overleaf Archives - Digital Science https://www.digital-science.com/tags/overleaf/ Advancing the Research Ecosystem Thu, 23 Nov 2023 11:33:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 My First 100 Days: Leadership for Change https://www.digital-science.com/blog/2023/05/my-first-100-days-leadership-for-change/ Wed, 10 May 2023 12:12:20 +0000 https://www.digital-science.com/?p=62470 Chief of Staff Alison Mitchell reflects on her first 100 days with Digital Science - and looks towards an exciting future.

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Dr Alison Mitchell
Dr Alison Mitchell, Chief of Staff, Digital Science.

In keeping with many Digital Science new starters, Chief of Staff Alison Mitchell has had an exhilarating first few months at the company. Here she reflects on the theme of change in terms of leadership and growth in a complex organization.

For many years I’ve watched Digital Science from afar, and I’ve always been aware of its long-held commitment to helping researchers and research institutions make a difference. For more than a decade, Digital Science has been committed to maximizing the impact research and researchers can have throughout society. We do this by providing researchers with the full range of data they need, by giving them access to analytics that enable better decision-making about research, and by supplying better tools to help communicate the outcomes – including the impact – of their research more broadly. 

We’re in an era of major crises across the world that can be solved only through open debate and knowledge sharing, and it’s rewarding and energizing to be part of an organization that is committed to listening to, understanding and helping to solve the problems faced in the research ecosystem.

Once you join Digital Science, it’s clear from day one that everyone has a shared desire to help researchers create a positive impact on the world. To do this consistently well – to continue to serve researchers and solve their pain points – we need to understand the people who use our products and evolve how we work with them. As we continue on our journey to achieve that mission, Digital Science is focused on listening to our customers’ needs, building on the close working relationships we’ve developed, and offering multi-product experiences as products become more integrated across all our different user groups. This integrated approach will not only lead to more benefits for customers, but it will also open up potential new solutions to pressing academic and research problems. For example, we’ve developed Dimensions Modules&Apps in 2023, which provides analytical and workflow apps for different users and use cases, all drawing on the world’s largest linked research information dataset.

Change is also happening quickly in terms of our people, and within my own Chief of Staff area we have already created two new teams. The first is a Business Intelligence Unit, led by Dr Jennifer Wooldridge, which will support the business with timely, accurate, easy-to-use reporting and analysis on performance, competitors and the wider market. The second is a new team that will lead the company in exploring new ideas and insights across the research ecosystem. We’ve called the team ‘TL;DR’ – a play on the fact that we’re trying to be brief and accessible – and launched a new website to host the blogs, interviews and other content that the team produces. The team includes former Overleaf CEO John Hammersley, founder of Ripeta Leslie McIntosh, and other Digital Science leaders Suze Kundu, Briony Fane and Simon Porter who, together, are aiming to develop a “new avenue for interesting things”.

I titled this post “leadership for change” because change has been the theme of my first months with Digital Science. I see a company that’s moving from its sometimes disparate start-up roots to being a joined-up team that’s evolving and scaling to meet the needs of the important communities it serves – all the while maintaining the spirit of innovation that I knew Digital Science for before I joined. It’s an exciting journey, and I’m proud to be a part of it.

Alison Mitchell
Chief of Staff
10 May 2023

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Sci Foo returns face-to-face in 2022 https://www.digital-science.com/blog/2022/06/sci-foo-returns-face-to-face-in-2022/ Wed, 15 Jun 2022 15:49:12 +0000 https://www.digital-science.com/?p=58115 The Digital Science team is getting ready to attend the annual Science Foo Camp (Sci Foo) in San Francisco, California.

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The Digital Science team is getting ready to attend the annual Science Foo Camp in San Francisco, California this weekend – and we’re excited, because for the first time since 2019 the event will be held face-to-face as well as online.

Sci Foo, as it’s known, is an “unconference” with no fixed agenda, and brings together researchers, innovators, technologists, communicators and policy makers from around the world who are doing groundbreaking work in diverse areas of science and technology. Attendance is by invitation only.

A sketch by Alex Cagan of some of the Digital Science Sci Foo 2019 crew.
Image: A sketch by Alex Cagan of some of the Digital Science Sci Foo 2019 crew.

