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Discussion forum on OA in Africa MERLOT-Africa is a new discussion forum on OA and OERs in Africa. JISC response to publisher objections to the Houghton report JISC has posted a response (undated) to publisher criticism (1, 2) of John Houghton's January report on the economic impact of OA. The publisher criticism was organized by the Publishers Association, the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, and the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers. The JISC response quotes publisher objections and then replies, in the style of a long email. That makes it difficult to excerpt --hence, read the whole thing. But here are some passages, all from the JISC replies:
Ángel Díaz, La edición científica tradicional frena la difusión del saber, El Mundo, April 22, 2009. (Thanks to María Elena Bonora.) On the state of OA in Spain.
Learning and research objects living together
Common Institutional Repositories for Collaborative Learning Environments: Final report, report to JISC, April 2009. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.) Executive summary:
Computer science portal now OA
New release of computer science portal io-port.net, press release, April 20, 2009. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.)
New gratis OA journal supports open standards, open ontologies, and open data Integrative Biology is a new peer-reviewed gratis OA journal from RSC Publishing. (Thanks to Garrett Eastman.) Gratis access requires registration. The inaugural issue appeared in 2009. Integrative Biology is published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Note this editorial from the fourth issue: Richard Kidd, Changing the face of scientific publishing, Integrative Biology, 1, 4 (2009) pp. 293-295. Excerpt:
PS: Also see our past posts on the Royal Society of Chemistry. More on access barriers to public-domain liturgical texts Jeffrey Tucker, What To Do About Tethered Texts, New Liturgical Movement, April 19, 2009. (Thanks to Gino D'Oca.) Excerpt:
PS: See our past posts on this issue. Open U vice chancellor recognized for commitment to open content Melanie Newman, Humble v-c welcomes University of the Air's open-access destiny, Times Higher Education Supplement, April 23, 2009. Excerpt:
Why do we reward scholars for "having their work hidden, delayed, and restricted"? Gideon Burton, Scholar or Public Intellectual? Academic Evolution, April 23, 2009. Excerpt:
New chemistry data repository project
Peter Murray-Rust, CLARION - our chemical data repository project, A Scientist and the Web, April 24, 2009.
Update. See also the project blog. More on the economics of OA publishing The March issue of the OA Economic Analysis and Policy is devoted to the Economics of OA Publishing. (Thanks to the RePEc Blog.) Here are the articles:
PS: Economic Analysis and Policy converted to OA in March 2008, after 38 years of publication. Update. Also see our past post on the preprint of the Cavaleri article. Resources on UKPMC for researchers
Paul Davey, Resources for researchers now on UK PubMed Central website, UK PubMed Central Blog, April 23, 2009.
Five US universities and a US consortium join SCOAP3 SCOAP3 receives more Expressions of Interest from U.S. University Libraries, an announcement from the CERN SCOAP3 project, April 24, 2009. Excerpt:
Update on Bioline membership campaign
Jen Booth, Libraries around the world support Open Access to critical research from developing countries, Bioline News Blog, April 22, 2009.
OA to historic Ontario legislation The University of Toronto and the Internet Archive (IA) are digitizing Ontario legislation from the colonial period to 2000, for OA through the IA. (Thanks to Connie Crosby.)
