Open Notebook Science Challenge
Encyclopedia
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is the act of sourcing tasks traditionally performed by specific individuals to a group of people or community through an open call....
research project which collects measurements of the non-aqueous solubility of organic compounds and publishes these as open data
Open Data
Open data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "Open" movements such as open source, open...
; findings are reported in an open notebook science
Open Notebook Science
Open Notebook Science is the practice of making the entire primary record of a research project publicly available online as it is recorded. This involves placing the personal, or laboratory, notebook of the researcher online along with all raw and processed data, and any associated material, as...
manner. Although anyone may contribute research data, the competition is only open to post-secondary students in the USA and UK.
The challenge in turn forms part of the UsefulChem project, an ongoing open notebook science
Open Notebook Science
Open Notebook Science is the practice of making the entire primary record of a research project publicly available online as it is recorded. This involves placing the personal, or laboratory, notebook of the researcher online along with all raw and processed data, and any associated material, as...
effort to synthesize and screen potential new anti-malarial drugs. Data from the Solubility Challenge will be used to build predictive computational models of solubility for use in optimising syntheses.
The challenge began on September 28, 2008 and, as of April 2009, involves researchers and their students from at least 4 different institutions and has resulted in the acquisition of over 400 solubility measurements.
Prizes
To encourage participation, each month an award is given to the student who does, in the opinion of the judges, the best work. In order to participate, students have to be a US or UK resident. The award is a US$500 cash prize. The first three winners also received a year's subscription to the journal NatureNature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
. The awards are sponsored by Submeta and Nature.
Request an experiment
As well as concentrating on compounds related to the Ugi reactionUgi reaction
The Ugi reaction is a multi-component reaction in organic chemistry involving a ketone or aldehyde, an amine, an isocyanide and a carboxylic acid to form a bis-amide.The reaction is named after Ivar Karl Ugi, who first published this reaction in 1959....
, the ONSchallenge allows anyone to request a solubility measurement experiment.