Open Access NewsNews from the open access movement Jump to navigation |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
New OA journal of architecture Archimaera is a new German-language, peer-reviewed OA journal of architecture and cultural history. (Thanks to DIPP.) The inaugural issue (January 2008) now online.
Did U.S. gov't sell out its legislative history?
Boing Boing (March 17) and Free Government Information (March 23) cover the question of a deal by the Government Accountability Office, an arm of the U.S. Congress, which Thomson West claims granted the company exclusive access to federal legislative histories compiled by GAO.
Update (4/14/08). The answer to the question is yes, the government did sell exclusive access to its legislative history to Thomson. Details at Boing Boing and FGI. New OA database on human oral microbes
The Human Oral Microbiome Database is an OA database of information about microbes which live in the human oral cavity. The database went live on March 26. The database will contain "descriptions of the microbes, their metabolism, and their ability to cause disease ... linked to information on their DNA and proteins, as well as to the scientific literature."
The project is funded by the U.S. National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the National Institutes of Health, and overseen by scientists at the Forsyth Institute and King�s College London. The database is related to the Human Microbiome Project, launched in December 2007, by NIH to sequence the genomes of representative human microorganisms. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.) New OA journal on Mormon studies
The British Journal of Mormon Studies is a new OA, peer-reviewed journal in Mormon studies. Print editions are available print-on-demand from Lulu. The inaugural issue, dated Spring 2008, is available. The journal will be published twice annually. (Thanks to John Reidelbach.)
New OA journal from Oxford on undergrad bioscience research
Oxford Journals launches first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to undergraduate bioscience research, press release, March 26, 2008.
Oxford Journals is delighted to announce the launch of Bioscience Horizons, a free online journal showcasing the best undergraduate bioscience research from the UK and Republic of Ireland.The inaugural issue is available.
Heather Morrison, York University Library - another Canadian leader in the open access movement, The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, March 26, 2008.
...A link to [York University Library] Ejournal publishing support is prominently posted on the library's Services page for faculty. There is a whole page just on publishing using Open Journal Systems!. Statement from NIH Director Zerhouni A Statement from the NIH Director, Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., Welcoming Comments on the Implementation of the Public Access Policy, a press release from the NIH, March 26, 2008. (Thanks to Heather Joseph.) Excerpt:
BMJ reviews recent OA mandates Susan Mayor, Opening the lid on open access, BMJ, March 29, 2008 (accessible only to subscribers, at least so far). Excerpt:
More on what universities can do to promote OA Stevan Harnad, Peter Suber's Talk at Harvard's Berkman Center: "What Can Universities Do to Promote Open Access?" Open Access Archivangelism, March 27, 2008.
Comments
More on the APS licensing terms Stevan Harnad, The American Physical Society Is Not The Culprit: We Are, Open Access Archivangelism, March 27, 2008.
PS: For my comments on the same controversy, see my post from March 14. Update (4/2/08). Stevan has posted a follow-up to his original post:
Digital scholarship in the humanities
Lisa Spiro, Becoming a �Digital Scholar�: Digital Discovery 2008, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, March 27, 2008. Presentation at Digital Discovery (Houston, March 27).
B K Mishra, World class library likely in Patna, Times of India, March 25, 2008.
Reports that the Chandragupta Institute of Management, Patna will establish an institutional repository as part of its library, apparently to open by the end of May.
On the idea-expression divide in scientific literature
John Wilbanks, Creative works, copyrights, and publishing..., john wilbanks' blog, March 26, 2008.
New OA journal on molecular cytogenetics
BioMed Central announced yesterday its new peer-reviewed OA journal, Molecular Cytogenetics. The journal will publish research on "all aspects of chromosome biology and the application of molecular cytogenetic techniques in all areas of biomedicine". Three papers are now online, all published March 26.
World Health Org.: OA to promote medical research
Riaz K. Tayob, WHO: Slow progress in talks on IPRs and innovation, SUNS #6441, March 26, 2008.
