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Posts Tagged ‘https://twitter.com/#!/pharma_BI’

How to Create a Twitter Space for @pharma_BI for Live Broadcasts

Right now, Twitter Spaces are available on Android and iOS operating systems ONLY.  For use on a PC desktop you must install an ANDROID EMULATOR.  This means best to set up the Twitter Space using your PHONE APP not on the desktop or laptop computer.  Right now, even though there is the ability to record a Twitter Space, that recording is not easily able to be embedded in WordPress as a tweet is (or chain of tweets).  However you can download the recording (takes a day or two) and convert to mpeg using a program like Audacity to convert into an audio format conducible to WordPress.

A while ago I had put a post where I link to a Twitter Space I created for a class on Dissemination of Scientific Discoveries.  The post

“Will Web 3.0 Do Away With Science 2.0? Is Science Falling Behind?”

can be seen at

Will Web 3.0 Do Away With Science 2.0? Is Science Falling Behind?

 

This online discussion was tweeted out and got a fair amount of impressions (60) as well as interactors (50).

 

 

About Twitter Spaces

 

Spaces is a way to have live audio conversations on Twitter. Anyone can join, listen, and speak in a Space on Twitter for iOS and Android. Currently you can listen in a Space on web.

Quick links

How to use Spaces
Spaces FAQ
Spaces Feedback Community
Community Spaces

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to use Spaces

Instructions for:

How do you start a Space?

 

 

 

Step 1

The creator of a Space is the host. As a host on iOS, you can start a Space by long pressing on the Tweet Composer  from your Home timeline and and then selecting the Spaces  icon.

You can also start a Space by selecting the Spaces tab on the bottom of your timeline.

Step 2

Spaces are public, so anyone can join as a listener, including people who don’t follow you. Listeners can be directly invited into a Space by DMing them a link to the Space, Tweeting out a link, or sharing a link elsewhere.

Step 3

Up to 13 people (including the host and 2 co-hosts) can speak in a Space at any given time. When creating a new Space, you will see options to Name your Space and Start your Space.

Step 4

To schedule a Space, select Schedule for later. Choose the date and time you’d like your Space to go live.

Step 5

Once the Space has started, the host can send requests to listeners to become co-hosts or speakers by selecting the people icon  and adding co-hosts or speakers, or selecting a person’s profile picture within a Space and adding them as a co-host or speaker. Listeners can request permission to speak from the host by selecting the Request icon below the microphone.

Step 6

When creating a Space, the host will join with their mic off and be the only speaker in the Space. When ready, select Start your Space.

Step 7

Allow mic access (speaking ability) to speakers by toggling Allow mic access to on.

Step 8

Get started chatting in your Space.

Step 9

As a host, make sure to Tweet out the link to your Space so other people can join. Select the  icon to Share via a Tweet.

 

Spaces FAQ

Where is Spaces available?

Anyone can join, listen, and speak in a Space on Twitter for iOS and Android. Currently, starting a Space on web is not possible, but anyone can join and listen in a Space.

Who can start a Space?

People on Twitter for iOS and Android can start a Space.

Who can see my Space?

For now, all Spaces are public like Tweets, which means they can be accessed by anyone. They will automatically appear at the top of your Home timeline, and each Space has a link that can be shared publicly. Since Spaces are publicly accessible by anyone, it may be possible for people to listen to a Space without being listed as a guest in the Space.

We make certain information about Spaces available through the Twitter Developer Platform, such as the title of a Space, the hosts and speakers, and whether it is scheduled, in progress, or complete. For a more detailed list of the information about Spaces we make available via the Twitter API, check out our Spaces endpoints documentation.

Can other people see my presence while I am listening or speaking in a Space?

Since all Spaces are public, your presence and activity in a Space is also public. If you are logged into your Twitter account when you are in a Space, you will be visible to everyone in the Space as well as to others, including people who follow you, people who peek into the Space without entering, and developers accessing information about the Space using the Twitter API.

If you are listening in a Space, your profile icon will appear with a purple pill at the top of your followers’ Home timelines. You have the option to change this in your settings.

Instructions for:

Manage who can see your Spaces listening activity

Step 1

On the left nav menu, select the more  icon and go to Settings and privacy.

Step 2

Under Settings, navigate to Privacy and safety.

Step 3

Under Your Twitter activity, go to Spaces.

Step 4

Choose if you want to Allow followers to see which Spaces you’re listening to by toggling this on or off.

Your followers will always see at the top of their Home timelines what Spaces you’re speaking in.

What does it mean that Spaces are public? Can anyone listen in a Space?

Spaces can be listened to by anyone on the Internet. This is part of a broader feature of Spaces that lets anyone listen to Spaces regardless of whether or not they are logged in to a Twitter account (or even have a Twitter account). Because of this, listener counts may not match the actual number of listeners, nor will the profile photos of all listeners necessarily be displayed in a Space.

How do I invite people to join a Space?

Invite people to join a Space by sending an invite via DM, Tweeting the link out to your Home timeline, or copying the invite link to send it out.

Who can join my Space?

For now, all Spaces are public and anyone can join any Space as a listener. If the listener has a user account, you can block their account. If you create a Space or are a speaker in a Space, your followers will see it at the top of their timeline.

Who can speak in my Space?

By default, your Space will always be set to Only people you invite to speak. You can also modify the Speaker permissions once your Space has been created. Select the  icon, then select Adjust settings to see the options for speaker permissions, which include EveryonePeople you follow, and the default Only people you invite to speak. These permissions are only saved for this particular Space, so any Space you create in the future will use the default setting.

Once your Space has started, you can send requests to listeners to become speakers or co-hosts by selecting the  icon and adding speakers or selecting a person’s profile picture within a Space and adding them as a co-host or speaker. Listeners can request to speak from the host.

Hosts can also invite other people outside of the Space to speak via DM.

How does co-hosting work?

Up to 2 people can become co-hosts and speak in a Space in addition to the 11 speakers (including the primary host) at one time. Co-host status can be lost if the co-host leaves the Space. A co-host can remove their own co-host status to become a Listener again.

Hosts can transfer primary admin rights to another co-host. If the original host drops from Space, the first co-host added will become the primary admin. The admin is responsible for promoting and facilitating a healthy conversation in the Space in line with the Twitter Rules.

Once a co-host is added to a Space, any accounts they’ve blocked on Twitter who are in the Space will be removed from the Space.

Can I schedule a Space?

