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What to Do When People Start Hacking Your Open Source Culture
I've previously written about the fact the Apache Software Foundation offers an exemplar of large-scale open source governance. Even with those supreme qualities, things can still go wrong. Apache offers some of the best protections for open source contributors but its mature rules can be manipulated by skilled politicians and/or determined agendas. What can we learn from their experience?...
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Why We Need an Open Model to Design and Evaluate Public Policy
In the months leading up to political elections, public debate intensifies and citizens are exposed to a proliferation of information around policy options. In a data-driven society where new insights have been informing decision-making, a deeper understanding of this information has never been more important, yet the public still hasn't realized the full potential of public policy modeling. At a time where the concept of "open government" is constantly evolving to keep pace with new technological advances, government policy models and analysis could be the new generation of open knowledge...
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Proof that Openness Scales
Recently I've had the immense pleasure of discovering Slalom Consulting, and I was fascinated to learn how they do open. Aaron Atkins and Shannon Heydt, both working in talent acquisition for Slalom, sat down with me to share challenges related to scalability—and explain how recruiting and talent management play a strong part in shaping company growth. Slalom's case is rich and illustrative. But to understand it, we must first understand scabaility. Scalability is the ability of something to adapt to increasing demands. Meeting your business demands starts with your people and frameworks far before you fulfill a service or product...
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Why African Countries Need to Invest in Research and Citizen Science
Climate change, HIV/AIDS, recurring droughts, and food insecurity are some of the most pressing issues the African continent has had to deal with in 2016. These issues pose a significant threat to economic, social and environmental development in Africa and create health and economic challenges to the continent. Yet, all of these challenges can benefit from research results spinning off from African universities and research institutions. But to get these results, the institutions must have the funds...
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When It Comes to Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices, We Should Ask More and Listen Better
A new study in JAMA suggests that nearly one-in-three drugs approved by the FDA between 2001 and 2010 had post-market safety issues, which caused safety communications to physicians and consumers, "black-box" warnings on labels, and drug withdrawals. It is not clear how many patients may have died or otherwise harmed by these issues...Lead author Joseph Ross, M.D., noted: "No drug is completely safe, and during premarket evaluation, we are not going to pick up all the safety signals," and urged "that we have a strong system in place to continually evaluate drugs and to communicate new safety concerns quickly and effectively."
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OpenMRS Announces 2017 Google Summer of Code students
Congratulations to the 15 students selected by OpenMRS to participate in Google Summer of Code™ this year! A total of nearly 1,400 students were selected to participate with 201 different open-source projects. As the organization administrators for the program, we are thrilled to announce our 11th year of participation yet in the annual event graciously sponsored by Google. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed participating in this great program in the last 10 years and are even more excited about the students, projects and mentors that are participating this year. Coding for OpenMRS is a great way for university students to practice coding skills and at the same time help benefit people in developing countries who are on the front lines of the battle against HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria, and other public health challenges. Read More »
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Leveraging the "Learning Health Community" Concept in Education
This idea of an iterative engaged learning environment (we can call it a “Learning Health Community”) is not far-fetched. Such a system would require quality evidence-based data and information delivered in real-time based on the real-world experiences of millions of patients. As new verified information and data develop, these would be incorporated and then deployed. We would harness the power of existing and future knowledge in a form that is usable by both medical professionals and the patients they serve. The questioning fathers and others similarly situated could access the Internet for augmented and personalized health information.
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The Right Way to Modernize VA's VistA EHR: Shift Development to the Private Sector and the Cloud
While changes to VistA are warranted and necessary, trashing the entire system because one component may be flawed makes little sense from technological or financial perspectives. The VA scheduling scandal was the product of an agency overwhelmed by veterans returning from two theaters of war. In that scenario, the scheduling system became a scapegoat for organizational and human resources challenges that were bound to manifest in one way or another.The VA should not heed calls to replace VistA for these key reasons...
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Europeana adds 470,000 images to Creative Commons Search
CC Search beta has added 470,000 images from the millions of materials contained in Europeana’s collection of Creative Commons images. Europeana is Europe’s digital platform for cultural heritage, collecting and providing online access to over 54 million of digitised items ranging from books, photos, and paintings to television broadcasts and 3D objects. As an important cultural partner to CC, Europeana’s platform strengthens the commons through its large, searchable collection of digital records from nearly 4,000 European libraries, archives, museums and audiovisual galleries...
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Clones Welcome in Scientific Hardware
In the inaugural issue of the Journal of Open Hardware I review emerging business models for open source hardware. Many of these models are borrowed from the free and open source software industry and will no doubt be familiar to you. However, traditional companies should also take a close look at adding open source hardware to their strategy. One way a company can start the transition to the open source way is to open source a single product to drive sales of its other products. A firm can open source the hardware they sell in order to expand the market of other parts of their product line...
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