Should science be open

Two interesting articles appeared this week in some blogs I frequent about technology and science.  The first is an Op-ed in the New York Times titled Research Bought, Then Paid For and the next is Open Science: why is it so hard?  The two articles are a different take on the idea that scientific findings should be open for everyone.  Someone who is outside the scientific community might think that statement is silly.  Of course science is open.  No one has a copyright or a monopoly on scientific or mathematical discoveries.  Yet that is not the real issue.  The real issue is the access to those scientific discoveries.  In some cases the scientific discoveries are paid for by public subsidies.

The main focus of those two articles is that science has been hijacked by the publishers.  The articles even go so far as saying the hijacking is a monopoly of sorts.  I think monopoly is too strong of an analogy but the publishers do have a lot of control.  The control is mostly about access to the science.  The publishers own the copyright and can limit access to anyone unless a fee is paid.  A lot of the times these fees are rather high.  Now it looks like with the Research Works Act the access to publicly funded scientific research will be limited as well.  Access to the science is the crux of the debate.

Academics rely on publishing of their scientific findings for further funding of their research.  It is part of the academic circle of life.  Publishing begets more funding which begets more publishing and the cycle continues.  I do believe academic community deserves to get compensated for their research.  I'm not sure how much residual income they get other than peer review notoriety from their published content.  Publishers seem, again, to have a lot of the control. 

I am not an academic researcher.  My work is trying to help organizations better themselves by using the learning, skills, and knowledge I have acquired through the years as an Operations Research professional.  I try to keep up to date on the latest research and methods by studying journals, networking with colleagues, and reading articles.  I rely on scientific access quite a bit in staying up to date with the latest findings.  I rely on the academic community so I can improve my knowledge and skills.  Yet it seems very difficult for my to gain access to a lot of good research.  There has to be a common ground for access to the science.  I wish I had a simple solution to this issue but it seems very large and very complicated.  There are a lot of interactions that I am sure I am glossing over.  Yet I am a big fan of the idea of Open Science.

There are some publishers that do understand this problem.  INFORMS seems to get this issue rather well.  They do not charge a lot for their journals.  In fact as part of membership INFORMS allows two free subscriptions to any journal of your choosing.  In addition to that the PubsOnLine Suite is available for $99 which is 12 journals for a whole year.  That is a bargain compared to some other publishers.  So not all publishers are pure evil.  There are some good ones.

Expanded list of online courses for data analysis

The folks at Stanford have been really busy putting together online curriculum for the world to learn.  This is a followup to a previous post Machine Learning for everyone.  Stanford has included a bunch of other courses that they will promote online.

Some of the interesting courses are

• Model Thinking
• Natural Language Processing
• Game Theory
• Design and Analysis of Algorithms 

Apart from the promoted online courses from Stanford there is also other courses of interest that are not promoted but still access to lectures and notes.  Notable courses from the Stanford School of Engineering include the following.

• Introduction to Linear Dynamical Systems
• Convex Optimization I
• Convex Optimization II

Stanford isn't the only school that is promoting their lectures online for free use.  A lot of schools are promiting open learning and collaboration through what is called Open Courseware.  Some notable schools inlcuded.

• MIT Open Courseware
• Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative
• Webcast Berkeley (UC)
• Tokyo Tech Open Courseware

As an analytics professional for many years I've found honing your skills to be very important for your career.  Now more than ever it is easier to do with schools opening up their classes for everyone.  I strongly recommend finding areas of expertise that you are passionate about or want to learn and find the schools that promote them online.

Machine Learning for everyone

Well maybe mostly everyone. Have  you been interested in gaining knowledge in the latest craze of artificial intelligence and computing?  Then go no further than Stanford's Machine Learning course which is now open enrollment to everyone!  Andrew Ng is back to provide the world with knowledge about Machine Learning for the entire masses. 

Per Stanford's website, Machine Learning is data mining and statistical pattern recognition.  Mostly it is applying mathematical and statistical methods to draw out information behaviors from data sources.  So do you want to invent the next Netflix, Amazon or Google?  This is the course for you.

If you do not want to enroll in the Machine Learning class you could always watch some of the older lectures online.  Andrew Ng provides plenty of information from past lectures with student contributed projects.  The CS 229 website is worth a look for a punch of Machine Learning related resources.

Computer languages and Applied Math

There is no question that computer languages have helped pushed the envelope for applied mathematics.  It is hard to imagine where we would be without airline scheduling, supply chain management, or inventory control if it were not for all of the great advances in optimization and statistical computing.  I have thought a lot about the convergence of computing and Operations Research.  In fact I brought up a discussion on the topic on OR-Exchange with the question "Is programming skills a requirement for today's OR practitioner?"  You would think with all of the advances in computing that programming would be simpler but that is not the case.

