky for me, the Stanford Medicine X event is on the other coast, so our local event will be almost completed when they begin livestreaming at 8AM PT (11AM ET). However, Medicine X conference lasts a solid three days, and includes topics from self-tracking to self-awareness, from entrepreneurship to partnership in design, from compassion to PCORI, from pain to clinical trials to games. It’s intense. A lot of my friends will be there, too many to name, but they include doctors, patients, geeks, and more. MedX is a powerful diverse community, and this is an exciting event.

Schedule: http://medicinex.stanford.edu/2014-schedule/

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TEDMED 2014

HASHTAGS: #TEDMED; #TEDMEDlive; #TEDMEDhive; #GreatChallenges.
LIVESTREAMING OPTIONS: http://www.tedmed.com/event/tedmedlive

TEDMED is a little different from the other two events in that it isn’t sponsored through higher education and the livestream isn’t usually free. For folk here in Ann Arbor, there is a way to watch it on campus. What you’ll see if you come includes very little that is expected. Even when someone has a job description that might sound like regular healthcare folk, what they are talking about will probably be a surprise. Beyond the idea of doctor, patient, nurse or neuroscientist, you will also hear comedians, musicians, athletes, bioethicists, military, philosophers, inventors, and more. But what else would you expect, when the theme of the event is “Unlocking Imagination”?

The TEDMED event is a little more complicated than in prior years because they are having presenters and events on both coasts — in Washington DC and in San Francisco. Some parts will overlap. Other parts won’t. You can check out the schedules for both coasts here.

Washington DC Stage Schedule (pdf)

San Francisco CA Stage Schedule (pdf)

To watch locally, details are given below.

Watch the Live Stream of TEDMED Conference, September 10-12

The Medical School will host a live stream from the TEDMED conference, which takes place September 10-12 in Washington DC and San Francisco. The focus of this year’s program is “Unlocking Imagination in Service of Health and Medicine.” Presenters include some of the most respected and undiscovered names in science, journalism, education, business, and technology. Click here to see the conference schedule. Viewing times and locations for watching the live streams are:

Wednesday, September 10: 8am-5pm: University Hospital South (Old Mott) 8th floor lounge
Thursday, September 11: 8am-12pm, 1pm-5pm: University Hospital South (Old Mott) 8th floor lounge
Friday, September 12: 8am-11:30am: University Hospital South (Old Mott) 8409 Conference Room
Friday, September 12: 11:30am-5pm: University Hospital South (Old Mott) 8419 IDTT Collaboration Space

20 Ways to Reuse Repository Content (Infographic of the Week)

Image source: Ayre, Lucy and Madjarevic, Natalia (2014) 20 ways to reuse repository content. In: Open Repositories 2014, 9-13 June 2014, Helsinki, Finland.

Last week, I was pleasantly surprised to find an infographic within a research article. This week is less surprising, but still a very practical application of infographics — a research poster! I can absolutely see using this idea myself, and actually saw a number of infographic/posters at a recent convention. The take home lesson from that is that infographic design and best practices are becoming a core competency for academics of all stripes.

This particular infographic struck my fancy because it provides interesting insights into ideas and strategies for maximising the impact of academic products. Create your research article and deposit a copy with the local institutional repository (which is, here, Deep Blue).

Then you are done, and on to the next project. Right? Or not. One thing I’ve learned is that talk to a researcher around campus and most of them have a story about their favorite project that never got the attention they think it warranted. This infographic is chock full of ideas for what to do about that. Placing a copy in the repository is only the beginning.

The Neel Lecture — Hashtags of the Week (HOTW): (Week of May 12, 2014)

Genes, Genome, and the Future of Medicine https://t.co/4er7Ok44Up #umneel14

— P. F. Anderson (@pfanderson) May 12, 2014

In the HOTW posts (Hashtag of the Week) we usually collect a bunch of tweets to illustrate topics or concepts. There are a few posts that mention Twitter tools, but not a lot. Today I’d like to talk about Storify, and am using the opportunity of having this morning livetweeted the James Neel Lecture by Richard P. Lifton. Livetweeting means to tweet about something while it is going on in real time.

