Update 2016-08-01

Software

A new package europepmc (v0.1.0) is on CRAN. europepmc is an R Client for the Europe PubMed Central RESTful Web Service (https://europepmc.org/RestfulWebService). It gives access to both metadata on life science literature and open access full texts. In addition to bibliographic metadata, the client allows users to fetch citations and reference lists. Links between life-science literature and other EBI databases, including ENA, PDB or ChEMBL are also accessible. For an introduction to the package see the vignette. Repository on GitHub.
A new version (0.5.4) of rcrossref is on CRAN. See release notes for changes. This release includes only minor changes. Repository on GitHub.
A new version (0.6.0) of rplos is on CRAN. See release notes for changes. This release includes many minor changes and one bug fix. Repository on GitHub.
A new version (0.6.0) of rfishbase is on CRAN. See NEWS for changes. Repository on GitHub.
A new version (0.7.9) of taxize is on CRAN. See release notes for changes. This release includes a new vignette, lots of minor improvements, and four bug fixes. Repository on GitHub.
A new version (0.7.0) of elastic is on CRAN. See release notes for changes. Take note of changes: this release changes how connect() works; connect() has a new es_path parameter to set a context path, and now does not ping your ES server on execution - but you can ping afterwards with the new function ping(). Another new function added, and many minor improvements and a few bug fixes. Repository on GitHub.
A new version (1.4.3) of hunspell is on CRAN. See release notes for changes. Repository on GitHub.
A new version (1.6.0) of neotoma is on CRAN. See NEWS for changes. Repository on GitHub.
A new version (0.2.4) of jqr is on CRAN. See release notes for changes. Repository on GitHub.
A new version (1.4.0) of RSelenium is on CRAN. See release notes for changes. Repository on GitHub.
A new version (0.1.8) of fulltext is on CRAN. See release notes for changes. Repository on GitHub.

Onboarding

We accept community contributed packages via our onboarding system - a software review system, sorta like scholarly paper review, but way better. We’ll highlight new pacakages here that have come through this system. A huge thanks to our reviewers, who do a lot of work reviewing (see the blog post on our review system), and the authors of the packages!

The following package was recently submitted to our onboarding process and is undergoing review:

plateR
- Author: Sean Hughes
- Issue: ropensci/onboarding#60
- Reviewer: Dean Attali

Use cases

Seven recent papers cite and/or use rOpenSci software:

Bach cites rgbif in a bachelor’s thesis Observing the change in southeastern species’ habitat areas due to climate change ¹
Arnaud et al. cite rgbif in a white paper Final report of the task group on gbif data fitness for use in agrobiodiversity ²
Bufford et al. cite taxize in their paper Taxonomic similarity, more than contact opportunity, explains novel plant-pathogen associations between native and alien taxa ³
Vincze cites taxize in her paper Light enough to travel or wise enough to stay? Brain size evolution and migratory behaviour in birds ⁴
Nath et al. cite taxize in their paper Growth rings in tropical trees: role of functional traits, environment, and phylogeny ⁵
Janssen et al. cite rgbif in their paper Evolutionary dynamics and biogeography of Musaceae reveal a correlation between the diversification of the banana family and the geological and climatic history of Southeast Asia ⁶
Lovelace et al. cite stplanr in their paper The Propensity to Cycle Tool: An open source online system for sustainable transport planning - Check out their Propensity to Cycle Tool web interface ⁷

Keep up with rOpenSci news

There are a number of ways to keep up with what rOpenSci is doing:

Mailing list: Sign up with an email address to get new blog posts sent to your inbox -> ropensci.org/#subscribe
rOpenSci on Twitter: we’re @ropensci
The rOpenSci blog at ropensci.org/blog - you can subscribe in any RSS aggregator, or manually via https://ropensci.org/feed.xml. We also announce new blog posts on our Twitter account.

Footnotes

Bach, R. (2016). Observing the Change in Southeastern Species’ Habitat Areas Due to Climate Change. Chicago. https://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/55385 ↩
Arnaud, E., Castañeda-Álvarez, N. P., Cossi, J. G., Endresen, D. T. F., Jahanshiri, E., & Vigouroux, Y. (2016). Final Report of the Task Group on GBIF Data Fitness for Use in Agrobiodiversity. https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/50041 ↩
Bufford, J. L., Hulme, P. E., Sikes, B. A., Cooper, J. A., Johnston, P. R., & Duncan, R. P. (2016). Taxonomic similarity, more than contact opportunity, explains novel plant-pathogen associations between native and alien taxa. New Phytol. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.14077 ↩
Vincze, O. (2016). Light enough to travel or wise enough to stay? Brain size evolution and migratory behaviour in birds. Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.13012 ↩
Nath, C. D., Munoz, F., Pélissier, R., Burslem, D. F. R. P., & Muthusankar, G. (2016). Growth rings in tropical trees: role of functional traits, environment, and phylogeny. Trees. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-016-1442-1 ↩
Janssens, S. B., Vandelook, F., De Langhe, E., Verstraete, B., Smets, E., Vandenhouwe, I., & Swennen, R. (2016). Evolutionary dynamics and biogeography of Musaceae reveal a correlation between the diversification of the banana family and the geological and climatic history of Southeast Asia. New Phytol, 210(4), 1453–1465. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.13856 ↩
Lovelace, R., Goodman, A., Aldred, R., Berkoff, N., Abbas, A., & Woodcock, J. (2015). The Propensity to Cycle Tool: An open source online system for sustainable transport planning. arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.04425 http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.04425 ↩