SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has recognized five student leaders as the new SPARC Innovators. Hailed as "Agents of Change," students point to the promise of a more open system for information sharing.
December's SPARC Innovators include:
* "The Technologist," Benjamin Mako Hill. Graduate of the MIT Media Lab, current Researcher at the Sloan School of Management at MIT, Fellow in the MIT Center for Future Civic Media, and engineer of the 2007 "Overprice Tags" project at the MIT library.
* "The Professional," Gavin Baker. Political Studies graduate of the University of Florida, Open Access Director for Students for Free Culture, and co-mastermind of the National Day of Action for Open Access, February 2007.
* "The Politician," Nick Shockey. Current undergraduate and Student Senator at Trinity University in San Antonio and author of the second-ever student senate resolution in favor of public access to publicly funded research results.
* "The Diplomat," Elizabeth Stark. Student of Law at Harvard University, Affiliate of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, founder of Harvard Free Culture, and architect of one of the first student free thesis repositories.
* "The Evangelist," Nelson Pavlosky. Law student at George Mason University, co-founder of Students for Free Culture, and ally of the Student Global AIDS Campaign and Universities Allied for Essential Medicines.
"Despite different backgrounds and interests, these students share a common interest in ensuring ease of access and use of electronic information," said SPARC Director Heather Joseph. "As members of a generation raised with the Internet, sharing is second nature to them. When it comes to open access, they just get it."
The December SPARC Innovator profile is the first of several student-centered initiatives from SPARC. The January SPARC-ACRL forum at ALA will explore "Working with the Facebook Generation: Student Engagement on Access to Scholarship" and will feature the winners of the first SPARKY awards for student videos illustrating the value of sharing. The forum will also mark the introduction of a dedicated SPARC campaign to engage students on the topic of open access....
Individuals can nominate their colleagues as potential SPARC Innovators [here]....
PS: Be sure to read the long version of the award citation for the five student leaders. Congratulations to them all.
Update. Also see the George Mason Law School press release on the award to Nelson Pavlosky, one of its students.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/11/2007 11:18:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