Hosts can schedule a Space up to 30 days in advance and up to 10 scheduled Spaces. Hosts can still create impromptu Spaces in the meantime, and those won’t count toward the maximum 10 scheduled Spaces.

Before you create your Space, select the scheduler  icon and pick the date and time you’d like to schedule your Space to go live. As your scheduled start time approaches, you will receive push and in-app notifications reminding you to start your Space on time. If you don’t have notifications turned on, follow the in-app steps on About notifications on mobile devices to enable them for Spaces. Scheduled Spaces are public and people can set reminders to be notified when your scheduled Space begins.

How do I edit my scheduled Space(s)?

Follow the steps below to edit any of your scheduled Spaces.

Instructions for:

Manage your scheduled Spaces

Step 1

From your timeline, navigate to and long press on the . Or, navigate to the Spaces Tab  at the bottom of your timeline.

Step 2

Select the Spaces  icon.

Step 3

To manage your scheduled Spaces, select the scheduler  icon at the top.

Step 4

You’ll see the Spaces that you have scheduled.

Step 5

Navigate to the more  icon of the Space you want to manage. You can edit, share, or cancel the Space.

If you are editing your Space, make sure to select “Save changes” after making edits.

How do I get notified about a scheduled Space?

Guests can sign up for reminder notifications from a scheduled Space card in a Tweet. When the host starts the scheduled Space, the interested guests get notified via push and in-app notifications.

Can I record a Space?

Hosts can record Spaces they create for replay. When creating a Space, toggle on Record Space.

While recording, a recording symbol will appear at the top to indicate that the Space is being recorded by the host. Once the Space ends, you will see how many people attended the Space along with a link to share out via a Tweet. Under Notifications, you can also View details to Tweet the recording. Under host settings, you will have the option to choose where to start your recording with Edit start time. This allows you to cut out any dead air time that might occur at the beginning of a Space.

If you choose to record your Space, once the live Space ends, your recording will be immediately and publicly available for anyone to listen to whenever they want. You can always end a recording to make it no longer publicly available on Twitter by deleting your recording via the more  icon on the recording itself. Unless you delete your recording, it will remain available for replay after the live Space has ended.* As with live Spaces, Twitter will retain audio copies for 30 after they end to review for violations of the Twitter Rules. If a violation is found, Twitter may retain audio copies for up to 120 days in total. For more information on downloading Spaces, please see below FAQ, “What happens after a Space ends and is the data retained anywhere?

Co-hosts and speakers who enter a Space that is being recorded will see a recording symbol (REC). Listeners will also see the recording symbol, but they will not be visible in the recording.

Recordings will show the host, co-host(s), and speakers from the live Space.

*Note: Hosts on iOS 9.15+ and Android 9.46+ will be able to record Spaces that last indefinitely. For hosts on older app versions, recording will only be available for 30 days. For Spaces that are recorded indefinitely, Twitter will retain a copy for as long as the Space is replayable on Twitter, but for no less than 30 days after the live Space ended.

 

What is clipping?

Clipping is a new feature we’re currently testing and gradually rolling out that lets a limited group of hosts, speakers, and listeners capture 30 seconds of audio from any live or recorded Space and share it through a Tweet if the host has not disabled the clipping function. To start clipping a Space, follow the instructions below to capture the prior 30 seconds of audio from that Space. There is no limit to the number of clips that participants in a Space can create.

When you enter the Space as a co-host or speaker, you will be informed that the Space is clippable through a tool tip notification above the clipping  icon.

Note: Currently, creating a clip is available only on iOS and Android, while playing a clip is available on all platforms to everyone.

Instructions for:

Host instructions: How to turn off clipping

 

When you start your Space, you’ll receive a notification about what a clip is and how to turn it off, as clipping is on by default. You can turn off clipping at any time. To turn it off, follow the instructions below.

Step 1

Navigate to the more  icon.

Step 2

Select Adjust settings .

Step 3

Under Clips, toggle Allow clips off.

Instructions for:

Host and speaker instructions: How to create a clipping

Step 1

In a recorded or live Space that is recorded, navigate to the clipping  icon. Please note that, for live Spaces, unless the clipping function is disabled, clips will be publicly available on your Twitter profile after your live Space has ended even though the Space itself will no longer be available.

Step 2

On the Create clip pop-up, go to Next.

Step 3

Preview the Tweet and add a comment if you’d like, similarly to a Quote Tweet.

Step 4

Select Tweet to post it to your timeline.

Why is my clip not displaying captions?

What controls do hosts have over existing clips?

What controls do clip creators have over clips they’ve created?

Other controls over clips: how to report, block, or mute

What controls do I have over my Space?

The host and co-host(s) of a Space have control over who can speak. They can mute any Speaker, but it is up to the individual to unmute themselves if they receive speaking privileges. Hosts and co-hosts can also remove,  report, and block others in the Space.

Speakers and listeners can report and block others in the Space, or can report the Space. If you block a participant in the Space, you will also block that person’s account on Twitter. If the person you blocked joins as a listener, they will appear in the participant list with a Blocked label under their account name. If the person you blocked joins as a speaker, they will also appear in the participant list with a Blocked label under their account name and you will see an in-app notification stating, “An account you blocked has joined as a speaker.” If you are entering a Space that already has a blocked account as a speaker, you will also see a warning before joining the Space stating, “You have blocked 1 person who is speaking.”

If you are hosting or co-hosting a Space, people you’ve blocked can’t join and, if you’re added as a co-host during a Space, anyone in the Space who you blocked will be removed from the Space.

What are my responsibilities as a Host or Co-Host of a Space?

As a Host, you are responsible for promoting and supporting a healthy conversation in your Space and to use your tools to ensure that the Twitter Rules are followed. The following tools are available for you to use if a participant in the Space is being offensive or disruptive:

  • Revoke speaking privileges of other users if they are being offensive or disruptive to you or others
  • Block, remove or report the user.

Here are some guidelines to follow as a Host or Co-Host:

  • Always follow the Twitter Rulesin the Space you host or co-host. This also applies to the title of your Space which should not include abusive slurs, threats, or any other rule-violating content.
  • Do not encourage behavior or content that violates the Twitter Rules.
  • Do not abuse or misuse your hosting tools, such as arbitrarily revoking speaking privileges or removing users, or use Spaces to carry out activities that break our rules such as following schemes.

How can I block someone in a Space?

How can I mute a speaker in a Space?

How can I see people in my Space?

Hosts, speakers, and listeners can select the  icon to see people in a Space. Since Spaces are publicly accessible by anyone, it may also be possible for an unknown number of logged-out people to listen to a Space’s audio without being listed as a guest in the Space.

