Open Access : To what extent?

Many scientists who respect Open Access (OA) policy end up paying huge open access fee by publishing their research in OA journals. The end-user in turn reads the article for free and thereby gains knowledge. It's cyclic. To what extent the OA is/should be made open ?

Discuss!

Too many Bioinformatics software? How to choose and take home a very good tool?

Bioinformatics mesmerizes us these days. I recall there weren’t many tools a decade ago. But today there are umpteen tools all over the web that are available for the community. It’s really a daunting and a challenging task to choose the one that fits for your research. The following steps may be followed on how to choose a tool

1. Understand the algorithm and intricacies behind the functioning of tool. This will help you to understand if the tool you are to work would solve the purpose. If needed discuss with your colleagues on questions/issues pertaining to it.
2. Always try to comprehend the advantages and pitfalls; understand if the tool has a tendency of being novel.
3. Always try to use a tool that has been tested/validated/trained on various datasets. Training and testing proves very important for the tool to have a high impact.
4. Always go through the entire article corresponding to the tool. If you have too many tools across the aspect you are searching, why don’t you just end up reading abstracts and conclusions of those articles and then sort your articles?
5. Understand the fundamental algorithms besides going into pertinent details/options/categories/tools. This would enable you to make the best choices for particular research interests.
6. The tool cited in a high impact journal doesn’t always necessarily mean that it is the best. You may try to use other tools and write pros and cons of all the tools across the features.
7. Finally, if you don’t like any feature, why don’t you make a high impact on that research in developing a tool? Of course, you need to be a smart bioinformaticist for that :-)

And yet, another Nobel week coming up! Aren't you excited?

Should a graduate student be allowed to mentor students?

If so, could this be considered for the candidate's grade?

Do you enjoy attending virtual conferences with similar pace as on site conferences?

Please comment!

Entrepreneurs in Biology

Dear All,
I see very few entrepreneurs in Biology based research. Do you have any thoughts?

Remain
prash

After B.Tech. in Bioinformatics, What?

In India, several undergrads have this question. Ever since B.Tech in Bioinformatics was started in India, people wondered how good the course be. There were several students who attended Masters of Technology in Bioinformatics. I just leave heavy thoughts in mind for this blog readers that, shouldn't the student think of a PhD soon after his under graduation, if s/he has a penchant for research?


Please comment!

Have you ever over stressed yourself whence research?

Dear All,
I was wondering if you have over stressed yourself when doing research or projects?
If so, how could you cope up?

I have expressed my views earlier in http://prashbio.wordpress.com

Remain
Prash

Toll Access for publishing

Dear All,

Recently, one of our articles was published in JPR and it is to be allowed free access for the first two weeks as "Just Accepted Manuscript" This is so-called a kind of Toll access!

Any thoughts?

Regards
prash

Would birds live in the nests we make?

I was wondering if this is the case. Did you ever try?

Regards
prash

But.. why Bt. Brinjal?

This question prevails in my mind. For Indian contemporaries, I don't think this king of vegetables fit. Even if it's worth taking a try, are we nuts about going for toxicology tests ?

If you are asked to change one thing in Indian Science, What is that you would like to ?

Please opine. All opinions are to be made constructive