To prepare for livetweeting I open web pages for the event, the speaker, and some of their articles. I make sure there is a good hashtag that isn’t likely to be misunderstood as being for something else. I check to see if it is possible to create an automatic archive of the event tweets. I also usually ask permission, if there is a chance. If there is not a chance to ask, the assumption is that events open to the public are permissible to tweet. (NOTE: If you are organizing an event, remind speakers to tell folk if and when they do NOT want things they say to be tweeted!) In this case, Dr. Lifton granted permission, with the caveat of excluding the portion of the presentation on current unpublished research. When he got to that part, he said, “Please don’t tweet this slide.” It works.

After the event finished, I was able to push all the tweets into a tool called Storify to create a kind of ‘story’ for the event. The tweet at the beginning of this post gives a link to the Storify for this event. While a Storify can be embedded in a web page, just like Youtube videos and tweets, it isn’t something that fits well in this blog, so I encourage you to go look at it there.

As you look at the Storify, you’ll notice that, as is usual with the blogged tweets, the individual tweets will show photos or certain other kinds of content. You may notice other content in addition to the tweets! There are pictures and links included, and even readable scrollable copies of entire article PDFs! Being a really academic presentation, this one was studded with research articles. Some of them are articles referenced by Dr. Lifton in his presentation, but others are simply articles on topics he mentioned. Don’t blame him for any errors in transmission – that would be my doing, probably misunderstanding something he said, since I’m not a geneticist. I hope that the overview this provides of the lecture might be useful to those who were unable to attend in person.

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First posted at THL Blog: http://thlibrary.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/the-neel-lecture-hashtags-of-the-week-hotw-week-of-may-12-2014/

Tracking the Trends: Emerging Technologies 2014

I’ve been working on this for a while. What you see above is my very first infographic, which I eventually made at Venngage.

E-Tech Trends 2014 [Infographic]: https://infograph.venngage.com/infograph/publish/b097d0b8-8d2f-4ca5-a339-f6ede2bdf8c7

The only problem was that Venngage wouldn’t allow me to export a copy of my work unless I pay them money, and since I don’t have moola to spare you get the low-resolution hard-to-read copy above unless you go to the Venngage site.

BACKGROUND

Briefly, to make this, I took a batch of my favorite white papers, annual reports, and similar resources that choose the most important new tech for various fields. I compiled their lists, and looked for overlaps to identify what seems to be most important across all of them.

WHAT I FOUND

Of the ten reports I examined, there were never more than 5 in agreement on any one technology, and over half of all the technologies are listed in only one of the reports. Of course, that’s the part that is most interesting to me, but that isn’t what will be most important to my bosses. So here are the levels of agreement, as reflected in the infographic.

5 of 10

3d printing
learning analytics

4 of 10

Additive manufacturing
Big data
Flipped classroom
Games & gamification
Social media
Virtual reality
Wearable technology

3 of 10

Artificial intelligence
Mobile learning
Personal agency (learners, patients)
Personal genomics
Social networks

2 of 10

3d bioprinting
Affective computing
Augmented reality
Biometric authentication
Bitcoins & digital currency
Brain-computer interfaces (BCI)
Cloud computing
Drones
Global collaboration
Holographic displays & inputs
Human augmentation
Internet of things (IOT)
Maker culture / makerspaces / consumer to creator
Mobile health monitoring
MOOCs
Newborn genome
Open content
Personal learning networks
Power, renewable
Quantified self
Quantum computing
Robotics
Sensors
Smartwatches
Speech recognition
Speech-speech translation
Virtual assistants
Volumetric Displays
Wearable user interfaces

HOW I DID THIS

I follow a LOT of blogs, Twitter streams, journals, databases, archives, etc. to scan for emerging technologies. My brain sorts these into various categories, informally noted for what level of awareness I feel they need and who I should tell about them, and whether I should tell folk now or if it can wait a while. But that’s all fairly soft and ill-defined. I had a question recently for which I wanted more of a crisp idea of what are the most strategically important emerging technologies.

I could immediately suggest several thinktanks, organizations, and thought leaders who track emerging technologies and push out their annual list of what’s most important. I’m not one of those people, but I watch them. For this question, no one of those reports had what I wanted. I needed education, sci-tech, and healthcare. I wanted to be able to pluck the best from across several reports, and I wanted to be able to do this in a way that went beyond “because I feel it in my gut.”

I made a spreadsheet, entered the technologies mentioned in each report, and checked off which ones appeared in which reports, tallied them up, and this gave me what I put into the infographic. Below, you can find a list of the ten sources I used, and all of the technologies listed that appeared in more than one report.