Alexandros Koulouris, et al., Evaluating the NTUA institutional repository, presented at 11th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Aberdeen, June 4-7, 2008); self-archived April 23, 2009. Abstract:
The National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), through its Central Library, offers an Institutional Repository (IR) and ETD submission service, currently operating in a pilot testing period. The main objectives of this paper can be summarized into three major points. Primarily, to evaluate the IR service pilot period, focusing on the ETD submission process. Secondarily, to refine and improve the above mentioned process and, finally, to promote the concept of self-archiving and open access. The project was undertaken by implementing a web-based survey, targeting on the ETD submission users’ population. The data were imported into and processed by statistical analysis software. The key results were exposed online, as part of the IR system, updated in real time, since the survey is an ongoing procedure. The statistical analysis produced useful results regarding various aspects of the IR service. The major descriptive statistics focused on user groups, administrative staff and procedure grading, as well as access policy selection. Moreover, cross tabulations and correlations were created between all variables, for example “university department” and/or “ETD type” associated with “access policy”. A positive user attitude towards the procedure was noted, which motivates us to further enhance and expand the service. Our first milestone is to broaden the service to incorporate all the university departments. For that to happen, the statistical results will be used to forecast, define and, finally, determine the process needs, both in technical and human resources terms. Process weaknesses detected will be rectified, wherever possible, whereas process strengths will be used to market the service. At the same time, certain improvements, such as the transition from a semi-automated metadata importing process into the main IR (DSpace), to a fully automated one (batch), are already in development. Sociological implications of OA
Ulrich Herb, Open Access revisited: Wissenschaftsaltruismus oder alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen?, Kakanien Revisited, March 2009. English abstract:
The paper focusses on the sociological implications of these arguments by tackling their inherent sociological terminology and social values. Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the scientific field and the circulation of capital allows for the well-grounded estimation of the effectiveness of OA for scientific communication and the impact of its proposed openness. Discourse analysis based on Foucault, on the other hand, illuminates the dogmata and ideology of arguments about the leveling of the Digital Divide by redrawing the connection between scientific communication and the theory of science. Last, the sociological approach to the term “information society“ shows the relationship between accessibility of information and the emergence of democracy. Adding an OA Trust to the Google book settlement Charles Nesson of Harvard Law School has proposed that the Google book settlement include funding for an Open Access Trust. Hal Abelson, Harry Lewis, and Lewis Hyde have joined the proposal. Excerpt:
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"Kernel" for open drug discovery in tropical diseases Leticia Ortí, et al., A Kernel for Open Source Drug Discovery in Tropical Diseases, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, April 21, 2009. (Thanks to John Wilbanks.) Author summary: Open source drug discovery, a promising alternative avenue to conventional patent-based drug development, has so far remained elusive with few exceptions. A major stumbling block has been the absence of a critical mass of preexisting work that volunteers can improve through a series of granular contributions. This paper introduces the results from a newly assembled computational pipeline for identifying protein targets for drug discovery in ten organisms that cause tropical diseases. We have also experimentally tested two promising targets for their binding to commercially available drugs, validating one and invalidating the other. The resulting kernel provides a base of drug targets and lead candidates around which an open source community can nucleate. We invite readers to donate their judgment and in silico and in vitro experiments to develop these targets to the point where drug optimization can begin. The kernel is available under the Science Commons Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data. See also Leticia Ortí, et al., A kernel for the Tropical Disease Initiative, Nature Biotechnology, April 2009.
The Communia Workshop on Accessing, Using, Reusing Public Sector Content and Data (London, March 26-27, 2009) has released this statement on OA to public sector information:
Public sector content and data must be made freely and openly available to all without delay for use and re-use.See also Jonathan Gray's notes on the workshop. The Research Councils UK has released a new report, Open Access to Research Outputs (plus annexes). The report is dated September 2008, but was only released yesterday. From the announcement:
I'd include an excerpt from the report itself, but it's a locked PDF which has disabled cut/pasting. (Why? This is a report on OA from publicly-funded agencies committed to OA.) I don't have time to rekey many of the results, but here are a few:
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Update (4/24/09). Also see Stevan Harnad's comments:
Update (4/29/09). Also see Zoë Corbyn's article in THES on the RCUK report. Excerpt:
Update (5/1/09). Also see Stevan Harnad's comments on Corbyn's article. Labels: Hot JISC evidence shows that free ebooks don't undercut sales of TA editions London Book Fair panel calls JISC e-textbook study ‘myth-shattering’, a press release from JISC, April 23, 2009. Excerpt:
Labels: Hot Progress report on OA in Africa J.J. Musakali and D.C.Rotich, Open Access in African Publishing Industry: Opportunities and Challenges, abstract of a presentation at next month's KMAfrica 2009 meeting, Knowledge to Reposition Africa in the World Economy (Dakar, May 4-7, 2009).
Maryland faculty votes against OA policy The University of Maryland University Senate just voted down a mixed green/gold OA policy. From the defeated resolution:
From Tizra Austin's story in today's Diamondback Online on the debate in the Senate:
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Labels: Hot
Open Access Anthropology Day is an event on Bloggers Unite, scheduled for May 1, 2009. For more information, see the post at Sara Anthro Blog. Update. See also How to Participate in Open Access Anthropology Day:
CaseCheck Launches UK-wide Service – Free Access to over 5000 legal case summaries and more, press release, posted to SPARC-OAForum, April 22, 2009.