Since the first event in 2006, Sci Foo has aimed to do things differently. Tim O’Reilly, of O’Reilly Media, had created a format to bring together thinkers from different fields in the Friends of O’Reilly (FOO) Camp format, but it was Linda Stone who suggested that Timo Hannay (of Nature), Chris DiBona (of Google) and Tim should come together in creating a camp that brought computer scientists together with researchers and technologists.

From Digital Science, I as Head of Strategic Events and our CEO Daniel Hook are co-organisers of the event, along with Cat Allman at Google, Tim O’Reilly and Marsee Henon from O’Reilly, and Magdalena Skipper from Nature. We are ably assisted by many stalwart colleagues from across all four collaborators, who freely give their own time to support the event each year.

The topics of discussion are truly wide-ranging, and include: climate, medicine and disease, machine learning, AI, food systems, astrophysics, sustainability, neuroscience, digital society, and the various health, social, political, technological and economic impacts of the pandemic. No matter what area is being discussed, this diverse group brings a unique level of insight and expertise to the discussion, often sparking new thinking and ideas that can help to drive each individual to continue their work with renewed passion.

At Sci Foo 2022, we’re looking forward to many conversations, “lightning talks” and catching up with our fellow organisers and attendees, old and new. For those attendees unable to attend in person, there will be opportunities to join some sessions virtually. It’s our first ‘hybrid’ event, and if successful we hope to continue with this approach.

To understand more about Sci Foo, see this video from 2018 in which we asked a number of scientists what the future might hold. You can also read about past events, such as Sci Foo 2018, 2019, or the virtual Sci Foo 2021.

Video: Scientists predict the future at Sci Foo 2018.

If you’re lucky enough to be attending this year’s event, please don’t hesitate to say hi to our Sci Foo crew, including Daniel, Amarjit, Suze Kundu from Dimensions L&C, Steve Scott, Leslie McIntosh from Ripeta, and John Hammersley and Jessica Lawshe from Overleaf.

Look out for online chat about the event via the official hashtag #scifoo and discussion on Twitter and LinkedIn from the Digital Science team.

About the Author

Amarjit Myers is Head of Strategic Events at Digital Science.

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Back to school – how our tools can help your research https://www.digital-science.com/blog/2021/09/back-to-school-2021/ Thu, 09 Sep 2021 09:30:00 +0000 https://www.digital-science.com/?p=55489 As we head into a brand new term, here are some of the ways we can support you, whether you're returning to campus or working from home.

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Grab your textbooks and charge up those laptops, because it’s time to get back to school!

For many members of our research community, a new term is accompanied by many other novel opportunities. Perhaps you’ll be teaching a new course. Maybe you will be starting a long-awaited new research project. Have you finally found the perfect excuse to buy that new notebook you’ve had your eye on? Of course you have. Treat yourself!

While some things have remained unchanged during this pandemic, many of our regular research, teaching and learning activities have become more challenging. We’ve navigated new virtual learning environments, tried not to break expensive, remotely accessible lab equipment, and attended conferences from home while simultaneously juggling life admin, often physically as well as metaphorically.

Campus university in autumn

At Digital Science, we offer a range of solutions that help keep your research going during these interesting times, and even when we return to that long-awaited ‘normal’. As we head into a brand new term, here are just some of the many ways that we can support you, our research community, whether you’re returning to campus or labs, or whether you’re continuing to work from home.

We’ve got a whole page dedicated to our COVID-19 initiatives, all designed to help you navigate your way through the COVID-19 crisis. Use our free search for COVID-19 related research outputs in Dimensions to discover the latest research, host your lecture slides, notes, conference outputs and research data on Figshare, write up your results with your collaborators wherever they are in the world using Overleaf, plan your next research project using Symplectic’s Research Funding Solution, find books relevant to your research using Altmetric, or prepare for your next research role with Scismic.

In more recent developments, Writefull’s new Full Edit mode helps you to proofread your scientific texts. Full Edit mode delivers the best AI-based language feedback you’ll find – it is even tailored to scientific writing, so you know that your research outputs are going to be impactfully worded.