How can I report a Space?

How can I report a person in a Space?

Can Twitter suspend my Space while it’s live?

How many people can speak in a Space?

How many people can listen in a Space?

 

What happens after a Space ends and is the data retained anywhere?

Hosts can choose to record a Space prior to starting it. Hosts may download copies of their recorded Spaces for as long as we have them by using the Your Twitter Data download tool.

For unrecorded Spaces, Twitter retains copies of audio from recorded Spaces for 30 days after a Space ends to review for violations of the Twitter Rules. If a Space is found to contain a violation, we extend the time we maintain a copy for an additional 90 days (a total of 120 days after a Space ends) to allow people to appeal if they believe there was a mistake. Twitter also uses Spaces content and data for analytics and research to improve the service.

Links to Spaces that are shared out (e.g., via Tweet or DM) also contain some information about the Space, including the description, the identity of the hosts and others in the Space, as well as the Space’s current state (e.g., scheduled, live, or ended). We make this and other information about Spaces available through the Twitter Developer Platform. For a detailed list of the information about Spaces we make available, check out our Spaces endpoints documentation.

For full details on what data we retain, visit our Privacy Policy.

Who can end a Space?

Does Spaces work for accounts with protected Tweets?

Following the Twitter Rules in Spaces

 

Spaces Feedback Community

We’re opening up the conversation and turning it over to the people who are participating in Spaces. This Community is a dedicated place for us to connect with you on all things Spaces, whether it’s feedback around features, ideas for improvement, or any general thoughts.

Who can join?

Anyone on Spaces can join, whether you are a host, speaker, or listener.

How do I join the Community?

You can request to join the Twitter Spaces Feedback Community here. By requesting to join, you are agreeing to our Community rules.

Learn more about Communities on Twitter.

 

Community Spaces

As a Community admin or moderator, you can create and host a Space for your Community members to join.

Note:

Currently, creating Community Spaces is only available to some admins and moderators using the Twitter for iOS and Twitter for Android apps.

Instructions for:

Admins & moderators: How to create a Space

Step 1

Navigate to the Community landing page.

Step 2

Long press on the Tweet Composer  and select the Spaces  icon.

Step 3

Select Spaces and begin creating your Space by adding in a title, toggling on record Space (optional), and adding relevant topics.

Step 4

Invite admins, moderators, and other people to be a part of your Space.

Members: How to find a Community Space

If a Community Space is live, you will see the Spacebar populate at the top of your Home timeline. To enter the Space and begin listening, select the live Space in the Spacebar.

Community Spaces FAQ

What are Community Spaces?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spaces Social Narrative


A social narrative is a simple story that describes social situations and social behaviors for accessibility.

Twitter Spaces allows me to join or host live audio-only conversations with anyone.

Joining a Space

  1. When I join a Twitter Space, that means I’ll be a listener. I can join any Space on Twitter, even those hosted by people I don’t know or follow.
  2. I can join a Space by selecting a profile photo with a purple, pulsing outline at the top of my timeline, selecting a link from someone’s Tweet, or a link in a Direct Message (DM).
  3. Once I’m in a Space, I can seethe profile photos and names of some people in the Space, including myself.
  4. I can hearone or multiple people talking at the same time. If it’s too loud or overwhelming, I can turn down my volume.
  5. As a listener, I am not able to speak. If I want to say something, I can send a request to the host. The host might not approve my request though.
  6. If the host accepts my request, I will become a speaker. It may take a few seconds to connect my microphone, so I’ll have to wait.
  7. Now I can unmute myself and speak. Everyone in the Space will be able to hear me.
  8. When someone says something I want to react to, I can choosean emoji to show everyone how I feel. I will be able to see when other people react as well.
  9. I can leave the Space at any time. After I leave, or when the host ends the Space, I’ll go back to my timeline.

Hosting a Space

  1. When I start a Space, that means I’ll be the host. Anyone can join my Space, even people I don’t know and people I don’t follow.
  2. Once I start my space, it may take a few seconds to be connected, so I’ll have to wait.
  3. Now I’m in my Space and I can seemy profile photo. If other logged-in, people have joined, I will be able to see their profile photos, too.
  4. I will start out muted, which is what the microphone with a slash through it means. I can mute and unmute myself, and anyone in my Space, at any time.
  5. I can invitepeople to join my Space by sending them a Direct Message (DM), sharing the link in a Tweet, and by copying the link and sharing it somewhere else like in an email.
  6. Up to 10 other people can have speaking privileges in my Space at the same time, and I can choosewho speaks and who doesn’t. People can also request to speak, and I can choose to approve their request or not.

 

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Live Conference Coverage of AACR 2020 Annual Virtual Meeting; April 27-28, 2020

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will hold its Annual Meeting as a Virtual Online Format.  Registration is free and open to all, including non members.  Please go to

https://www.aacr.org/meeting/aacr-annual-meeting-2020/aacr-virtual-annual-meeting-i/?utm_source=Salesforce%20Marketing%20Cloud&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=&sfmc_s=0031I00000WsBJxQAN

to register for this two day meeting.  Another two day session will be held in June 2020 and will focus more on basic cancer research.

Please follow @pharma_BI who will be live Tweeting Real Time Notes from this meeting using the hashtag

#AACR20

And @StephenJWillia2

The following is a brief summary of the schedule.  Please register and go to AACR for detailed information on individual sessions.

 

AACR VIRTUAL ANNUAL MEETING I: SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE

AACR Virtual Annual Meeting I is available free Register Now

VIRTUAL MEETING I: BROWSER REQUIREMENTS AND ACCESSVIRTUAL MEETING I: FAQVIRTUAL MEETING I: MEETING PLANNER (ABSTRACT TITLES)

Presentation titles are available through the online meeting planner. The program also includes six virtual poster sessions consisting of brief slide videos. Poster sessions will not be presented live but will be available for viewing on demand. Poster session topics are as follows:

  • Phase I Clinical Trials
  • Phase II Clinical Trials
  • Phase III Clinical Trials
  • Phase I Trials in Progress
  • Phase II Trials in Progress
  • Phase III Trials in Progress