Interview with a PLoS ONE editor
Bora Zivkovic, Academic Editor Interview - Craig McClain, everyONE, April 21, 2009. McClain is the Section Editor for Aquatic and Marine Sciences at PLoS ONE.
Taste Fine Wines, Visit Old California, and Explore the History of Life on Earth, University of California Press Blog, April 22, 2009. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.)
... [University of California] Press and the California Digital Library are pleased to announce University of California Publishing Services (UCPubS). This integrated system combines print distribution, sales, and marketing services offered by UC Press with the open access digital publishing services provided by the California Digital Library through eScholarship. UCPubS is part of the University of California’s broader effort to ensure a sustainable scholarly publishing system in the service of research and teaching. Here's a preview of the UCPubS books coming this fall: [Note: omitting list.] ...See also our past posts on the UC Press or the California Digital Library. Last month the US Federal Aviation Administration floated the idea that it should stop providing OA to bird strike data. The idea was that keeping the data secret would encourage airlines and airports to report it. But the agency made a mid-course correction when its proposal was hit by a barrage of public protests, including a protest from the National Transportation Safety Board. It will launch its OA database of bird strike data tomorrow. Update (4/25/09). The OA database is now online. Helping Google index an OA repository Nick Sheppard, Google indexing and SEO, Repository News, April 22, 2009. Tips for helping Google index an OA repository. PS: Also see my 2005 hand-out on this topic, probably very much outdated. OA mandate at the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation The Canadian Health Services Research Foundation has adopted an OA mandate. (Thanks to Stevan Harnad.) Excerpt:
Also see the CHSRF FAQ on the policy. Comments
Labels: Hot World Digital Library officially launches The World Digital Library was officially launched on April 21. See also our past posts on the World Digital Library.
The Oklahoma City University School of Law has launched an institutional repository. (Thanks to Nancy Pontika.) From today's announcement:
Drexel University has released a webcast of its meeting, For What It’s Worth: The Hidden Costs of Scholarly Communication (Philadelphia, April 16, 2009). (Thanks to Garrett Eastman.) The Legal Workshop is a blog-based compendium of short, non-technical summaries of recently published law-review articles, written by the original authors. (Thanks to the Wired Campus.) Comment. It's a great idea, and many other fields, especially in the humanities and social sciences, should follow suit. However, OA to brief summaries is no reason to slow down or give up on OA to full-texts. Raf Aerts, Open-access publishing can survive recession, Nature, April 23, 2009. A letter to the editor.
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Update (4/28/09). Also see Bill Hooker's comments, emphasizing that most OA journals charge no publication fees. Interview with CAMBIA's Jefferson Richard Jefferson, Catalyst, March 26, 2009. Video with text transcript. Interview with Richard Jefferson of CAMBIA. See also our past posts on Jefferson and his projects. Presentations and notes from French OA Days The conference blog from the French OA Archives Days, Journées d’étude sur les Archives Ouvertes (Paris, April 2-3, 2009), has many posts on the presentations and has just been updated to included audio and/or slides of the presentations themselves. (Thanks to Marlène Delhaye.) On OA resources inside libraries
Wally Grotophorst, OA begins at home…, iNODE, April 21, 2009.
OA and IP in developing countries Victoria Henson-Apollonio, Kay Chapman, and Sebastian Derwisch, Some IP challenges in the developing world; and what is being done, Open and Shut? April 19, 2009. Excerpt:
PS: Also see our past posts on CGIAR. New issue of European Review with section on OA
The current issue of European Review has a section on OA. (Thanks to Russ Swan.)
New project promotes OA for public health info A group of European and Latin American organizations have launched Project NECOBELAC. From the site:
Labels: Hot Stevan Harnad, Open access scientometrics and the UK Research Assessment Exercise, Scientometrics, April 2009. The publisher's edition is accessible only to subscribers.
