There has been an ongoing discussion in the research community about how to assess the impact and quality of research outputs. Much of this is driven by the desire of funding agencies to fund the best research and of employers to employ the best researchers. These are good things that everyone would agree with. Yet, how do you measure good research?
That is a surprisingly difficult question to answer.
We’re excited to announce that in June we’re heading to the CERN Workshop on Innovations in Scholarly Communication in Geneva, Switzerland to present a poster on our forthcoming open-source research framework, ROC.
CERN is a very appropriate place for us to introduce ROC for two reasons. First, much of the research that is being done at CERN is to increase our understanding of what I would call inner space, or, the atom. When I think of outer space, I think of NASA; when I think of inner space, I think of CERN. Much of our work as a company is to understand and model the fundamental unit of research: the case.
Wow! Has it actually been almost a full year since we headed off to take Pentandra and Geungle to our first conference? Incredible! The conference in Cincinnati last year for NGS (National Genealogical Society) inspired us and uplifted us—both personally and as a company. Learning from incredibly talented people and making some wonderful friends built us up. Plus, we got to try our hand at stepping to the other side of the exhibit hall isle. We got to take on the role of “vendors” for the very first time. (That was an interesting experience in and of itself, but perhaps best left to another post another day.)
Some really exciting news for the scholarly community was in my inbox this morning. A new W3C community group has been created, the Research Object for Scholarly Communication Community Group, with a goal to discuss the future of scholarly communication.
I don’t know much about hairdos, especially those that were in vogue 1500 years ago. But it turns out that the experts may not have known everything there is to know about them either. A couple weeks ago, on the front page of the Wall Street Journal was a story1 about a very unusual hairdresser named Janet Stephens.
Life carries the constant the intrigue of twists and turns through the ever-present opportunity for change. Each twist that presents itself has the potential to make us stronger. That strengthening experience can be as brutal as the most intense strength training any physical trainer ever imagined. Sometimes strength builds slowly, more slowly than we wish. Other times it builds so quickly that it leave us unprepared for the rapid change. Either way, in the end we can look back knowing that we are changed by the adventure of life.
We have had some unexpected strength building in our lives of late. Just like in the gym, it doesn’t really matter what exercises you used to get the results you wanted. The same holds true in terms of life strength building as well. What built the strength is less important than what you do with the strength once you have it. I am not here right now to share all of the twists we have experienced of late. The specific details of our strength training are not the important part. Using that strength to accomplish more than we could have before is what matters as we move forward.
We have gone through an identity crisis recently as we have tried to figure out who we really are as a company. Since the beginning of this whole venture, we have felt like we have been straddling the fence between a profit and non-profit organization in our desires to promote research and grow in the way we envision yet have the community support that is so critical for the future of research. We wanted a business structure that took the best parts from both!
I suppose that all surprises are unexpected, but some are even more unexpected than others. Two weeks ago, we participated in the final round of the Grow America Springboard Competition. While we didn’t win any money, we gained much through the experience. (To read more about that, you can see this post.)
After we left that day, we reviewed our other options for raising money and started making plans. Then came an unexpected surprise. Two days after the competition I received an interesting email. It reminded me of half a dozen scams where they tell you that you have won some great prize and all you need to do is share every piece of your personal and financial information in order to get it. What I could see of the email without opening it was, “Dear Chris & Katie Chapman, One of your friends wants to give you a financial…” I thought, “Yeah, sure!” Then I realized it was my business email, where very little garbage email ends up (knock on wood). I almost deleted it as Spam, but then decided, “Eh, it can’t hurt to at least read the thing.” So I clicked it open.
For the past couple of months we’ve had the chance to participate in the Grow America Springboard competition. It was tough to decide if we should enter, since our time is already spread so thin. However, like-it-or-not, it takes money to run a business, and this felt like a good fit. Looking back, we are really glad that we entered. We did not win any money, but we learned a lot and gained confidence in our ability to communicate what we are doing to business folks (especially when they’re not research geeks).
There are some things in life that are “worth it” and some things that are not. We believe that the ideas we are promoting and working to make possible are “worth it.” They are worth enough that we have essentially thrown all of our time and finances to it for the last, ehem, unmentionably long time frame. We feel grateful for the generous support of friends and family in our efforts, both in occasional and appreciated financial contributions, and even more in the cheer squad effect and the brave willingness to watch our brood of kids from time to time while we have tended to business matters. Without the amazingly prolific support of our closest loved ones, we could never have reached this point. But here we are, on the verge of releasing our first product and offering an open-source research platform for doing amazing research and sharing it with the world. Life is amazing!