There is an interesting debate in the R-project community about the shortcomings of the R language.  Xi'an Og posted a discussion on R shortcomings re-posted from another blog.  The consensus of the R community seems to be that R is an inferior language but has a brilliant library of resources.  So where does that leave the practioner?  Does the practioner need to update their coding skills and develop something better in another computer language?  I find it really interesting that some of the first solutions to this debate is to scrap everything and start over.

I don't think this debate is ever going to change.  The computer is always going to be a valuable tool for the Operations Research practitioner.  The tools we use to complete our daily tasks need to ubiquitous but also readily available.  Let's just say that the slide rule is not going to be making any sort of comeback. 

I believe that the Open Source model has a real advantage here over the proprietary counterparts in this debate.  The community has a lot of input into Open Source software.  It is often called a meritocracy.  The best solutions continue while those that do not go away in obscurity in the Open Source model.  This is one of the reasons why I advocate Open Source software.  In the end I think R is going to be fine.  There will be advances, possible even forks of the software, but there will always be progress.  The only limitations seem to be of what we could dream.

Operations Research courses via Open Courseware Consortium

Open Courseware is making it possible for anyone with an internet connection to find subject knowledge from many different academic institutions. The best part for knowledge seekers is that it is free and open to the public. Perhaps you would like to know about Quantum Physics or English Literature. There is a very good chance that lectures, notes, exams and class references will be available in a particular subject.

Operations Research is no different to Open Courseware. In fact there is an increasing amount of Operations Research, Management Science, Supply Chain, and Applied Mathematics available on the internet. The Open Courseware Consortium is one way to find open courses on the internet in Operations Research. The consortium themselves are trying to promote themselves with membership but to search for courses is free to the public by the institution. IEOR Tools has featured this in previous blog post about open courseware.

Free e-books on Mathematics

Thanks to Jeromy Anglim on his blog he found a great link for free e-books on mathematics from e-bookdirectory.com. There are quite a few e-books in this link which can be a great resource for rehashing and learning some new methods.

Some noted e-books in mathematics that I found to be interesting

Algorithms by Ian Craw, John Pulham
An Introduction to R by W. N. Venables, D. M. Smith
Engineering Mathematics by Ian Craw, Stuart Dagger, John Pulham
Statistics for Business and Economics by Marcelo Fernandes


Jeromy Anglim's blog is a very interesting resource for statistics, data mining, and R. Be sure to read it for its wonderful insights.

Relevance and Soft-skills in Operations Research

Last night I had the pleasure of listening to a transportation panel hosted by the INFORMS Dallas/Fort Worth Chapter. The transportation panel featured key Operations Research representatives from airline, travel management, and rail road industries . The panel also included professors in engineering, supply chain, and business that specialize in the transportation industry. All in all the exchange was very interesting and I learned a lot about an industry I know very little.

The panel brought two things that I believe is very common and clear in Operations Research. Those issues are of relevance and soft-skills (or interpersonal skills). These themes were pretty concurrent among industry and academia. Industry stressed that often times they would need to sell their abilities and technical decision analysis know-how. Also industry panelists stressed that the importance of being able to relate to other people within the organization to explain ideas about problems. The academics stressed a lot of the same points. Academics challenge is to grow strong Operations Research students with good "hard" technical skills but also have interpersonal strengths in a highly competitive market.

Relevance and interpersonal skills are very common themes in Operations Research. I know I've had to develop each of those skills in my career. Perhaps the Industrial Engineer and Operations Research tool bag can be expanded to help in these areas. There are great tools that help in each of these areas. Perhaps I can feature more of those on this blog in the future.

Gender gap diminishing in Mathematics

I'm surprised our Operations Research blogging friend Laura of Punk Rock Operations Research has not brought this issue to our attention. Well let me oblige if I may. A blog article by Sharon Begley of Newsweek early last month shows that the math gender gap is not what it used to be in the past. The statistics bear out in a couple of studies that girls are reaching a parity with boys in the subject of mathematics. Yet Sharon explains in the article the there is still proof that the stereotype still exists. One notable reason is the lack of females who have won the noted Fields Medal. I was surprised to hear that there has not been one female to win the award.

I am curious if this is true in the field of Operations Research. I personally know many women in the field of Operations Research. I know from my experience in Engineering that there is less women in the field but it definitely seems to be trending positive. I'm not sure what the future holds for Operations Research but I for one welcome our female friends.

Virginia Tech awareded grant from UPS

I have to give props to my alma-mater Virginia Tech and the department from which I received my Industrial Engineering degree. The Virginia Tech Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering was awarded a $40,000 grant from UPS. This gives them the 13th consecutive year of grants awarded to Virginia Tech from UPS.

I was a student at Virginia Tech while Dr. Casali was the department head. It was a great time to be part of the ISE department as it was growing. Dr. Casali was a large influence on the success of the ISE department. Contratulations to Dr. Casali and the ISE Team at Virginia Tech.