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Oberlin College Faculty Unanimously Endorses Open Access, press release, November 20, 2009.
Labels: Hot OA data: recent discussion and announcements
Report on faculty, repositories and OA
Primary Research Group has published The Survey of Higher Education Faculty: Use of Digital Repositories and Views on Open Access, press release, November 2009.
OA journal announcements, launches, and conversions spotted in the past week or so:
The German petition, OA and the public
Cornelius Puschmann, Why Open Access means Open Research: lessons from the German Open Access petition, Cornelius Puschmann’s Blog, November 18, 2009.
Access denied?, editorial, Nature, November 19, 2009.
WIPO's OA patent database expands
WIPO Launches Enhanced Patent Information Service, press release, November 17, 2009.
More on the revised Google Book Settlement and OA
Gavin Baker, Nitpicking the Google Books Settlement 2.0, A Journal of Insignificant Inquiry, November 18, 2009.
... Speaking of orphan works, the Unclaimed Works Fiduciary is a trustee with one hand tied. As I reported for OAN, the UWF — an independent agent entrusted to manage the works of rightsholders who haven’t claimed their works under the settlement — doesn’t have all the powers of an actual rightsholder. Whereas a rightsholder is guaranteed under the settlement the options to, e.g., set a zero price for her work, to apply a Creative Commons license, or to remove DRM, the UWF isn’t guaranteed those same options. In fact, the UWF can only exercise those options with the approval of the Book Rights Registry, which is run by publisher and author representatives. So if the UWF came to the conclusion that the best fiduciary interest of its absentee rightsholders was represented by making their works freely available, it would not necessarily be able to do so. Given the growing suggestions that making a book freely available often has no discernible negative consequence on sales revenues for that book, and in some cases may even increase sales, the settlement should not exclude that option.On the topic of access generally, also see: Fred von Lohmann, Google Books Settlement 2.0: Evaluating Access, Electronic Frontier Foundation, November 17, 2009. Expanded study of law journals' copyright policies
Benjamin J.Keele, Examining law journal publication agreements for copyright transfers and self-archiving rights, working paper, self-archived November 18, 2009. Abstract:
This study examines 78 law journal publication agreements and finds that a minority of journals ask authors to transfer copyright. Most journals also permit author to self-archive articles with some conditions. The study recommends journals make their agreements publicly available and use licenses instead of copyright transfers.See also our past past on an earlier version of the study.
MIT grad students lobby for FRPAA in DC
Ana Lyons, GSC Takes Graduate Student Welfare Bill To Washington D.C., The Tech, November 17, 2009.
Guide on legal status of data in the Netherlands
The legal status of raw data: a guide for research practice, SURF, November 16, 2009.
The guide and the brief user's guide are in English and address the context of Dutch law. Some papers are cited more after being made OA
Samson C. Soong, Measuring Citation Advantages of Open Accessibility, D-Lib Magazine, November/December 2009.
Dutch science foundation creates €5 million OA fund
NWO too goes for Open Access to publications, SURF, October 30, 2009.
Revised Google Book settlement: what it means for OA Google and the plaintiffs in the Google Book settlement released their revised settlement on November 13; see the proposed Supplemental Notice. The change most directly related to OA is this: ... The Amended Settlement provides that the Registry will facilitate Rightsholders’ wishes to allow their works to be made available through alternative licenses for Consumer Purchase, including through a Creative Commons license. ... The Amended Settlement also clarifies that Rightsholders are free to set the Consumer Purchase price of their Books at zero. ... Some other changes also may be of interest:
Also of note is that many international books will be excluded. Whereas the original settlement included any books under copyright in the U.S. (effectively, any book published anywhere in the world), the amended settlement only includes books published in the U.S., UK, Canada or Australia, or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. The revised settlement also establishes an independent fiduciary agent to manage unclaimed works (where no rightsholder has stepped forward to manage the options under the settlement and claim payments). The Unclaimed Works Fiduciary is meant to act as a proxy for absentee rightsholders, but it doesn't have all the abilities of an actual rightsholder. Instead, the revised settlement enumerates some specific abilities for the Unclaimed Works Fiduciary, and provides that the fiduciary also can act "otherwise as the Board of Directors of the Registry deems appropriate". The abilities enumerated seem to not include the options to set the price at zero, apply a CC license, or remove DRM restrictions. In other words, the Unclaimed Works Fiduciary apparently does not have the ability to make orphan works OA without the agreement of the Registry board (which is composed of publisher and author representatives). I've put in a question to the parties' press contacts to confirm or clarify this. The plaintiffs' memo proposes a 45-day period for class members to respond, with an extra week for the U.S. Department of Justice, and the final fairness hearing two weeks subsequent. (That schedule would start after the judge grants preliminary approval to the revised settlement, which hasn't happened yet.) See also: For more information, including the many aspects to the amended settlement which aren't discussed here, see the oa.google.settlement tag on the Open Access Tracking Project. Labels: Hot EFF calls for study of OA at WIPO
Gwen Hinze, EFF Statement to WIPO CDIP 4, A2k, November 16, 2009.
Report on global access to knowledge
Association for Progressive Communications, Do you have a right to online knowledge? Report shows open internet in danger, press release, November 16, 2009.
See especially:
Case study of an early institutional mandate
Tom Cochrane, Mandates: An Australian Example at the Queensland University of Technology, November 4, 2009. Essay based on a presentation at the CERN Workshop on Innovations in Scholarly Communication (Geneva, June 17-19, 2009).
See also our past post on the workshop. Study on submission fees for OA journals
Mark Ware, Open Access Submission Fees, putting down a marker, November 4, 2009.
Ware also writes: At this stage I would like to make contact with journals or publishers (whether OA or otherwise) with any history of charging submission fees, with a view to learning from their experience. If anyone on the list has such experience they would be willing to share with this project, do please contact me in the first instance via email at mark@markwareconsulting.com. |