Schedule updated April 24, 2020

MONDAY, APRIL 27

Channel 1 Channel 2 Channel 3
9:00 a.m.-9:30 a.m.
Opening Session
_______________________
9:30 a.m.-11:40 a.m.
Opening Clinical Plenary
_______________________
11:40 a.m.-2:00 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Immunotherapy Clinical Trials 1
_______________________
___ 11:45 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Minisymposium: Emerging Signaling Vulnerabilities in Cancer
_______________________
___ 11:45 a.m.-1:15 p.m.
Minisymposium: Advances in Cancer Drug Design and Discovery
__________________________
2:00 p.m.-4:50 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Lung Cancer Targeted Therapy
_______________________
___ 1:55 p.m.-4:15 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Breast Cancer Therapy
_______________________
___ 1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m.
Minisymposium: Drugging Undrugged Cancer Targets
__________________________
4:50 p.m.-6:05 p.m.
Symposium: New Drugs on the Horizon 1_______________________
___ 4:50 p.m.-5:50 p.m.
Minisymposium: Therapeutic Modification of the Tumor Microenvironment or Microbiome
_______________________
___ 4:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m.
Minisymposium: Advancing Cancer Research Through An International Cancer Registry: AACR Project GENIE Use Cases__________________________

All session times are EDT.

TUESDAY, APRIL 28

Channel 1 Channel 2 Channel 3
9:00 a.m.-101:00 a.m.
Clinical Plenary: COVID-19 and Cancer
__________________________
11:00 a.m.-1:35 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Adoptive Cell Transfer Therapy__________________________
___ 10:45 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Symposium: New Drugs on the Horizon 2_________________________
___ 10:45 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Minisymposium: Translational Prevention Studies
______________________
___ 12:30 p.m.-1:25 p.m.
Symposium: New Drugs on the Horizon 3
_________________________
___ 12:30 p.m.-2:15 p.m.
Minisymposium: Non-coding RNAs in Cancer
______________________
1:35 p.m.-3:35 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Early Detection and ctDNA__________________________
___ 1:30 p.m.-3:50 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Immunotherapy Clinical
Trials 2
_________________________
___ 2:15 p.m.-3:45 p.m.
Minisymposium: Novel Targets and Therapies______________________
3:35 p.m.-5:50 p.m.
Minisymposium: Predictive Biomarkers for Immunotherapeutics__________________________
___ 3:50 p.m.-5:35 p.m.
Minisymposium: Evaluating Cancer Genomics from Normal Tissues through Evolution to Metastatic Disease
_________________________
___ 4:00 p.m.-4:55 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Targeted Therapy______________________
5:00 p.m.-5:45 p.m.
Symposium: NCI Activities– COVID-19 and Cancer Research
Dinah Singer, NCI
______________________
5:45 p.m.-6:00 p.m.
Closing Session
______________________

All session times are EDT.

 

 

 

Day

 

Session Type

Topic Tracks

For more on @pharma_BI and LPBI Group Conference Coverage in Real Time please go to

https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/press-coverage/

and

 

 

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AACR and Dr. Margaret Foti Announce Free Virtual Annual Meeting for April 27, 28 2020 and other Free Resources

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

Please see the following email from Dr. Foti and the AACR on VIRTUAL MEETING to be conducted April 27 and 28, 2020.

This is truly a wonderful job by AACR.  In a previous posting I had considered the need for moving international scientific meetings to an online format which would make the information available to a wider audience as well as to those who don’t have the opportunity to travel to a meeting site.  At @pharma_BI we will curate and live tweet the talks in order to enhance meeting engagement, as part of the usual eConference Proceedings we do.

Again Great Job by the AACR!

Dear Colleagues,

We hope you are staying safe and well and are adjusting to the challenges of the COVID-19 global pandemic. During this crisis, we remain steadfast in supporting our members and our mission.

I am pleased to announce a number of actions that we are taking to disseminate innovative cancer science and medicine to the global cancer research community:

  • AACR Virtual Annual Meeting 2020: Selected Presentations. We were excited to receive more than 225 clinical trials for presentation at the Annual Meeting. Due to the time-sensitive nature of these trials—many of which are practice-changing—we are making them available to the community at the time of the original April meeting. Therefore, as per our recent announcement, the AACR will host a slate of selected sessions online featuring these cutting-edge data.
This Virtual Annual Meeting will be held on April 27 and 28, 2020, and will include more than 30 oral presentations in several clinical trial plenary sessions along with commentaries from expert discussants, as well as clinical trial poster sessions consisting of short videos providing the authors’ perspectives. The Virtual Meeting will feature a New Drugs on the Horizon session as well as nine minisymposia that will showcase a broad sample of basic and translational science. Topics will include genomics, tumor microenvironment, novel targets, drug discovery, therapeutics, immunotherapy, biomarkers, and cancer prevention. A special minisymposium titled “Advancing Cancer Research Through an International Cancer Registry” will feature use cases of data available through AACR Project GENIE.

This Virtual Meeting will be available free to everyone, although attendees will be asked to register to participate. The session and presentation titles for the Virtual Meeting, as well as a link to the registration site, will be posted to the AACR website by Monday, April 13.

  • Release of Abstracts. All of the abstracts scheduled for presentation in the Virtual Meeting—and any other clinical trial abstracts that are scheduled for presentation at the rescheduled meeting—will be posted online on Monday, April 27. All other abstracts that have been accepted for presentation at the rescheduled meeting will be posted online on Friday, May 15.
  • AACR Annual Meeting 2019: Free Webcast Presentations. The complete webcasts of the AACR Annual Meeting are typically made freely available 15 months after the conclusion of the meeting. However, we have made these webcast presentations available free effective immediately, so that you can review the most compelling science from the Annual Meeting 2019 which was held in Atlanta.
  • Free Access to AACR Journals. To ensure that all members of the cancer research community have access to the information they need during this challenging time, we have opened access to our nine highly esteemed journals effective today through the end of the virtual meeting. Please be sure to visit the AACR journals webpage for journal highlights, and to sign-up for eTOC alerts.
  • Rescheduled AACR Annual Meeting. We are planning to reschedule the Annual Meeting for late August while at the same time closely monitoring the developments surrounding COVID-19. An official announcement of the rescheduled meeting will be made in the near future.

We hope that these plans will enable you to continue your important work during this global health crisis. Thank you for all you do to accelerate progress against cancer, and thank you for your loyalty to the AACR.

Sincerely,
Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc)
Chief Executive Officer
American Association for Cancer Research

 

For more information on Virtual Meetings please see

Is It Time for the Virtual Scientific Conference?: Coronavirus, Travel Restrictions, Conferences Cancelled

and  REAL TIME conference coverage at https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/press-coverage/

and other article and e-conference proceedings on this Online Open Access Journal

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Is It Time for the Virtual Scientific Conference?: Coronavirus, Travel Restrictions, Conferences Cancelled

Curator: Stephen J. Williams, PhD.