As a researcher, being able to quickly find relevant information is crucial. Dimensions provides free access to over 120 million publications and preprints to help you find exactly what you need, quickly and easily. Furthermore, its in-built analytical tools also help you gain actionable insights to help you guide your research in the right direction. Find out more in this introduction for researchers or dive right in using this search box:

ReadCube’s Papers App is your all-in-one literature management tool designed to keep the clutter off your desk so you can spend more time focusing on your research. Papers allows you to read and annotate your research literature, share your papers with collaborators, and cite your fundamental research quickly and easily in your own research publications.

What about when it comes to reporting on the outputs and impact of your research and teaching? Symplectic Elements helps you showcase all of your academic achievements and activities by collecting and curating research information in an easy-to-maintain search and discovery interface. Use Elements to demonstrate impact and expertise, discover internal and external collaboration, find mentorship opportunities, and easily dive into connections across institutional networks.

These are just some of the ways we are helping support our researcher community. If you want to know more about how our tools can help you, head to our website or get in touch with us by email or on Twitter. We’d love to hear about how we’re helping you make a difference.

We wish you a great start to the new term!

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Overleaf https://www.digital-science.com/product/overleaf/ Thu, 30 Jul 2020 13:39:11 +0000 https://www.digital-science.com/?post_type=product&p=5328 Overleaf is an online LaTeX and Rich Text collaborative writing and publishing tool that makes the whole process of writing, editing and publishing scientific documents much quicker and easier.

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Overleaf
Collaborative writing and publishing
Join 14M users

All about Overleaf

Overleaf is an online LaTeX and Rich Text collaborative writing and publishing tool that makes the whole process of writing, editing and publishing scientific documents much quicker and easier. Created with the goal of making science and research faster, more open and more accessible, Overleaf brings the whole scientific documentation process into one place, from idea to writing to review to publication.

There’s nothing complicated or difficult for you to install, and you can start using LaTeX right now, even if you’ve never seen it before. Overleaf comes with a complete, ready to go LaTeX environment which runs on its servers.

Join millions of users!

“Just want to say that I am really grateful for Overleaf, it has enabled a slew of research and teaching development in my work that would have been annoyingly difficult before. Even people who don’t know LaTeX are participating with me on research proposals and that’s saying something if you know what LaTeX is like for the uninitiated. Thanks. And thanks for the support!”

Professor James Friend of the Medically Advanced Devices Lab, University of California, San Diego

There are thousands of Templates in our template gallery, so it’s really easy to get started, whether you’re writing a journal article, thesis, CV or something else.

Collaboration, made easy

Create professional looking documents in-house

Learn how to use Overleaf

Intro to Overleaf Part I

Beginners

Whether you’re new to LaTeX, Overleaf, or both; or just want an insight into the best way to work in Overleaf, this 30-minute webinar will provide an overview on Overleaf and LaTeX basics.

Intro to Overleaf Part II

Intermediate

This webinar is perfect if you want a deeper insight into how to best use Overleaf. Learn how to: Create a new project, add images and tables, upload your bibliography, and more.

Intro to Overleaf Part III

Advanced

This webinar is ideal if you want a deep insight into advanced features and how to make the most of your subscription. We’ll cover: cross-referencing, creating complex Tables and more.

Used by researchers worldwide

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Optical Society of America
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Purdue University

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Supporting Thousands of Research Collaborations https://www.digital-science.com/resource/supporting-thousands-of-research-collaborations/ Tue, 22 Oct 2019 21:00:22 +0000 https://www.digital-science.com/?post_type=story&p=41700 CERN wanted a single, collaborative authoring tool to provide to their researchers, Overleaf emerged as the best fit for them.

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Supporting Thousands of Research Collaborations

Overleaf CERN case study

CERN wanted a single, collaborative authoring tool to provide to their researchers and after a year-long trial of three platforms, Overleaf emerged as the best fit for them.

“The subsequent launch of Overleaf at CERN has been a huge success, with usage in the first year and a half growing by over 800% to include more than 3,600 CERN members across many different departments and specialities.”

Nikos Kasioumis, Software Engineer in the IT department at CERN and leader of the CERN authoring trial.

Read more about the goals, approach and results over on the Overleaf blog.

