Knowledge Café
St Paul’s Centre, Queen Caroline Street, London, W6 9PJ
12 April 2016, 15:00-17:00
12 April 2016, 15:00-17:00
The second FutureTDM Knowledge Cafe took place on the 12th of April after The Research & Scholarly Publishing Forum which was being held during the London Book Fair.
It was a beautiful day for a FutureTDM Knowledge Cafe as people arrived at the St Paul’s Centre to discuss the barriers and enablers for the uptake of text- and data mining (TDM) in Europe.
After registration , the participants could share their experiences in an intimate setting. A quick round of introductions showed a diverse group of participants present from the publishing community including representatives from one of the largest society publishers and smaller academic and open access publishers. We also welcomed a few researchers and people working at a funding agency and rights management service provider.
Table discussions
It was a fruitful discussion covering a variety of issues. The discussion started off with a discussion on the tools for text- and data mining. Participants agreed that accessing the tools for TDM is not easy and that there is a need for more user friendly tools. ” Write Find XML” was one of the useful tools mentioned.
As the focus of the Knowledge cafe was on publishing the participants spend time on specific issues for publishers. It was said that there is still a lack of awareness in the publishing community about what can be done.
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One of the publishers main concern is to build a robust and resilient infrastructure for data- and text mining. Providing an API for text- and data mining can be a challenge for publishers as it is still a relatively new practice.
When asked what participants would invest in when given unlimited resources they would invest in infrastructure and in having the right to access datasets. With respect to the usefulness of having a copyright exception for TDM practices a survey led by the Publishers Licensing Society was mentioned. In this survey STM publishers were asked if they saw an increase after the UK introduced such an exception. Only a few of the publishers who took part in the survey had received a request for TDM or reported an increase in the use of TDM.
“Show me the cure for cancer”
Participants further discussed how there is so much hype about TDM but not many achievements or specific outcomes to point to. They agreed that there is a need for examples and case studies to show what is actually achieved through the use of text- and data mining. What is happening in the US could be useful in this regard.
We thank all of our participants for taking the time to give us their input.
If you are interested to share your experiences or comments don’t hesitate to contact us or join us at one of our Knowledge Cafe’s which will take place throughout Europe.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Relevant information that was mentioned include:
Survey shows text and data mining supported by licensing not copyright exceptions
http://www.pls.org.uk/news-events/n-tdm-august-15/
Why big pharma is turning to text mining Science | Business 01 March 206 http://www.sciencebusiness.net/news/77452/Why-big-pharma-is-turning-to-text-mining
JISC – value and benefits and text mining https://www.jisc.ac.uk/reports/value-and-benefits-of-text-mining
Image Credit: ActuaLitté (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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