There are several Horizon Reports, of which more than one might be of interest. Here I used the main Higher Ed report and the Australian report for “tertiary education” (which is basically also higher ed). As a side comment, even though I didn’t use the Horizon Project K-12 education report I often find that the real bleeding edge of tech adoption in education is there, in grade schools. Worth checking out.

There is another fascinating parallel resource to the Horizon Report from Australia (CORE-Ed). And of course, the Gartner Hype Cycle is a must, even though it isn’t education specific, as is the MIT Tech Review’s list of “breakthrough technologies.” The SETDA report for 2013 isn’t out yet, but the 2012 one might still be of interest. Audrey Watters did a rather interesting series in her Hack Education blog on her selections for the top ten edtech trends of 2013. She includes so many use cases and examples in her blog that it is a goldmine of resources to dig through. Berci Mesko’s white paper on the future of medicine is a similar rich resource that points to far far more than is mentioned at the top level.

SOURCES

Here are the links, in alphabetical order.

1. CORE-Ed: http://www.core-ed.org/thought-leadership/ten-trends

2. CORE-Ed Science: http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/2014/02/digital-technologies-and-the-future-of-science-education.html

3. Gartner Report, Hype Cycle: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2575515

4. Guide to the Future of Medicine: http://scienceroll.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/the-guide-to-the-future-of-medicine-white-paper.pdf

5. Hack Education: Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2013: http://hackeducation.com/blog/tag.php?Search_Tag=ed-tech%20trends%202013

6. Horizon Project: Australian Tertiary Education: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2013-Technology-Outlook-for-Australian-Tertiary-Education.pdf

7. Horizon Report: http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed

8. MIT Technology Review: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2013: http://www.technologyreview.com/lists/breakthrough-technologies/2013/

9. Popular Science: 2014: The Year in Science: http://www.popsci.com/article/science/year-science-2014

10. SEDTA National Educational Technology Trends 2012: http://www.setda.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/SETDANational_Trends_2012_June20_Final.pdf

BioRxiv: A Preprint Archive for the Life Sciences

I just found out that some of my friends had not yet heard about BioRxiv, the preprint archive for the biological and life science which was launched by Cold Spring Harbor Press last November.

And we are live! The non-profit preprint server for biology from Cold Spring Harbor Lab http://t.co/euzSeKlPae

— bioRxiv (@biorxivpreprint) November 12, 2013

What is the idea behind it? They released a great video yesterday to explain it.

bioRxiv The Preprint Server for Biology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwAMtT3ZIpg

The buzz has reached such influential journals as SCIENCE and NATURE, so you know they are legitimate. This is how they describe themselves.

“bioRxiv (pronounced “bio-archive”) is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences. It is operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a not-for-profit research and educational institution. By posting preprints on bioRxiv, authors are able to make their findings immediately available to the scientific community and receive feedback on draft manuscripts before they are submitted to journals.”

Jon Wilkins gives excellent reasons for participating in his blogpost on Lost in Transcription: open access, speed, normalization, feedback, and “the left side of history.”

Five Reasons Biologists Should Use Preprint Servers http://jonfwilkins.com/2013/11/five-reasons-biologists-should-use-preprint-servers/

I’d also argue that getting your work out in public view under your own name helps to define your claim to the work, and gives you preemptive identification with the concepts. Not to mention that visibility can lead to or support publication (and there is the absolutely delicious feeling that comes when an editor sees the preprint and asks you to submit your article to their journal).

Just had a paper I posted on the #biorxiv accepted by @PLOSCompBiol #openaccess win! written mostly on #writelatex http://t.co/DRi2Dgbl5D

— Jacob G Scott (@CancerConnector) November 27, 2013

Just to make it even better, bioRxiv readership and use are included in altmetrics.

Article metrics now augmented by altmetrics on bioRxiv e.g. http://t.co/dFmlgoxg7x pic.twitter.com/67gtUGhUJd via @cshperspectives cc @altmetric

— bioRxiv (@biorxivpreprint) March 18, 2014

This might just make an interesting expansion upon placing your work in Deep Blue, and could also help fulfill some grant requirements for placing work in spaces accessible to the public. Issues to ponder.