PS: While the journal dates this issue April 2009, it published this article online on November 14, 2008. Also see the OA preprint, which we blogged in March 2007. OA mandate discussed by U of Virginia Faculty Senate The University of Virginia Faculty Senate considered an OA resolution on April 8. (Thanks to iNODE via Charles Bailey.) From the resolution:
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Update (4/24/09). Gavin Baker learned from a contact at UVa that the Faculty Senate took no action on the resolution. The Senate may return to it later but probably not until the fall. Labels: Hot The Open Knowledge Foundation has launched the European Open Data Inventory. From Jonathan Gray's description on the OKF blog yesterday:
Society journal adopts delayed-OA policy The Association for Laboratory Automation has adopted a delayed OA policy, with a two-year moving wall, for the scientific articles in the Journal of the Association for Laboratory Automation (published by Elsevier). Non-scientific content is OA without delay. The OA content will be posted to JALA Online. (Thanks to Russ Swan.) South African bill would smother OA Eve Gray, IPR Bill Regulations promulgated - the death knell for open science in South Africa? Gray Area, April 21, 2009. Excerpt:
PS: Also see our past posts (1, 2) of Eve Gray's coverage of South African legislation that would smother OA.
Slow uptake of OERs in developing countries Mathias Hatakka, Build it and They Will Come? – Inhibiting Factors for Reuse of Open Content in Developing Countries, The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 2009.
From the body of the paper:
Re-using OA content in the semantic Web
Nathan Yergler, Open Access and Linked Data, yergler.net, April 20, 2009.
York U. digitizing books with Internet Archive
York books scanned, digitized at Internet Archive, YUL News, April 20, 2009.
Toby Green, We Need Publishing Standards for Datasets and Data Tables, OECD Publishing White Paper, April 20, 2009. A proposal for citing datasets. Green argues that improving citations will improve access, but generally leaves access issues for others. Nevertheless, he makes these two points along the way:
Another response to the Heidelberg Appeal Matthias Spielkamp and Florian Cramer, Die Autoren werden gestärkt! Frankfurther Rundschau, April 21, 2009. Another response to the objections and misunderstandings of the anti-OA Heidelberg Appeal. Read it in German or Google's English. PS: Also see our past posts on the Heidelberg Appeal. What data should publishers make OA?
David Shotton, Semantic publishing: the coming revolution in scientific journal publishing, Learned Publishing, April 2009; see also this self-archived version. (Thanks to Gerry McKiernan.)
See also our past posts on David Shotton. ACRL working on OA for publicly-funded research The ACRL has released its 2009 Legislative Agenda. Here's #2 on its eight-point agenda:
Also see the section on this priority in its full-length report:
Gender aspects of access to knowledge
Kathleen Diga, University women struggle for knowledge access in Africa, genderIT.org, April 9, 2009.
Les manuscrits de Madame Bovary is a recently-launched OA archive of documents relating to the novel by Gustave Flaubert. (Thanks to Fabrizio Tinti.)
Paying for e-journals in Europe, with a section on OA
Dominique Cottart, Politiques européennes d’abonnement et de souscription aux périodiques électroniques (les) : du financement à l’accès : problématiques, réalités, perspectives, thesis at the École nationale supérieure des sciences de l'information et des bibliothèques, January 2009. (Thanks to Fabrizio Tinti.) English abstract:
The emergence of electronic publishing, especially e-journals, has deeply shattered usual operating budget practices, and has induced overwhelming increases of subscription costs libraries will soon not be able to face. In order to cope with publishers monopolies, libraries have started to share their resources on mutual support basis consortia. Each European country has built its own original structure, adapted to the local development of scientific and technical information. These structures have performed several accomplishments which could influence the situation in France, itself undergoing radical transformations. Repository and OA policy coming to the Indian Academy of Sciences N. Mukunda, Journals, Open Access, Copyright, Repositories: Some Viewpoints from an Academy, the keynote address at the 2009 meeting of India's National Aerospace Laboratories (Bangalore, March 26, 2009). Mukunda is the Editor of Publications at the Indian Academy of Sciences. (Thanks to Subbiah Arunachalam.) Excerpt:
Report on the March OAPEN meeting Chuck Henry, A New European Initiative for Open Access, CLIR Issues, March/April 2009. Excerpt:
The case for university-level OA mandates Stevan Harnad, Waking OA’s “Slumbering Giant”: The University's Mandate To Mandate Open Access, forthcoming in the New Review of Information Networking, self-archived April 14, 2009.