UPDATED 3/12/2020

To many of us scientists, presenting and attending scientific meetings, especially international scientific conferences, are a crucial tool for disseminating and learning new trends and cutting edge findings occurring in our respective fields.  Large international meetings, like cancer focused meetings like AACR (held in the spring time), AAAS and ASCO not only highlight the past years great discoveries but are usually the first place where breakthroughs are made known to the scientific/medical community as well as the public.  In addition these conferences allow for scientists to learn some of the newest technologies crucial for their work in vendor exhibitions.

During the coronavirus pandemic, multiple cancellations of business travel, conferences, and even university based study abroad programs are being cancelled and these cancellations are now hitting the 2020 Spring and potentially summer scientific/medical conferences.  Indeed one such conference hosted by Amgen in Massachusetts was determined as an event where some attendees tested positive for the virus, and as such, now other attendees are being asked to self quarantine.

Today I received two emails on conference cancellations, one from Experimental Biology in California and another from The Cancer Letter, highlighting other conferences, including National Cancer Coalition Network (NCCN) meetings which had been canceled.

 

Experimental Biology - San Diego 2020 - April 4-7

Dear Stephen,

After thoughtful deliberations, the leaders of the Experimental Biology host societies have made the difficult but necessary decision to cancel Experimental Biology (EB) 2020 set to take place April 4–7 in San Diego, California. We know how much EB means to everyone, and we did not make this decision in haste. The health and safety of our members, attendees, their students, our staff, partners and our communities are our top priority.

As we have previously communicated via email, on experimentalbiology.org and elsewhere, EB leadership has been closely monitoring the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease). Based on the latest guidance from public health officials, the travel bans implemented by different institutions and the state of emergency declared in California less than 48 hours ago, it became clear to us that canceling was the right course of action.

We thank you and the entire EB community for understanding the extreme difficulty of this decision and for your commitment to the success of this conference – from the thousands of attendees to the presenters, exhibitors and sponsors who shared their time, expertise, collaboration and leadership. We deeply appreciate your contributions to this community.

What Happens Next?

Everyone who has registered to attend the meeting will receive a full registration refund within the next 45 days. Once your registration cancellation is processed, you will receive confirmation in a separate email. You do not need to contact anyone at EB or your host society to initiate the process. Despite the cancellation of the meeting, we are pleased to tell you that we will publish abstracts in the April 2020 issue of The FASEB Journal as originally planned. Please remember to cancel any personal arrangements you’ve made, such as travel and housing reservations. 

We ask for patience as we evaluate our next steps, and we will alert you as additional information becomes available please see our FAQs for details.

And in The Cancer Letter

Coronavirus vs. oncology: Meeting cancellations, travel restrictions, fears about drug supply chain

By Alexandria Carolan

NOTE: An earlier version of this story was published March 4 on the web and was updated March 6 to include information about restricted travel for employees of cancer centers, meeting cancellations, potential disruptions to the drug supply chain, and funds allocated by U.S. Congress for combating the coronavirus.

Further updates will be posted as the story develops.

Forecasts of the inevitable spread of coronavirus can be difficult to ignore, especially at a time when many of us are making travel plans for this spring’s big cancer meetings.

The decision was made all the more difficult earlier this week, as cancer centers and at least one biotechnology company—Amgen—implemented travel bans that are expected to last through the end of March and beyond. The Cancer Letter was able to confirm such travel bans at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Meetings are getting cancelled in all fields, including oncology:

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network March 5 postponed its 2020 annual conference of about 1,500 attendees March 19-22 in Orlando, citing precautions against coronavirus.

“The health and safety of our attendees and the patients they take care of is our number one concern,” said Robert W. Carlson, chief executive officer of NCCN. “This was an incredibly difficult and disappointing decision to have to make. However, our conference attendees work to save the lives of immunocompromised people every day. Some of them are cancer survivors themselves, particularly at our patient advocacy pavilion. It’s our responsibility, in an abundance of caution, to safeguard them from any potential exposure to COVID-19.”

UPDATED 3/12/2020

And today the AACR canceled its yearly 2020 Meeting (https://www.aacr.org/meeting/aacr-annual-meeting-2020/coronavirus-information/)

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Board of Directors has made the difficult decision, after careful consideration and comprehensive evaluation of currently available information related to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, to terminate the AACR Annual Meeting 2020, originally scheduled for April 24-29 in San Diego, California. A rescheduled meeting is being planned for later this year.

The AACR has been closely monitoring the rapidly increasing domestic and worldwide developments during the last several weeks related to COVID-19. This evidence-based decision was made after a thorough review and discussion of all factors impacting the Annual Meeting, including the U.S. government’s enforcement of restrictions on international travelers to enter the U.S.; the imposition of travel restrictions issued by U.S. government agencies, cancer centers, academic institutions, and pharmaceutical and biotech companies; and the counsel of infectious disease experts. It is clear that all of these elements significantly affect the ability of delegates, speakers, presenters of proffered papers, and exhibitors to participate fully in the Annual Meeting.

The health, safety, and security of all Annual Meeting attendees and the patients and communities they serve are the AACR’s highest priorities. While we believe that the decision to postpone the meeting is absolutely the correct one to safeguard our meeting participants from further potential exposure to the coronavirus, we also understand that this is a disappointing one for our stakeholders. There had been a great deal of excitement about the meeting, which was expected to be the largest ever AACR Annual Meeting, with more than 7,400 proffered papers, a projected total of 24,000 delegates from 80 countries and more than 500 exhibitors. We recognize that the presentation of new data, exchange of information, and opportunities for collaboration offered by the AACR Annual Meeting are highly valued by the entire cancer research community, and we are investigating options for rescheduling the Annual Meeting in the near future.

We thank all of our stakeholders for their patience and support at this time. Additional information regarding hotel reservation cancellations, registration refunds, and meeting logistics is available on the FAQ page on the AACR website. We will announce the dates and location of the rescheduled AACR Annual Meeting 2020 as soon as they are confirmed. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to everyone impacted by this global health crisis.

However,  according to both Dr. Fauci and Dr. Scott Gottlieb (former FDA director)  the outbreak may revisit the US and the world in the fall (see https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/04/were-losing-valuable-time-ex-fda-chief-says-of-coronavirus-spread.html)  therefore these meetings may be cancelled for the whole year.

