What we're reading this week...
From UX Indonesia on Unsplash
A round-up of articles that have caught our eye in the last few weeks
Here are three things we read this week and what we’re thinking about them:
This article on unlocking the potential of open 990 data is a fantastic success story if you’re into open data. If you’re paying attention to these developments, you might be aware that these datasets may not have been made available if not for the litigation of ur-Open Data activist Carl Malamud. The real work of creating value with this data has just begun. You can read more about this in an article we wrote about the data ecosystem for nonprofits in Canada.
This press release announcing the new White House Office of Science and Technology Policy guide. This move by the administration strives to address the inequality that exists as a result of paywalls on publications that contain research paid for by taxpayers. This new guide plans to eliminate the 12-month publication embargo for federally funded peer-reviewed research articles and make data published in peer-review research articles immediately available upon publication.
This article on why funders should go meta addresses why philanthropies should focus on funding meta-issues like research and evaluation, along with efforts to improve research quality. The article argues that research, and the efforts to improve research, are undersupplied, and many opportunities go unnoticed. Spending money on research and development, or improving the process of both, is one way that philanthropy can make a difference.