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Using Overleaf for Technical Documentation https://www.digital-science.com/resource/using-overleaf-for-technical-documentation/ Fri, 22 Mar 2019 09:48:26 +0000 https://www.digital-science.com/?post_type=story&p=42555 Find out why Symplectic use Overleaf for Technical Documentation

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Why Symplectic use Overleaf for Technical Documentation

The Symplectic team needed a new way to manage and produce technical documentation for their clients. After exploring a number of options, which did not meet their needs, they chose Overleaf because it provided an easy-to-use, flexible and scalable solution they were looking for. Overleaf enabled them to create and maintain complex technical documentation: keeping it up-to-date, which, coupled with Overleaf’s excellent formatting/layout capabilities, delivered an improved service to their clients and end-users.

With Overleaf, the Symplectic team finally had a solution that “stuck” and have been using it since January 2018, with great results.

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40,000 Students and 3,000 Staff at Macquarie have access to Overleaf https://www.digital-science.com/blog/2018/05/macquarie-university-successfully-provides-overleaf-accounts-to-over-40000-students-and-3000-staff/ Wed, 23 May 2018 10:01:21 +0000 https://www.digital-science.com/?p=29008 Macquarie University has provided 40,000 Students and 3,000 Staff with Overleaf Accounts

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Read on the Overleaf Blog

Overleaf, an innovative provider of scholarly writing and publishing tools, and Macquarie University Library have successfully partnered to provide all Macquarie University’s students and staff with an Overleaf Pro+ account.

The Macquarie University Library has provided this access via an Overleaf custom portal, allowing over 40,000 students and 3,000 staff to sign-in to, or sign-up for, an Overleaf Pro+ account which enables users to access all the features provided by the Overleaf platform. Macquarie’s researchers can use Overleaf for writing, collaboration and submission of journal papers. Additionally, lecturers and educators at Macquarie can use Overleaf’s Teaching Toolkit to assist with creation, distribution and management of student assignments.

As part of the partnership arrangement, Overleaf has and will continue to work with teams at Macquarie University to provide ongoing training, marketing and awareness-raising to help maximize the use of Overleaf across the university—to build a communal workspace with which to support and encourage a vibrant network of local, national and international research collaborations.

Fiona Burton, Associate University Librarian, Collections, Discovery & Technology Services says:

“The Library is happy with the take-up of Overleaf at Macquarie following its initial launch in mid-2017, with people from across the disciplines starting to collaborate on this platform. We also were pleased when we heard that as a result of the Overleaf/ShareLaTeX merger, Macquarie ShareLaTeX users would also benefit from the Macquarie subscription.

It has also been popular with our academics at Macquarie—below is the feedback from one of our academics:

It’s great for bridging between people who want to write in LaTeX with people who want to read and review that work, but who might not be LaTeX gurus. The useful features are that you can read the document in pdf, and click on parts to be taken to the corresponding part of the LaTeX code. So, it can be easy to read, and comments can still be added by LaTeX novices.’ (Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University).”

John Hammersley, Co-founder and CEO of Overleaf says:

“We’re very excited to be working with Macquarie University. They were an early adopter of Overleaf in Australia, and the enthusiasm shown for Overleaf at all levels has made this an excellent partnership. In particular, their forward-thinking approach to how they can support their students and researchers has been a pleasure to see.”

For questions on this new Overleaf partnership and integration, please contact Mary Anne Baynes, CMO, Overleaf.

Macquarie University

Macquarie University is located in Sydney, at the heart of Australia’s largest high-tech precinct, a thriving locale that is predicted to double in size in the next 20 years to become the fourth largest CBD in Australia. The University is home to world-class facilities, including Australia’s only fully integrated Academic Health Sciences Centre. Macquarie University Library building is a state of the art facility which opened in 2011 and contains Australia’s first Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS). The Library is visited in person by up to 14,000 people per day, and electronically by up to 17,000 visits per day.

Macquarie is ranked among the top two per cent of universities in the world, and with a 5-star QS rating, it is renowned for producing graduates that are among the most sought-after professionals in the world. Macquarie’s enviable research efforts—more than 100 of its researchers are ranked in the top one per cent of researchers in the world—are brought to life by renowned researchers whose audacious solutions to issues of global significance are benefiting the world. For more information please visit us at mq.edu.au.

About Overleaf

Overleaf was founded in 2012 by two mathematicians who built a light-weight collaboration system and used it for writing research papers. It was simple and intuitive to use—all you needed was a web browser. This intuitive online platform has since seen rapid adoption across science and research, and Overleaf’s award-winning collaboration technology is now in use by over two million researchers, students and technical writers in institutions, labs and industry worldwide.