Is It Time For the Virtual (Real-Time) Conference?

Readers of this Online Access Journal are familiar with our ongoing commitment to open science and believe that forming networks of scientific experts in various fields using a social strategy is pertinent to enhancing the speed, reproducibility and novelty of important future scientific/medical discoveries.  Some of these ideas are highlighted in the following articles found on this site:

Scientific Curation Fostering Expert Networks and Open Innovation: Lessons from Clive Thompson and others

Old Industrial Revolution Paradigm of Education Needs to End: How Scientific Curation Can Transform Education

Twitter is Becoming a Powerful Tool in Science and Medicine

e-Scientific Publishing: The Competitive Advantage of a Powerhouse for Curation of Scientific Findings and Methodology Development for e-Scientific Publishing – LPBI Group, A Case in Point

Reconstructed Science Communication for Open Access Online Scientific Curation

In addition, we understand the importance of communicating the latest scientific/medical discoveries in an open and rapid format, accessible over the social media platforms.  To this effect we have developed a methodology for real time conference coverage

see  Press and Conference Coverage

at  https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/press-coverage/

AND

The Process of Real Time Coverage using Social Media

at https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/press-coverage/part-one-the-process-of-real-time-coverage-using-social-media/

Using these strategies we are able to communicate, in real time, analysis of conference coverage for a multitude of conferences.

Has technology and social media platforms now have enabled our ability to rapidly communicate, in a more open access platform, seminal discoveries and are scientists today amenable to virtual type of meetings including displaying abstracts using a real-time online platform?

Some of the Twitter analytics we have curated from such meetings show that conference attendees are rapidly adopting such social platforms to communicate with their peers and colleagues meeting notes.

Statistical Analysis of Tweet Feeds from the 14th ANNUAL BIOTECH IN EUROPE FORUM For Global Partnering & Investment 9/30 – 10/1/2014 • Congress Center Basel – SACHS Associates, London

Word Associations of Twitter Discussions for 10th Annual Personalized Medicine Conference at the Harvard Medical School, November 12-13, 2014

Comparative Analysis of the Level of Engagement for Four Twitter Accounts: @KDNuggets (Big Data) @GilPress @Forbes @pharma_BI @AVIVA1950

Twitter Analytics on the Inside 3DPrinting Conference #I3DPConf

 

Other Twitter analyses of Conferences Covered by LPBI in Real Time have produced a similar conclusion: That conference attendees are very engaged over social media networks to discuss, share, and gain new insights into material presented at these conferences, especially international conferences.

And although attracting international conferences is lucrative to many cities, the loss in revenue to organizations, as well as the loss of intellectual capital is indeed equally as great.  

Maybe there is room for such type of conferences in the future, and attending by a vast more audience than currently capable. And perhaps the #openscience movement like @MozillaScience can collaborate with hackathons to produce the platforms for such an online movement of scientific conferences as a Plan B.

Other articles on Real Time Conference Coverage in the Online Open Access Journal Include:

Innovations in electronic Scientific Publishing (eSP): Case Studies in Marketing eContent, Curation Methodology, Categories of Research Functions, Interdisciplinary conceptual innovations by Cross Section of Categories, Exposure to Frontiers of Science by Real Time Press coverage of Scientific Conferences

Real Time Coverage and eProceedings of Presentations on 11/16 – 11/17, 2016, The 12th Annual Personalized Medicine Conference, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, Joseph B. Martin Conference Center, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston

Tweets by @pharma_BI and by @AVIVA1950: Real Time Coverage and eProceedings of The 11th Annual Personalized Medicine Conference, November 18-19, 2015, Harvard Medical School

REAL TIME Cancer Conference Coverage: A Novel Methodology for Authentic Reporting on Presentations and Discussions launched via Twitter.com @ The 2nd ANNUAL Sachs Cancer Bio Partnering & Investment Forum in Drug Development, 19th March 2014 • New York Academy of Sciences • USA

Search Results for ‘Real Time Conference’

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Twitter is Becoming a Powerful Tool in Science and Medicine

 Curator: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

Updated 4/2016

Life-cycle of Science 2

A recent Science article (Who are the science stars of Twitter?; Sept. 19, 2014) reported the top 50 scientists followed on Twitter. However, the article tended to focus on the use of Twitter as a means to develop popularity, a sort of “Science Kardashian” as they coined it. So the writers at Science developed a “Kardashian Index (K-Index) to determine scientists following and popularity on Twitter.

Now as much buzz Kim Kardashian or a Perez Hilton get on social media, their purpose is solely for entertainment and publicity purposes, the Science sort of fell flat in that it focused mainly on the use of Twitter as a metric for either promotional or public outreach purposes. A notable scientist was mentioned in the article, using Twitter feed to gauge the receptiveness of his presentation. In addition, relying on Twitter for effective public discourse of science is problematic as:

  • Twitter feeds are rapidly updated and older feeds quickly get buried within the “Twittersphere” = LIMITED EXPOSURE TIMEFRAME
  • Short feeds may not provide the access to appropriate and understandable scientific information (The Science Communication Trap) which is explained in The Art of Communicating Science: traps, tips and tasks for the modern-day scientist. “The challenge of clearly communicating the intended scientific message to the public is not insurmountable but requires an understanding of what works and what does not work.” – from Heidi Roop, G.-Martinez-Mendez and K. Mills

However, as highlighted below, Twitter, and other social media platforms are being used in creative ways to enhance the research, medical, and bio investment collaborative, beyond a simple news-feed.  And the power of Twitter can be attributed to two simple features

  1. Ability to organize – through use of the hashtag (#) and handle (@), Twitter assists in the very important task of organizing, indexing, and ANNOTATING content and conversations. A very great article on Why the Hashtag in Probably the Most Powerful Tool on Twitter by Vanessa Doctor explains how hashtags and # search may be as popular as standard web-based browser search. Thorough annotation is crucial for any curation process, which are usually in the form of database tags or keywords. The use of # and @ allows curators to quickly find, index and relate disparate databases to link annotated information together. The discipline of scientific curation requires annotation to assist in the digital preservation, organization, indexing, and access of data and scientific & medical literature. For a description of scientific curation methodologies please see the following links:

Please read the following articles on CURATION

The Methodology of Curation for Scientific Research Findings

Power of Analogy: Curation in Music, Music Critique as a Curation and Curation of Medical Research Findings – A Comparison

Science and Curation: The New Practice of Web 2.0

  1. Information Analytics

Multiple analytic software packages have been made available to analyze information surrounding Twitter feeds, including Twitter feeds from #chat channels one can set up to cover a meeting, product launch etc.. Some of these tools include:

Twitter Analytics – measures metrics surrounding Tweets including retweets, impressions, engagement, follow rate, …

Twitter Analytics – Hashtags.org – determine most impactful # for your Tweets For example, meeting coverage of bioinvestment conferences or startup presentations using #startup generates automatic retweeting by Startup tweetbot @StartupTweetSF.