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First posted at THL Blog: http://thlibrary.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/biorxiv-a-preprint-archive-for-the-life-sciences/

#AccessToResearch & More! — Hashtags of the Week (HOTW): (Week of February 3, 2014)

I was pretty excited to see the announcement of the UK Access to Research initiative, a partnership of publishers and libraries across the United Kingdom, which will hopefully extend open access research in ways that may serve as a model for other countries. They made some interesting choices, including requiring people to visit their local library in order to get access.

#AccessToResearch

Or check out the #AccessToResearch microsite for more about the initiative: http://t.co/wLwZpfGKd8

— PLS (@PLSlicensing) January 31, 2014

We're very happy to be supporting the #AccessToResearch pilot launching Monday! @PLSLicensing @PublishersAssoc @ProQuest

— ALPSP (@alpsp) January 29, 2014

Initiative for free, walk-in access to academic articles & research in public libraries across UK #AccessToResearch – http://t.co/ZgNzfUMTzw

— James Neal (@james3neal) February 3, 2014

Sorry for silence at #AccessToResearch event. Signal dropped out. Here's a pic of David Willetts to make up for it http://t.co/SSo6LSRjzo

— Suzanne Kavanagh (@sashers) February 3, 2014

David Willets describes the new scheme:'What we've got here, is publishers &public libraries coming together' #AccessToResearch @shivalibest

— Pardy Dhillon (@PardyDhillon) February 3, 2014

#AccessToResearch – 100s of thousands of journal articles made openly available in UK public libraries http://t.co/Ka4iBCYSpJ #OpenAccess

— Fred Saunderson (@fredsaunderson) February 3, 2014

Libraries promote research and use of digital technogies, esp in a challenging economic environment @janene_cox #AccessToResearch

— PLS (@PLSlicensing) February 3, 2014

"There is no remote access for this service" says Sarah Faulder, CEO PLS #AccessToResearch

— Misha Gajewski (@mishagajewski) February 3, 2014

The lack of remote access for #accesstoresearch will encourage people to go to public libraries, which are currently suffering.

— Shivali Best (@shivalibest) February 3, 2014

#AccessToResearch: "17 publishers signed up so far, amongst them Nature & Oxford Press" says Sarah Faulder, CEO publishers licensing society

— SyTpp Live (@SyTppLive) February 3, 2014

"If people can use google they can use access to research. It's that simple" – Phil Hall #accesstoresearch

— Misha Gajewski (@mishagajewski) February 3, 2014

#AccessToResearch – "user said that she will use the service on a regular basis, and as a result has got her first library card since 1994"

— PLS (@PLSlicensing) February 3, 2014

With #accesstoresearch a small biz owner could walk into their library & research the latest piece of engineering kit or material for free

— Pip Brooking (@PipBrooking) February 3, 2014

Deptford library for the launch of #AccessToResearch. Fascinating to see what take-up will be by UK taxpayers pic.twitter.com/8suLfmXZRt

— L Chipperfield (@leightonc) February 3, 2014

If taxpayers pay for it, they should be able to access it. New #accesstoresearch initiative means journals aren't just for academics

— Pip Brooking (@PipBrooking) February 3, 2014

Could this expand to other countries? #AccessToResearch

— Misha Gajewski (@mishagajewski) February 3, 2014

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First posted at the THL Blog: https://thlibrary.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/accesstoresearch-more-hashtags-of-the-week-hotw-week-of-february-3-2014/

Sharing Research on Twitter — Hashtags of the Week (HOTW): (Week of January 13, 2014)

Last week in the #medlibs chat on altmetrics, Donna Kafel shared an interesting article on how research articles are shared in social media.

@pfanderson @mascher @michigandrea #medlibs Study conducted by libs on most Tweeted scholarly articles. http://t.co/H0RJVebeDR

— Donna Kafel (@dmkafel) January 10, 2014

Haustein S, Peters I, Sugimoto CR, Thelwall M, Larivière V. Tweeting biomedicine: An analysis of tweets and citations in the biomedical literature. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Article first published online: 26 NOV 2013. DOI: 10.1002/asi.23101
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.23101/abstract
Preprint: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1308.1838.pdf

This is the newest study of how real life sciences research is being used in social media. They analyzed a sample of over a million articles from Pubmed to reveal patterns associated with heavily shared articles, then compiling a list of the most tweeted articles. (There will be a sequel to this post about them.)

