Shauna Gordon-McKeon

347 points

United States

Shauna Gordon-McKeon | I'm a programmer, organizer, writer and teacher. I currently work part time for OpenHatch and volunteer with the Open Science Collaborative. I also organize a civic tech/transparency group called Open Government Boston.

Open Minded People's Choice Award 2015 Author

Authored Content

How to identify small problems for big team wins

Every software project has moments where they have "a bit of spinach in their teeth"—that is, a simple problem that they just can't see. To address this, Deb Nicholson started…

How being online changes how we think about the traditional research paper

The academic paper is old—older than the steam engine, the pocket watch, the piano, and the light bulb. The first journal, Philosophical Transactions, was published on March 6…

open on blue background with heartbeat symbol

Doctors unite to increase access to quality health information

Six years ago, Dr. James Heilman was working a night shift in the ER when he came across an error-ridden article on Wikipedia. Someone else might have used the article to…

Some patients are eager to share their personal data

While many researchers encounter no privacy-based barriers to releasing data, those working with human participants, such as doctors, psychologists, and geneticists, have a…

4 ways to make open science easier

When it comes to opening up your work there is, ironically, a bit of a secret. Here it is: being open—in open science, open source software, or any other open community—can be…

Things newcomers to open source rarely ask but often wonder

Open Source Comes to Campus is an event series run by OpenHatch that introduces college students to open source tools, projects, and culture. Whenever we get a new-to-us…

Authored Comments

shaunagm

20 Jun 2016

Free culture in an expensive world

Good question, Lori. As with most values that are important to me, I can see places where transparency isn't appropriate - for instance, there are times when individual privacy takes precedence. There are fewer reasons to limit transparency in government, so it's easier to avoid difficult arguments by focusing in on that. I do think it's important to have those difficult arguments, though, about what kind of transparency it's reasonable to demand of corporations and other organizations.