Oh, you’re that Cameron Neylon

Why effective identity management is critical to the development of open research

Oh, you’re that Cameron Neylon

Why effective identity management is critical to the development of open researchfuture

Who am I?

friendfeed.com/cameronneylon

twitter.com/cameronneylon

blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen

openwetware.org/wiki/User:Cameron_Neylon

slideshare.net/cameronneylon

viddler.com/cameronneylon

I am all these different people to different

people at different times

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paolomazzoleni/436307747 CC-BY

It matters to me...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bdunnette/167010858 CC-BY-SA

...credit for what I’ve done

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gail/309568668 CC-BY

...it matters to him...

...there are things you don’t want to be associated with...

...what if you’re this guy (or one of his friends) and want to work

in vaccine research...?

...funders want more information on outputs

More measurementhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/redjar/136165399 CC-BY-SA

Greater diversity of outputs

...serious consequences

http://www.flickr.com/photos/erix/27946743 CC-BY

...and we’re spending £12B of the taxpayer’s money

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeshlabotnik/2143212474 CC-BY

...it might be nice to get this right

...it might be nice to get this right(ish)

...but that’s all a bit negativehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/bensonkua/3165739586 CC-BY-SA

what about a positive view?http://www.flickr.com/photos/29412527@N04/3393371408 CC-BY

...if I want to see more open data

http://www.flickr.com/photos/swanksalot/2704017177 CC-BY-SA

...a more diverse research community

http://www.flickr.com/photos/untitlism/22800371 CC-BY

...if I want people to agree to referee requests...

...then they need to be recognised and rewarded

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wmjas/68005012 CC-BY-SA

Rewards can be big...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/natematias/310642831 CC-BY-SA

...or small...

...but need to be recognised

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2941559903 CC-BY

...trusted

...and unambiguously linked to one person

http://www.flickr.com/photos/frielp/2661943 CC-BY

In today’s world with its diverse outputs and metrics any

assessment that cannot be independently and automatically

replicated is not credible.

For usability, transparency, and reliability, we need a clear researcher id

http://www.flickr.com/photos/_dietrich/2402860858 CC-BY

So what should it look like?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37868257@N05/3546402630 CC-BY

A token, not an authentication mechanism

For researchers, by researchers

The property of the individual, not controlled by a commercial group

...or their institution

Any centralised authority must represent all the stakeholders not just entrenched interests.

Future proof, portable, and native to the open

data web.

http://is.gd/thVr

...whose data do you trust?

Wetrustpeople...

...notobjects

A semantic social web of objects (and data, and process and...)

(Someof)thepeopleItrust...

...indifferentwaysandfordifferentthings

No single metric will work for every person or purpose...

...but with robust identity tokens we can build metrics

for the purpose at hand

We can build a reward structure that supports a more diverse and open research community.

But more importantly

We can build and manage the trust networks that will let us navigate an open web of data.