Supported by Digital Science, and working in collaboration with international publishers and organizations, Overleaf is helping to make science and research faster, more open and more transparent by bringing the whole scientific writing process into one connected place in the cloud—from idea, to writing, to review, to publication.

Most recently, in mid-2017 Overleaf acquired its nearest competitor ShareLaTeX, and our expanded team is working to build an even stronger next-generation platform, due for launch later this year.

Visit https://www.overleaf.com/ and follow @overleaf on Twitter.

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Try Out Overleaf v2 https://www.digital-science.com/blog/2018/05/try-out-overleaf-v2/ Wed, 02 May 2018 14:58:48 +0000 https://www.digital-science.com/?p=28848 View original post on Overleaf’s blog Since Overleaf joined forces with ShareLaTeX last year, our goal has been to create an online editor that outshines both ShareLaTeX and Overleaf. One that is simple to get started with for beginners, has powerful collaboration features for teams, and that seamlessly integrates with the other tools and publishers […]

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View original post on Overleaf’s blog

Since Overleaf joined forces with ShareLaTeX last year, our goal has been to create an online editor that outshines both ShareLaTeX and Overleaf. One that is simple to get started with for beginners, has powerful collaboration features for teams, and that seamlessly integrates with the other tools and publishers you work with.

We’ve come a long way since we started last July, and there’s still a lot of work to do, but we’re excited to announce that as of this month you can try out the new Overleaf v2 editor! Just head over to v2.overleaf.com to give it a go. It’s simple to sign in to Overleaf v2 with your Overleaf or ShareLaTeX account, and your existing account or projects won’t be affected. You can also go back to Overleaf or ShareLaTeX at any time.

Launch early and iterate fast

The only way to build a brilliant product is to ask for and listen to your feedback as we go. We want to know what you need from an online editor, and to make sure the features we are releasing are useful and easy to use. We’ve been testing Overleaf v2 with some early users since the start of the year, and it’s helped us make improvements, from our layout sliders to our auto-compile algorithms.

There’s still a lot of work to do on Overleaf v2 before it can completely replace Overleaf and ShareLaTeX, but we think that it’s now awesome enough for people to start using today, so head over to v2.overleaf.com to give it a try! Please do send us any feedback—we’d love to hear your initial thoughts.

Powerful collaboration features

Overleaf v2 offers an impressive collection of new and upgraded collaboration features. The collaborative editing is faster and smoother than in Overleaf v1, and it shows you where your collaborators cursors are as they type. The new track changes mode lets you see exactly what has been changed by your collaborators, and allows you to accept or reject each individual change. You can also comment on ranges of text in your document for precise communication.

Auto-compiling

Auto-compiling is one of the most loved features of Overleaf. We’ve made sure to include and improve on this in Overleaf v2, so ShareLaTeX users can also now just focus on their writing, and let us handle updating the PDF view as needed.

Link sharing

As with auto-compilation, sharing a project by a secure URL is a much-loved feature of Overleaf which streamlines collaboration. When implementing this in Overleaf v2, we made an important change based on your feedback: Currently, on Overleaf v1, the ability to share by URL is turned on by default, from the moment you create a project, but not all users realized this—they expected to have to explicitly choose to enable it. So in Overleaf v2, this feature is turned off by default, but you can open the Share menu at any time to turn it on!

Reference search

Overleaf v2 lets you search your bibliography to quickly and easily insert the correct citation. As well as simple auto-complete of your bibliography keys, you can choose to search your bibliography entries by author name, title, publisher or year. This will save you time from wading through your .bib files looking for the right keys, or trying to remember them.

Still in the works

As mentioned, there’s still a lot to do! Here are some of the additional features we’re planning to add before Overleaf v2 is fully launched:

  • Rich text editing, so that you don’t need to hand code every single layout option, and can work with collaborators who are less familiar with LaTeX
  • Linked files to import bibliographies and styles from other projects, reference managers, or the web.
  • Zotero integration, and improvements to the v2 Mendeley integration to support groups.
  • Dropbox and Git(Hub) improvements (see this help article for notes on working offline with Overleaf v2)
  • API integrations, such as those to publisher manuscript management platforms.

Want to know more?

We’re updating this help article with the latest details on the timeline for the Overleaf v2 testing and launch.