 

  1. Tweet Sentiment Analytics

Examples of Twitter Use

A. Scientific Meeting Coverage

In a paper entitled Twitter Use at a Family Medicine Conference: Analyzing #STFM13 authors Ranit Mishori, MD, Frendan Levy, MD, and Benjamin Donvan analyzed the public tweets from the 2013 Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) conference bearing the meeting-specific hashtag #STFM13. Thirteen percent of conference attendees (181 users) used the #STFM13 to share their thoughts on the meeting (1,818 total tweets) showing a desire for social media interaction at conferences but suggesting growth potential in this area. As we have also seen, the heaviest volume of conference-tweets originated from a small number of Twitter users however most tweets were related to session content.

However, as the authors note, although it is easy to measure common metrics such as number of tweets and retweets, determining quality of engagement from tweets would be important for gauging the value of Twitter-based social-media coverage of medical conferences.

Thea authors compared their results with similar analytics generated by the HealthCare Hashtag Project, a project and database of medically-related hashtag use, coordinated and maintained by the company Symplur.  Symplur’s database includes medical and scientific conference Twitter coverage but also Twitter usuage related to patient care. In this case the database was used to compare meeting tweets and hashtag use with the 2012 STFM conference.

These are some of the published journal articles that have employed Symplur (www.symplur.com) data in their research of Twitter usage in medical conferences.

B. Twitter Usage for Patient Care and Engagement

Although the desire of patients to use and interact with their physicians over social media is increasing, along with increasing health-related social media platforms and applications, there are certain obstacles to patient-health provider social media interaction, including lack of regulatory framework as well as database and security issues. Some of the successes and issues of social media and healthcare are discussed in the post Can Mobile Health Apps Improve Oral-Chemotherapy Adherence? The Benefit of Gamification.

However there is also a concern if social media truly engages the patient and improves patient education. In a study of Twitter communications by breast cancer patients Tweeting about breast cancer, authors noticed Tweeting was a singular event. The majority of tweets did not promote any specific preventive behavior. The authors concluded “Twitter is being used mostly as a one-way communication tool.” (Using Twitter for breast cancer prevention: an analysis of breast cancer awareness month. Thackeray R1, Burton SH, Giraud-Carrier C, Rollins S, Draper CR. BMC Cancer. 2013;13:508).

In addition a new poll by Harris Interactive and HealthDay shows one third of patients want some mobile interaction with their physicians.

Some papers cited in Symplur’s HealthCare Hashtag Project database on patient use of Twitter include:

C. Twitter Use in Pharmacovigilance to Monitor Adverse Events

Pharmacovigilance is the systematic detection, reporting, collecting, and monitoring of adverse events pre- and post-market of a therapeutic intervention (drug, device, modality e.g.). In a Cutting Edge Information Study, 56% of pharma companies databases are an adverse event channel and more companies are turning to social media to track adverse events (in Pharmacovigilance Teams Turn to Technology for Adverse Event Reporting Needs). In addition there have been many reports (see Digital Drug Safety Surveillance: Monitoring Pharmaceutical Products in Twitter) that show patients are frequently tweeting about their adverse events.

There have been concerns with using Twitter and social media to monitor for adverse events. For example FDA funded a study where a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School and other academic centers examined more than 60,000 tweets, of which 4,401 were manually categorized as resembling adverse events and compared with the FDA pharmacovigilance databases. Problems associated with such social media strategy were inability to obtain extra, needed information from patients and difficulty in separating the relevant Tweets from irrelevant chatter.  The UK has launched a similar program called WEB-RADR to determine if monitoring #drug_reaction could be useful for monitoring adverse events. Many researchers have found the adverse-event related tweets “noisy” due to varied language but had noticed many people do understand some principles of causation including when adverse event subsides after discontinuing the drug.

However Dr. Clark Freifeld, Ph.D., from Boston University and founder of the startup Epidemico, feels his company has the algorithms that can separate out the true adverse events from the junk. According to their web site, their algorithm has high accuracy when compared to the FDA database. Dr. Freifeld admits that Twitter use for pharmacovigilance purposes is probably a starting point for further follow-up, as each patient needs to fill out the four-page forms required for data entry into the FDA database.

D. Use of Twitter in Big Data Analytics

Published on Aug 28, 2012

http://blogs.ischool.berkeley.edu/i29…

Course: Information 290. Analyzing Big Data with Twitter
School of Information
UC Berkeley

Lecture 1: August 23, 2012

Course description:
How to store, process, analyze and make sense of Big Data is of increasing interest and importance to technology companies, a wide range of industries, and academic institutions. In this course, UC Berkeley professors and Twitter engineers will lecture on the most cutting-edge algorithms and software tools for data analytics as applied to Twitter microblog data. Topics will include applied natural language processing algorithms such as sentiment analysis, large scale anomaly detection, real-time search, information diffusion and outbreak detection, trend detection in social streams, recommendation algorithms, and advanced frameworks for distributed computing. Social science perspectives on analyzing social media will also be covered.

This is a hands-on project course in which students are expected to form teams to complete intensive programming and analytics projects using the real-world example of Twitter data and code bases. Engineers from Twitter will help advise student projects, and students will have the option of presenting their final project presentations to an audience of engineers at the headquarters of Twitter in San Francisco (in addition to on campus). Project topics include building on existing infrastructure tools, building Twitter apps, and analyzing Twitter data. Access to data will be provided.