Josh Fischman, Neither a Borrower Nor a Lender Be ... Unless You Have 32 Digital Versions of 'Hamlet', Wired Campus, March 26, 2008.
Dorothea Salo, Voice and Labor, Caveat Lector, March 26, 2008. Excerpt:
At Harvard's Berkman Center last week (March 17), Catherine Candee and I spoke about OA. Our talks are now online.
OA to expose conflicts of interest Jonathan Eisen, A different kind of Open Science - the need to track funding sources and conflicts of interest, Tree of Life, March 26, 2008.
How do you say Access to Knowledge? A short (105 second) video from eIFL.net. Also see the longer announcement of the video at the UNESCO IFAP. Excerpt:
IR usage in developing countries Bring on the IRs! Electronic Publishing Trust for Development, March 26, 2008.
Identifying data sharing in biomedical research
Heather A. Piwowar and Wendy W. Chapman, Identifying Data Sharing in Biomedical Literature, submission to American Medical Informatics Association Symposium (November 8-12, 2008, Washington, DC). Abstract:
Many policies and projects now encourage investigators to share their raw research data with other scientists. Unfortunately, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of these initiatives because data can be shared in such a variety of mechanisms and locations. We propose a novel approach to finding shared datasets: using NLP techniques to identify declarations of dataset sharing within the full text of primary research articles. Using regular expression patterns and machine learning algorithms on open access biomedical literature, our system was able to identify 61% of articles with shared datasets with 80% precision. A simpler version of our classifier achieved higher recall (86%), though lower precision (49%). We believe our results demonstrate the feasibility of this approach and hope to inspire further study of dataset retrieval techniques and policy evaluation. Update. Also see the version at Nature Precedings. OhioLINK has joined CERN's SCOAP3 project. See yesterday's announcement from CERN:
Gloria Tavera, Open access meets undergrad research� please?, Open Students, March 24, 2008.
OA student journals in U. Penn IR
Marjorie Hassen, The Learning Partnership, University of Pennsylvania Alamanc, March 25, 2008.
... Three student journals are currently hosted by ScholarlyCommons: the Penn McNair Research Journal, the Journal of Student Nursing Research (JOSNR), and CUREJ, the College Undergraduate Research Electronic Journal. Each of these publications showcases undergraduate research by some of Penn�s most promising students and provides an opportunity for wide exposure and discovery. Noteworthy for the breadth of its topics, CUREJ stretches the boundaries of traditional research with artwork, photographs, and video and fully exploits the benefits of an online repository. ... Science Commons on cyberinfrastructure
Donna Wentworth, What�s �cyberinfrastructure�?, Science Commons blog, March 24, 2008.
NEH creates Office of Digital Humanities
The U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities has created an Office of Digital Humanities, from its Digital Humanities Initiative. (Thanks to Wired Campus.)
See former OAN posts on the Digital Humanities Initiative. On OA to environmental information
Muki Haklay, Open Knowledge - learning from environmental information, presentation at Open Knowledge Conference 2008 (OKCon), London, March 15, 2008. Does what it says on the tin.
UNESCO saves rare archives in Mongolia, March 20, 2008. (Thanks to Klaus Graf.)