Please do let us know what you think of Overleaf v2! We hope you like it! 🙂

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STEM Fellowship Big Data Challenge Winners https://www.digital-science.com/blog/2018/03/stem-fellowship-big-data-challenge-winners/ Thu, 15 Mar 2018 10:01:35 +0000 https://www.digital-science.com/?p=28587 STEM Fellowship’s High School Big Data Challenge sees the tech-native generation put their data analysis talents to the test and grow into digital citizens. The theme for this year was “Think Global – Act Local”, and addressed the issues facing sustainable development around the world. The challenge involves teams of high school students tackling a […]

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STEM Fellowship’s High School Big Data Challenge sees the tech-native generation put their data analysis talents to the test and grow into digital citizens. The theme for this year was “Think Global – Act Local”, and addressed the issues facing sustainable development around the world.

The challenge involves teams of high school students tackling a question and writing a paper on their choice of topic for the year’s theme. The papers are then read and the top-scoring ones are presented at SAS headquarters for a chance to win prizes.

While all the papers submitted this year were interesting and insightful, awards were given to research that was of exceptional quality.

The late Right Honourable Arnold Chan was a huge part of the reach and impact of last year’s Big Data Challenge. To honour him and his contribution, RBC sponsored the Arnold Chan Student Innovation Award this year – and it went to TanenbaumCHAT’s team with Jason Arbour, Jordan Juravsky, Shahar Lazarev, and Josh Zwiebel.

TanenbaumCHAT created an investment plan for greener Canadian energy. They established a greenhouse gas emissions cap and then used neural networks to predict the cost of energy of Canadian wind, solar, and hydro, as well as that of coal and natural gas. Using neural networks, they also created a model of electricity demand in Canada. By analysing these models together, keeping in mind their emissions cap, they developed an ideal investment plan. With this plan, the cost-efficiency of renewable energy in Canada will outweigh that of fossil fuels by the time the emission cap is reached, allowing for an emission-free future.

The SAS Analytics Award went to the team with exceptional analysis – Webber Academy’s Aaron Abraham and Kevin Lin.

The duo aimed their study at factors relating to violent crime in the United States. Using five different machine learning models, they predicted which variables were most correlated to high crime rates and found that they could be traced back to limited resources, difficult living conditions, and psychological harm. Their models showed that family dynamics played a large role in determining crime rates. Understanding patterns in violent crime can help law enforcement allocate their resources more effectively and can give a boost to preventive efforts.

The Digital Science Award, from Altmetric, Overleaf, and Figshare, was awarded to the team from University of Toronto Schools – Katherine Gotovsky, Alain Lou, Arielle Shannon, Jing Yi Wang.

This team ran a broad investigation of data from weather stations and from NASA with the intention of identifying the optimal locations for solar farms in Ontario. Using weighted values for factors such as humidity, cloud coverage, and temperature, they were able to identify trends in photovoltaic efficiency and pinpoint locations that promised optimal locations for solar farms. Their research can be used in the development of renewable energy sources as well as the optimization of existing solar panel farms.

Last but certainly not least, Tony Xu and Shayan Khalili from Earl Haig Secondary School were invited to the SAS executive box for a TFC game and networking opportunity.

They ran a multi-faceted analysis of demographics’ effect on greenhouse gas emissions and used data from over two hundred countries and twenty years. They found that the urbanized, wealthy meat-lovers had the greatest carbon footprint. Their insightful conclusions can change the way we approach developing a solution to climate change and reveal what factors are most important in the quest for sustainability.

Find out more about the Big Data Challenge here.

Authors:

Michal Fishkin and Dr Sacha Noukhovitch 

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STEM Fellowship Big Data Challenge https://www.digital-science.com/blog/2018/02/stem-fellowship-big-data-challenge/ Thu, 22 Feb 2018 11:29:18 +0000 https://www.digital-science.com/?p=28452 Digital Science and three of its portfolio companies Altmetric, Overleaf and Figshare were delighted to sponsor this year’s STEM Fellowship Big Data Challenge. Now in its fourth year, the STEM Fellowship Big Data Challenge is a competition that helps high school students get excited about data science and its potential to support inquiry-based learning and problem-solving. Dr. Sacha Noukhovitch is a […]

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Digital Science and three of its portfolio companies Altmetric, Overleaf and Figshare were delighted to sponsor this year’s STEM Fellowship Big Data Challenge. Now in its fourth year, the STEM Fellowship Big Data Challenge is a competition that helps high school students get excited about data science and its potential to support inquiry-based learning and problem-solving.