Meanwhile, the Altmetrics web site has also released a year-end overview of the most influential research articles of 2013 according to the Altmetrics score. What is an Altmetrics score? In their words, “We’ve created and maintain a cluster of servers that watch social media sites, newspapers, government policy documents and other sources for mentions of scholarly articles. We bring all the attention together to compile article level metrics.”

Altmetrics: Top 100 Papers that Received the Most Attention Online: http://www.altmetric.com/top100

Let’s take a little closer look. For a richer understanding of how Altmetrics looks at articles, here is a screenshot of the Altmetrics report for the top ranked medical article from 2013.

Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet: http://www.altmetric.com/details.php?doi=10.1056/nejmoa1200303

As you can easily see, although Altmetrics looks at many sources of information (Twitter, Facebook, F1000, news media, videos, blogs, Google+, Reddit,Mendeley, CiteULike), Twitter activity far outstrips activity for the other sources.

Now, usually the HOTW posts track a hashtag with health, life science, education, or research interest. This week, as a diversion from the usual, I wanted to see what articles are being shared and how best to discover them. I found that neither “research” nor “#research” were terrible effective, although both were interesting, they didn’t retrieve actual research articles but rather articles about research funding and process. What did work was searching the word “Pubmed.” Here are some of the most popular research articles (including mentions of UM researchers!) from the past week.

Oh, and this happened during my Xmas holiday: our paper on Google Scholar vs Pubmed http://t.co/S2OnSGzXWi w/ @wichor @giustini @pfanderson

— Bianca Kramer (@MsPhelps) January 6, 2014

Was lucky to work with Dr. Gruppen on a paper on funding #meded research. An amazing mentor: http://t.co/bFC3llBmF9 @drjfrank @jvrbntz

— Esther Choo (@choo_ek) January 6, 2014

The 'ego depletion' / glucose model of self-control fails to replicate http://t.co/9CcppHVRr7

— Vaughan Bell (@vaughanbell) January 7, 2014

A new ethics of psychiatry: neuroethics, neuroscience, and technology Via @PubMedOnline http://t.co/kp73kwxC2A cc: @cspmom @ChrisCarrollMD

— Lisa Fields (@PracticalWisdom) January 7, 2014

Facebook-augmented partner notification in a cluster of syphilis cases (study) http://t.co/omRx3bImz9

— Ves Dimov, M.D. (@DrVes) January 8, 2014

RT @edubru: intermit opioid SC butterfly needle injects; no pump: pain control success in 88% of 301 consec pts #hpm http://t.co/uyXcuzMSZH

— jim cleary (@jfclearywisc) January 9, 2014

HPV vaccines appear to be as safe as other vaccines. http://t.co/xM9uETx1MV

— Don S Dizon (@drdonsdizon) January 9, 2014

"the host-microbiota homeostasis revealed a remarkable ability for recovery" http://t.co/G8FO0WU8oa Mice microbiota following inflammation.

— Paul Whiteley (@PaulWhiteleyPhD) January 10, 2014

Muscle coordination is habitual rather than optimal. http://t.co/4u4Z37BERV Intricate expts by Loeb supporting anti-optimal control position

— tomstafford (@tomstafford) January 10, 2014

Adiponectin: a link between vitamin D deficiency and obesity? http://t.co/CFKULVN1js "improved with vitamin D3 supplementation"

— Paul Whiteley (@PaulWhiteleyPhD) January 10, 2014

Towards a Unified Model of RAF Inhibitor Resistance by Solit & Rosen http://t.co/fLLzob8kFc should be a good read!

— Sally Church (@MaverickNY) January 10, 2014

What an amazing collection, and great way to discover articles of interest that I might have missed otherwise!

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First posted at THL Blog: http://wp.me/p1v84h-1Bv

Hashtags of the Week (HOTW): Yay, Joyce! Boo, Shutdown! (Week of September 30, 2013)

It’s homecoming this weekend, which makes it a great time for a few cheers, and a little booing of the opposing team.

I have to celebrate, and share my excitement at the announcement of Joyce Lee (one of my Twitter pals) as social media editor for JAMA Pediatrics!

Joyce Lee, M.D., M.P.H., named social media editor for JAMA Pediatrics: http://umhsheadlines.org/02/joyce-lee-m-d-m-p-h-named-social-media-editor-for-jama-pediatrics/

She announced the press release on Twitter this week.