Other posts on this site on USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND TWITTER IN HEALTHCARE and Conference Coverage include:

Methodology for Conference Coverage using Social Media: 2014 MassBio Annual Meeting 4/3 – 4/4 2014, Royal Sonesta Hotel, Cambridge, MA

Strategy for Event Joint Promotion: 14th ANNUAL BIOTECH IN EUROPE FORUM For Global Partnering & Investment 9/30 – 10/1/2014 • Congress Center Basel – SACHS Associates, London

REAL TIME Cancer Conference Coverage: A Novel Methodology for Authentic Reporting on Presentations and Discussions launched via Twitter.com @ The 2nd ANNUAL Sachs Cancer Bio Partnering & Investment Forum in Drug Development, 19th March 2014 • New York Academy of Sciences • USA

PCCI’s 7th Annual Roundtable “Crowdfunding for Life Sciences: A Bridge Over Troubled Waters?” May 12 2014 Embassy Suites Hotel, Chesterbrook PA 6:00-9:30 PM

CRISPR-Cas9 Discovery and Development of Programmable Genome Engineering – Gabbay Award Lectures in Biotechnology and Medicine – Hosted by Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center, 10/27/14 3:30PM Brandeis University, Gerstenzang 121

Tweeting on 14th ANNUAL BIOTECH IN EUROPE FORUM For Global Partnering & Investment 9/30 – 10/1/2014 • Congress Center Basel – SACHS Associates, London

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/press-coverage/

Statistical Analysis of Tweet Feeds from the 14th ANNUAL BIOTECH IN EUROPE FORUM For Global Partnering & Investment 9/30 – 10/1/2014 • Congress Center Basel – SACHS Associates, London

1st Pitch Life Science- Philadelphia- What VCs Really Think of your Pitch

What VCs Think about Your Pitch? Panel Summary of 1st Pitch Life Science Philly

How Social Media, Mobile Are Playing a Bigger Part in Healthcare

Can Mobile Health Apps Improve Oral-Chemotherapy Adherence? The Benefit of Gamification.

Medical Applications and FDA regulation of Sensor-enabled Mobile Devices: Apple and the Digital Health Devices Market

E-Medical Records Get A Mobile, Open-Sourced Overhaul By White House Health Design Challenge Winners

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SAME SCIENTIFIC IMPACT: Scientific Publishing – Open Journals vs. Subscription-based

Reporters: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN & Pnina G. Abir-Am, PhD

Drastic change in academic education by design: FREE ACCESS to knowledge — Program edX – the  Harvard+MIT collaboration on Online education!! 
FREE ACCESS to Scientific Journals will be the next step. Research to support that by a study carried by Bjork, B. C., and D. Solomon. 2012. Open access versus subscription journals: a comparison of scientific impact. BMC Medicine. 10(1):73+. 
“Following step will be to demonstrated that Scientific Websites like http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com have SAME Scientific impact as Open Journals!!
“We are well positioned to demonstrate that” said Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN, Director & Founder of Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence and the 2/2012 launcher of the initiative called  http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com  To trace her contributions to Research Methodology, 1976-2005, go to  https://sites.google.com/site/avivasopusmagnum/aviva-s-home-page
The merit of Scientific Website is manifold:
  • Time from Lab/Desk to Publication on the Internet and Search engines is reduced to seconds
  • comments by other scientists are equally valuable to peer review
  • collaboration with other scientist around the globe is fostered on WWW
  • the platform is of collaborative authoring, we have 60 categories of research in one site
  • interdisciplinary work can be published in one site the over arching domain in our case is Life Sciences, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare
In May 2012 MIT and Harvard are collaborating on distribution of course material of all classes on the Internet – a Program called EdX
In the Press Release“EdX represents a unique opportunity to improve education on our own campuses through online learning, while simultaneously creating a bold new educational path for millions of learners worldwide,” MIT President Susan Hockfield said.

Harvard President Drew Faust said, “edX gives Harvard and MIT an unprecedented opportunity to dramatically extend our collective reach by conducting groundbreaking research into effective education and by extending online access to quality higher education.”

“Harvard and MIT will use these new technologies and the research they will make possible to lead the direction of online learning in a way that benefits our students, our peers, and people across the nation and the globe,” Faust continued.

Princeton, Stanford, Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania announced that they would offer free Web-based courses through a for-profit company called Coursera that was founded by two Stanford computer science professors. One of those professors, Andrew Ng, taught a free online course in machine learning this past fall with an enrollment of more than 100,000 students.

There’s also Udacity, co-founded by a former Stanford professor, andKhan Academy, which boasts 3,100 free educational videos across a variety of subjects.

MIT and Harvard said that they hope to eventually partner with other universities to expand the offerings on the edX platform.

Results of the BMC Medicine study are reported, below and they are:  Open Access, But Same Impact
profile

BioTechniques

http://www.biotechniques.com/news/Open-Access-But-Same-Impact/biotechniques-333012.html#.UA2SsRxueMU 

Open Access, But Same Impact

07/19/2012

Jesse Jenkins
By comparing two-year impact factors for journals, researchers found that open access and subscription-based journals have about the same scientific impact.
Open access (OA) journals are approaching the same scientific impact and quality as traditional subscription journals, according to a new study. In a study published in BMC Medicine on July 17 (1), researchers surveyed the impact factors, the average number of citations per paper published in a journal during the two preceding years, of OA and traditional subscription journals.

By comparing two-year impact factors for journals from the four countries that publish the most scientific literature, researchers have found that OA journals have about the same scientific impact as their subscription-based counterparts. Source: BMC Medicine.

At first, the study’s authors—Bo-Christer Björk from the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland, and David Solomon from the College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University—found that there was a 30% higher average citation rate for subscription journals. But after controlling for journal discipline, location of publisher, and age of publication, their results showed that OA and subscription journals had nearly identical scientific impact.

“The newer open access published within the last 10 years, particularly those journals funded by article processing fees, had basically the same impact as subscription journals within the same category,” said Solomon. “I think that that is the key finding.”

The initial higher citation rate for subscription journals was the result of a higher percentage of older OA journals from countries that are not major publishing countries. “A lot of them are from South America or other developing countries, and they tend to have lower impact factors,” said Solomon. “When you compare apples to apples and start looking within subgroups, particularly journals launched after 2000 in biomedicine for example, the differences fall away.”

However, the authors identified a sector of low quality, OA publishers that are looking to capitalize on the article processing charge model rather than contribute to the advancement of science. Solomon said that this could partly be to blame for negative perceptions about the integrity of OA publishing as a whole and its impact on the peer review system. But most researchers are aware of these low-quality publishers and prefer to publish in more reputable OA journals.

In the end, Bjork and Solomon are hopeful that the study’s findings may help dispel some of the misconceptions in the debate over OA publishing. “Open access journals still have the reputation of being second class in the minds of some people. So, we think that this is important because this is objective data verifying that at least the open access journals published in the last 10 years by professional publishers are on par with subscription journals.”

References

  1. Bjork, B. C., and D. Solomon. 2012. Open access versus subscription journals: a comparison of scientific impact. BMC Medicine. 10(1):73+.

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