Dr. Sacha Noukhovitch is a STEM education and student research expert and is also an Executive director of the STEM Fellowship, a Canadian non-profit organization that prepares the next generation for STEM with vital skills in data science and scholarly writing through peer mentorship and a practical learning experience. He is a practicing educator implementing data science education at Earl Haig Secondary School, Toronto. He started his career as an electrical engineer in the nuclear power industry and obtained his PhD in Management theory from Moscow State University.

Tell us a little about the STEM Fellowship Group, how it originated and its mission?

The STEM Fellowship is an association of students from high to graduate school that share a common interest in big data inquiry and knowledge crowdsourcing. You’ll find participants and representatives of the STEM fellowship within students’ groups and clubs on 22 university campuses and in over 50 high schools in 10 provinces across Canada, as well as in schools and colleges in the US, Iran and Malawi. We organize a student-driven practical learning process to encourage critical thinking and the use of data science tools. We’re also focused on teaching students how to process open data in order to supplement their reasoning and assist them in the scientific endeavor.

How is this year’s Big Data Challenge different to last years, and how was the topic and subject area chosen?

Every year we create a major theme to inspire student-driven independent inquiry. Last year, we looked at the future of science and what topics and trends attracted the majority of research efforts. It was investigated by utilizing data provided by world leader in research impact measurement innovation, Altmetric.

This year, students challenged us with a question of digital citizenship that laid the foundations for the competition and defined its theme: Think Global – Act Local with Big Data.

For the 2018 Big Data Challenge, students used open climate change data from a range of sources. Students were also given information from a variety of media outlets commenting on the latest climate research – this helped support an informative and diverse learning ecosystem.

What do you hope the students will take away from a competition like this?

The competition helps students to develop their natural data analysis abilities and also acts as a platform for them to investigate complex socioeconomic and interdisciplinary problems. The students learned how to use open data and how to navigate through open science resources to develop their own ideas around climate change and sustainable development. Everyone gained a practical understanding of the scientific method and also got to experience real-time scholarly collaboration using the Overleaf platform.

What does it mean to have industry partners like Digital Science, Altmetric, Overleaf and Figshare?

Our partnership with these industry partners is critical for an authentic scholarly communication experience for the students. For all participants, Overleaf becomes their first and primary tool for scholarly writing. They are able to get a real experience in manuscript preparation and academic collaboration.

Altmetric and Figshare have provided a gateway into open science, changing the perspectives and opinions that students previously held regarding how to find and use sources of information and knowledge. Students are able to become contributors, collaborators and consumers of knowledge!

How do you see the event evolving over the years? There’s now more than one BDC event, is that correct?

2018 marked the fourth year of the Big Data Challenge for High School Students and the first national competition. It has already generated interest abroad and in the Canadian competition, we have teams from Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science (PRISMS) and Phillips Exeter Academy in USA.

Recently, we have teamed up with the New York Academy of Science to offer the Think Global – Act Local with Big Data competition in 51 countries through their international Junior Academy network.

The challenge was always more than a competition, but rather a new form of learning in computational inquiry. For that reason, it is highly sought-out amongst university students. Following last year’s Big Data Challenge pilot for biomedical students at the University of Toronto we have had requests to continue it at UofT and three other universities.

I foresee a bright future for the Big Data Challenge and I’m confident it will grow and continue to serve digital learners of all ages opportunities to learn new and valuable skills.

Adrian Stanley, Vice President of Global Business Development, Publishers, noted about the competition:

“It’s really excellent to see and support this vital grass roots level programme with all the valuable experiences its competitors are receiving. There is something very special in the raw insights students identify in the data and I’m amazed at the technical level of expertise, and lifelong learning that Dr. Noukhovitch and his team achieve here. The event is really going from strength to strength and Digital Science welcomes the opportunity to be involved and support the STEM Fellowship Big Data Challenge competition.”

Last year, Digital Science and a number of its portfolios supported the Big Data Challenge. Read about what the winning participants had to say about their experience partaking in the challenge. Find out more about the STEM Fellowship Big Data Challenge.

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