This is my first press release with a tweet embedded! http://t.co/nCmPMORZPo #hcsm cc @pfanderson @SeattleMamaDoc @Doctor_V #hcsm

— Joyce Lee, MD, MPH (@joyclee) October 2, 2013

Of course, JAMA Pediatrics ALSO announced it, by retweeting Joyce’s tweet about using Twitter in the press release. How meta.

RT @joyclee: This is my first press release with a tweet embedded! http://t.co/G12WgRDxYm #hcsm cc @pfanderson @SeattleMamaDoc @Doctor_V…

— JAMAPediatrics (@JAMAPeds) October 2, 2013

The tweet that was highlighted in the press release was one of Joyce’s most popular tweets, in which she shared a quote from fellow doctor and social media guru, Kevin Pho, MD who is known in social media as KevinMD.

“The biggest risk of social media in health care is not using it at all.” @kevinmd #hcsm http://t.co/hxBl9qdlQb

— Joyce Lee, MD, MPH (@joyclee) August 29, 2013

So what is Joyce doing with social media? Well, a lot, especially recently. I livetweeted her Grand Rounds last month, and you can see the slides here.

Joyce Lee: Social Media and Academic Medicine: Dangerous Liaisons? http://www.slideshare.net/joyclee/social-media-and-physicians-revised-9513-a

After that, I went ahead and blogged a synopsis of some of the most fascinating (to me) aspects of her work with children in social media.

“How Many Hives?”: Social Media Can Prevent a Crisis with Storytelling, Engagement, & Training https://etechlib.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/how-many-hives-social-media-can-prevent-a-crisis-with-storytelling-engagement-training/

Since then, she also recently gave another social media lecture this week, this time to the Robert Woods Johnson Clinical Scholars.

@Risalavizzo @paintmd @pioneerrwjf Giving talk to Michigan RWJ Clinical Scholars 10/3 about social media & medicine! http://t.co/jaxMgYDoQ3

— Joyce Lee, MD, MPH (@joyclee) October 3, 2013

Here are the slides for that talk.

Joyce Lee: Doctor as Designer? http://www.slideshare.net/joyclee/doctor-as-designer-26625644

Obviously, she is really good at sharing phenomenal content, and someone you should follow on Twitter. Monday, she and I were both at a keynote on campus by Nedra Weinrich on using social media in injury prevention.

A great list of Social Media Resources http://t.co/tgJS3QDGv0 by @nedra!

— Joyce Lee, MD, MPH (@joyclee) October 3, 2013

Which was followed up with some recommended Twitter training resources. This one was recommended by Anne-Marie Cunningham, from the UK.

This is great! RT @pfanderson: @joyclee Have you seen "Only Twitter Guide you'll ever need" http://t.co/Ff7bODWuUi @amcunningham #hcsm

— Joyce Lee, MD, MPH (@joyclee) October 3, 2013

But this week, no surprise, she’s been tracking the government shutdown, and sharing information about how that impacts on healthcare. Here are a few selected tweets.

How the Shutdown Is Devastating Biomedical Scientists and Killing Their Research – Wired Science http://t.co/BbY9GLUWJM #shutdown

— Joyce Lee, MD, MPH (@joyclee) October 4, 2013

RT @elizcohencnn: 12 yr old flies from Fla to NIH to get a drug for her deadly disease. Will she be able to get it due to #shutdown?…

— Joyce Lee, MD, MPH (@joyclee) October 3, 2013

RT @sciam: NIH Feels Multiplying Effects of Government Shutdown http://t.co/xz8cD4h4w5

— Joyce Lee, MD, MPH (@joyclee) October 3, 2013

Shutdown affects government social media accounts http://t.co/e8yVbKoivV

— Joyce Lee, MD, MPH (@joyclee) October 4, 2013

PHD Comics: Government Shutdown http://t.co/NMkLSqtXdX via @phdcomics

— Joyce Lee, MD, MPH (@joyclee) October 4, 2013

Government Shutdown: http://t.co/Y6vjRJ4YXK pic.twitter.com/gqgbVem4GF

— Jorge Cham (@phdcomics) October 3, 2013

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First posted at THL Blog: http://thlibrary.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/hashtags-of-the-week-hotw-yay-joyce-boo-shutdown-week-of-september-30-2013/