Data visualization from the book, maps citations to the journal Nature
I must say it was great to see technology giant Microsoft offering a research publication using the Creative Commons Share Alike open license. Not only does it appear to be a first (that I have seen) for Microsoft, but it also appears to be a groundbreaking research publication on contemporary scientific discovery.
The book
The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery examines the impact that software and massive amounts of distributed data have had on the sciences. Collaboration using new Web 2.0 tools is facilitating entirely new forms of research depending heavily on how well its researchers collaborate with one another, and with technologists, in areas of eScience such as databases, workflow management, visualization, and cloud computing technologies.
The book examines how technology is changing research in the follow areas:
- Earth and Environment
- Health and Wellbeing
- Scientific Infrastructure
- Scholarly Communication
The book is considered a tribute to the lifelong work of
Jim Gray, a computer scientist best known for his work in transactional processing and database technologies.
This book is current, relevant and entirely open for use by anyone as long as they share the work in a similar fashion.
