Jean-Claude Bradley Memorial Issue in the Journal of Cheminformatics and Chemistry Central « ChemConnector Blog

"In May of 2014 we lost one of our colleagues, Jean-Claude Bradley (JC), way too soon. JC was, in many ways, a man ahead of his time. He foresaw the future of science likely a decade ahead of the new shift that is occurring in academia, that of Open Notebook Science. The last decade has seen a dramatic shift toward openness in science that has encompassed Open Access Publishing, Open Source in software development, Open Data in the majority of branches of science and Open Standards primarily as a result of people like JC. As a result of these shifts the amount of data now available online for scientists to consume and interrogate is enormous and grows daily. Much of this data is however already “aged” having been extracted from published articles or assembled into databases from historical data that often lacks provenance. Jean-Claude Bradley’s drive was towards something more immediate with his concept of Open Notebook Science, the practice of making the entire primary record of research activities publicly available online as it is recorded (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_notebook_science). Through his leadership in this area he motivated, cajoled and guided a number of scientists who operated in a more generally closed manner of science into the domain of Open Science. He mentored young students into the new world and encouraged us all to consider the benefits that could result in being more open. Jean-Claude was also a master collaborator and networker bringing together scientists from various domains to work together. But in his own work he also stimulated participation and contributions from instrument manufacturers, chemical vendors, journal publishers and software developers. Most of you reading this will have almost certainly have heard of, worked with or benefited from some of his activities. We, Andrew Lang and Antony Williams, intend to celebrate the work and vision of JC and are presently editing a memorial issue that crosses both the domains of chemistry and cheminformatics that he operated in. Since he was a member of the editorial advisory board for Journal of Cheminformatics and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Chemistry Central Journal our intention is to encourage participation and submission of papers from areas of chemistry and cheminformatics that will be assembled into a single memorial issue. If you are receiving this communication then please accept it as an invitation to submit an article to the most appropriate of the two journals that you choose ..."