UNESCO is helping the main Mongolian holders of national documentary heritage, the Gandan Tegchenling Monastery and the National Archives, to preserve their unique collections. Several thousands of pages of endangered texts will be saved in digital form and be eventually open to a wider audience. Medical patients share data to "get help, give help" Thomas Goetz, Practicing Patients, New York Times, March 23, 2008. Excerpt:
Planet eBook is a new portal of OA books in the public domain, launched by Richard Crocker in February 2008. The books are well-formatted PDFs (cut/paste enabled) with no DRM and no ads. From the about page:
The high cost of the lack of open data The Value of Spatial Information, a report by ACIL Tasman prepared for Australia's Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information and ANZLIC, March 2008. (Thanks to Baden Appleyard.) From the executive summary:
Comment. These are big numbers and it takes a minute to put them in perspective. In one country (Australia) in one year (2006-07), lack of OA to one kind of data (spatial data) cost the economy $500,000,000. RLG webinar on access and digitization Ricky Erway and Jennifer Schaffner, Out of the Stacks and onto the Desktop: Rethinking Assumptions about Access and Digitization, a webinar from RLC/OCLC. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.) From the blurb:
J of Neuro-Ophthalmology debates OA The March issue of the Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology is now online. This issue has three OA-related pieces, none of them OA, at least so far:
Update. Also see Heather Morrison's comments on Erin McMullan's article. For my own comments on McMullan, see my article from September 2007, Will open access undermine peer review? Digitization milestone from U. Florida
Laurie Taylor, Almost 1.5 million!, Digital Library Center Blog, March 23, 2008.
Creative Commons Expands Documentation Project, press release, March 23, 2008.
Creative Commons today announced the expansion of a documentation project to explain various facets of Creative Commons licensing. The initiative includes links and PDF downloads to information on critical CC specifications, recommendations, research studies and tutorials. Some of the topics covered include the CC+ and CC0 projects, a simple licensing how-to, and best practices for integrating Creative Commons licensing in websites. The documentation project also offers posters, flyers and other creative media such as the �Sharing Creative Works� comic book. These documents may be downloaded directly from the Creative Commons Documentation page and are suitable for high quality printing and display. ... Challenges and rewards of data sharing
Heather Piwowar, Eating my own dogfood, Research Remix, March 21, 2008.
See also this poster, Prevalence and Patterns of Microarray Data Sharing (Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing, Kohala, Hawaii, January 4-8, 2008), posted online March 20. . Anne Gentle has blogged some notes on the OA textbooks panel at SXSW Interactive 2008 (Austin, March 7-11, 2008). Preview of Microsoft repository platform Savas Parastatidis, Microsoft and "Research-Output" Repositories, Savas:web, March 24, 2008. This excerpt omits several paragraphs of text, three images, a code snippet, and a video of a prototype. See the original for a fuller picture.
Update. Tony Hey (Microsoft VP for External Research) writes to add, "My hope is that we can help create both EPrints and DSpace front ends so that librarians can choose which back end they prefer."
OA presentations at Wake Forest The presentations from the Scholarly Communications Workshop at Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, North Carolina, March 13, 2008) are now online. All three are relevant to OA:
Update (5/15/08). Podcasts for the presentations are now online as well. Organization for OA journal editors and publishers Dave Solomon and Gunther Eysenbach are calling for an organization of OA journal editors and publishers. From Solomon's proposal:
Buying, then liberating excellent educational content Larry Sanger, A plea to liberate educational content, Citizendium Blog, March 22, 2008. Sanger is the founder of Citizendium and co-founder of Wikipedia. Excerpt:
Comment. The government of Indonesia has half the right idea. It's buying the copyrights to selected textbooks and reprinting the books for sale at deep discounts. Stian Håklev argues that the government should make the books OA under CC licenses. (Blogged here on February 8, 2008.) Sanger has the full idea. For related projects, see my past posts on intellectual property conservancies. Update. Larry Sanger has now turned his argument into an online petition. Please sign and spread the word. Update. Since I just mentioned the similar program in Indonesia, I should report an update from Stian Håklev based on three recent news stories in the Indonesian press. Walt Crawford on the Harvard OA mandate and IR progress The April issue of Walt Crawford's Cites & Insights is now online. This issue has a lengthy section on Harvard & Institutional Repositories, reviewing a large number of recent developments and commentaries (including many by me and Dorothea Salo). Excerpt:
ACRL's mixed messages on preprint access Charles W. Bailey, Jr., College & Research Libraries Makes Preprints Available, but Restricts Access, Digital Koans, March 22, 2008. Excerpt:
Call for OA to midwifery courses Sarah Stewart is looking for comments on her draft paper, Open access midwifery education. |