World's largest OA disease network database César A. Hidalgo and four co-authors, A Dynamic Network Approach for the Study of Human Phenotypes, PLoS Computational Biology, April 10, 2009.
Video interview on OA to African agricultural research The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) has posted a six-minute video interview with Harry Heemskerk on OA to African agricultural research. Heemskerk is the Head of Information Projects and Products at the Dutch Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam. The interview was recorded at the Dgroups Partnership Meeting (The Hague, April 15-16, 2009). Obama names a CTO, with an open ed. connection U.S. President Barack Obama has named Aneesh Chopra his Chief Technology Officer. (Thanks to techPresident.) Chopra previously served as Secretary of Technology for the state of Virginia. In that role, he supported Virginia's "flexbook" program to develop open textbooks. Chopra was also a member of the Obama transition's Technology, Innovation and Government Reform working group, which discussed topics such as OA to public sector information and open data. Response from industry and advocates is very positive so far. Micah Sifry says the appointment "looks like very good news for the transparency movement". Art Brodsky and Tim O'Reilly point to his work to make K-12 educational content from Virginia freely available on iTunes. See also our past posts on OA-related recommendations for Obama's CTO. Labels: Hot
Inside the serials crisis: scholarly journals vs. all serials; comparing disciplines
Bill Hooker has two recent posts looking at pricing trends over the past two decades in scholarly journals as compared to all serials, and at trends for journals across several disciplines:
Podcast with Peter Brantley on digital libraries
Richard Wallis, Peter Brantley Talks with Talis as he moves to the Internet Archive, Talking with Talis, April 17, 2009; audio, 53 minutes. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.)
Upcoming improvements in EPrints
Leslie Carr, EPrints and its Development, RepositoryMan, April 17, 2009.
Notes on Australian IP conference
Notes on National and Global Dimensions of the Public Domain (Sydney, April 16-17, 2009):
New research group on digital repositories
The Open Grid Forum has started a Digital Repositories Research Group. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.)
The goal of the Digital Repositories Research Group (DR-RG) is to analyze how digital repositories can be built on top of federated storage infrastructure, focusing on the exploitation of existing data-related standards and the identification of need for new or revised data-related standards.
Poverty & Public Policy is a new peer-reviewed OA journal published by the Policy Studies Organization and the Berkeley Electronic Press. The inaugural issue was released in March 2009.
JoVE's OA option is now Wellcome-compliant The OA option for the hybrid video journal Journal of Visualized Experiments now includes a CC BY-NC license, making it eligible as a cost for authors funded by the Wellcome Trust and the UKPMC Funders Group. JoVE will also deposit OA articles in PMC for free access upon publication. See also our past posts on JoVE.
The Universidad Veracruzana library has launched a new IR. (Thanks to Juan Manuel Zurita Sánchez.)
Notes on Webcast on the Harvard policies
Ray English, SPARC-Oberlin Group Webcast on Harvard Policy, SPARC, April 17, 2009.
Example of re-use of OA content with semantic markup
Evie Browne, Creative Re-Use Demonstrates Power of Semantic Enhancement, Public Library of Science, April 16, 2009.
Update on the OA discussion at the U of California Mengfei Chen, Journals: The Cost of Free Access, New University, April 20, 2009. This excerpt picks up after Chen discusses the MIT OA policy and rising journal prices:
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Using citation data to shed light on access restrictions Patrick Gaulé, Access to the scientific literature in India, CEMI Working Paper 2009-004, February 23, 2009.
From the body of the paper:
Case study of the IR at the National Taiwan University Kuang-hua Chen and Jieh Hsiang, The unique approach to institutional repository: Practice of National Taiwan University, The Electronic Library, 27, 2 (2009) pp. 204-221. The DOI-based URL is not working. Accessible only to subscribers, at least so far. Abstract:
Oxford's World Atlas of Language Structures converts to OA The World Atlas of Language Structures started life in 2005 as a £475 book from Oxford University Press, but now has an OA edition under a CC-BY-NC-ND license. The OA edition is a joint production of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the Max Planck Digital Library. Comment. Thanks to Robert Forkel via pampel and the OATP. This is the first time I've blogged a bit of news gleaned from the project feed of the open access tracking project. It's probably the last time I'll make special note of this kind of assistance, which should quickly become routine. But if you aren't yet following the feed, please note that it's up, working, and growing daily. |