This page records the Discussion Group's meeting notes for August 2016. We meet Tuesdays for 30 minutes at 7:30am PT / 10:30am ET / 3:30pm UK / 4:30pm CET. We meet Thursdays for 30 minutes at 11am PT / 2pm ET / 7pm UK / 8pm CET. US times are normative during daylight saving time changes. We use Kantara Line A (US +1-805-309-2350, Skype +99051000000481, international options, web interface, more info, code 4022737) and http://join.me/findthomas for screen sharing. See the DG calendar for our full meeting schedule. Previous meeting minutes are here: July.
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Attending: Thomas, ScottD, Matisse, Marco, ScottS, Thorsten, Colin, Adam,
WEF report. ScottD reports that new group inside WEF has been created called "Future of Digital Economy & Society".
Thomas: Finish the text of the current use-cases so that we can include into the report. (Thomas explains again the need for the DG to submit a report with recommendation to the Kantara LC). Colin: part of the purpose of the report is to select a number/strains of use-cases that may warrant carrying forward into a Working Group with a Charter. We report to the LC to indicate how useful the DG has been.
Tuesday August 16
Screen share: http://join.me/findthomas
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The biggest question: Is there a role for the blockchain? The three lightbulbs highlight the particular steps where this comes into play. (Scott suggested to the chat that the lightbulbs in the recent edit can be broken out into individual use cases. As mentioned on the call, the use cases will form an ontology, these would be different instances of “record X on a ledger”, with a different X for each lightbulb.) Thomas notes there is a bit of a crisis of repeatability in research. Could that be addressed with the new technologies somehow? John suspects that this is where putting the protocols (the descriptions of the studies) themselves on the blockchain would be more productive, and this is where his mention of a "predecessor or stereotypical case" of Human Research Consent could encompass that solution. He points to https://clinicaltrials.gov.
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