SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic.- The Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (MESCYT) held the XVI International Congress of Scientific Research on “Free Software and Open Science”, an annual symposium to which this year national and international experts with vast experience were invited in the publication and dissemination of both topics.
These are conceptually articulated in the open knowledge (open knowledge).
The event was held on June 9, 10 and 11 under the direction of Dr. Manuel Madé, researcher professor and coordinator of management and scientific dissemination of the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo (INTEC).
From Spain was Dr. Miguel A. Quintanilla, emeritus professor at the University of Salamanca, and Dr. Jesús García Barahona, researcher and free software disseminator at the Rey Juan Carlos University.
From Chile, Eng. Carlos Allende, director of OWASP-Chile, specialist in pentesting and cyber security.
And from the country, the Dominican Republic, there was the participation of Dr. Andrés Merejo, expert in philosophy of technology and cyberworld and research professor at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD); the teacher Dionisio Grullón, mathematician and president of the Dominican Free Software Foundation (FDSL) and the engineer Osvaldo Larancuent, president of the Dominican chapter of the Internet Society and director of the master’s degree in cybersecurity at INTEC.
This symposium focused on the dissemination of the benefits provided by the use of free software in scientific research and on opening up dialogue in the Dominican Republic on the importance of understanding open science as a strategy of transparency, collaboration and democratization in the knowledge construction.
As a result of the fact that in the last three decades science has experienced an accelerated advance concomitantly with the development of computing and informatics, in which the leading role of the use of software in research processes and the dissemination of knowledge is evidenced.
Some quotes from the exhibitors
In this section we will highlight some of the reflections that the participants presented:
- “To become masters of our own collective and individual destiny and to design a society based on the exercise of reason, freedom and critical capacity. From this perspective, the management of science and technology becomes a political priority, and the design of policies that allow and promote the access of all citizens to science and technology (open science and endearing technologies) must be considered a moral obligation. “ (Quintanilla, Miguel A.).
- “Open science” practices aim to make scientific research more transparent, more reproducible, more reusable and, ultimately, more reliable. These practices include the publication in open access (open access) of the results and other materials related to research. And in many cases, among these materials is the software used, which is very often essential for the research process. “ (González-Barahona, Jesús) ..
- “The efforts (of the Government) are very cosmetic, the state institutions do not risk investing in (R + D + i), where the requested requirements are for yesterday, suits tailored to proprietary software, even having a technology department in their areas, as support for proprietary solutions that they have acquired by paying licenses of millions of pesos. “ (Grullon, Dionisio).
- “For teachers to know the difference between free and proprietary software, highlighting those that are distributed with the label of“ free ”, it must be a basic competence and, even more important, that they be able to transmit this knowledge to their students is a pedagogical action. “ (Madé, Manuel).
- “The security and quality of free software is the same or more complicated than in proprietary software.” (Allende, Carlos).
- “The very nature of the Internet promotes the interconnection between all the participants… and the construction of different digital ecosystems, in general those related to collaboration, facilitate the creation of local content, derived from global findings or knowledge, applied to the search for solutions. timely. “ (Larancuent, Osvaldo).
- “Open science, not only seeks that research and innovation systems are readjusted to the world of cyber and virtual, but there is also access, dissemination and evaluation of science in all its dimensions.”
