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The Open Knowledge Foundation has released version 0.5 of its Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN), an open-source registry of open knowledge packages. From the site:
I just mailed the February issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter. This issue takes a close look at open access mandates adopted or revealed in January, with special attention to those from the European Research Council and the US National Institutes of Health. The round-up section briefly notes 118 OA developments from January.
US physics advisory panel supports SCOAP3 The High Energy Physics Advisory Panel of the US Department of Energy strongly supports SCOAP3, a press release from CERN's SCOAP3 project, January 31, 2008. Excerpt:
More on using institutional repositories for datasets Luis Martinez, The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) and Institutional Repositories, a briefing paper from the DataShare project. (Thanks to Robin Rice.) Excerpt:
Report on CC licenses for Dutch public sector info Mireille van Eechoud and Brenda van der Wal, Creative commons licensing for public sector information: opportunities and pitfalls, University of Amsterdam Institute for Information Law, version 3.0, January 2008. (Thanks to the CC blog.) Excerpt:
Podiatry journal converts to OA, changes its name The Foot & Ankle Journal has converted to OA and changed its name from the Podiatry Internet Journal. It began accepting articles for its new OA incarnation this month. For more details on the change, see Al Kline's editorial in the January issue. Heather Morrison, Why I am an Open Access Advocate, a six-minute podcast. Heather says she recorded it "for a course on librarianship and advocacy being developed by Pam Ryan and Kathleen DeLong of the University of Alberta." Update on the Oxford hybrid journals Martin Richardson, Oxford Open prices adjusted for open access uptake, Oxford Journals Update, Winter 2007-2008. (Thanks to Heather Morrison.) Excerpt:
PS: Table 1 shows that that the rate of uptake for Oxford Open journals varies by field from 1.1% in the social sciences and humanities to 7.6% in the life sciences. Table 2 shows the range of effective price reductions due to OA, from 0% for 26 journals to 18% for two journals. Paul Jacobson, Open Law Project, video of a presentation at the Society of Law Teachers of Southern Africa Conference (Pretoria, January 21-24, 2008). Stewardship of digital research data: principles and guidelines, a new report from the Research Information Network, January 2008. Excerpt:
New OA journal of transformative works Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) is a new peer-reviewed OA journal published under a CC-BY-NC license by the Organization for Transformative Works. It just published its first call for papers. From the site:
Interview with Gavin Baker on the student campaign for OA Newsmaker Interview: Student Open Access Activist Gavin Baker, Library Journal Academic Newswire, January 31, 2008. Excerpt:
Publishing FUD from the European Parliament Today the European Parliament adopted a report on the European Research Area which includes some ruminations on OA policy. Unfortunately the report itself isn't yet online, but here's the EP summary of the OA portion:
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Update. The report text is now online. Scroll to p. 42 for the start of the report, and to p. 47 for the start of the part on Sharing Knowledge (points 36-41). The full text doesn't add much to the summary, but here are the relevant passages. Parliament...
Update. For some background on this language, see my later post (March 14, 2008) on the stronger, original language. Students can help universities adopt OA mandates Stevan Harnad, The University's Mandate To Mandate Open Access, Open Access Archivangelism, January 30, 2008.
PS: I'm blogging the version of this post at Stevan's blog because the version at Open Students isn't up yet. Update. The post is now up at Open Students. Information-for-all success stories UNESCO launches IFAP Success Stories platform, a press release from UNESCO, January 30, 2008. Excerpt:
Repository Search now Simple Search Intute has renamed Repository Search, Simple Search, and upgraded the site. Access to research data in Africa Spotlight on access to research data at conference, Computing SA, January 31, 2008.
The Verizon Foundation is funding the digitization and OA of 20,000 pages of George Washington's writings. From yesterday's press release:
Institutional repositories and copyright Stephanie Taylor, Copyright, IPR and the Institutional Repository, a slide presentation at Queen's University Belfast, January 17, 2008. Monitoring research systems in developing countries Barbara Axt, UNESCO develops research monitoring tool, SciDev.Net, January 28, 2008. Excerpt:
Comment. Does anyone know whether the template includes indicators of OA? For example: How many universities in the country have OA repositories? How many have policies to fill them? How many of the public funding agencies make OA dissemination of peer-reviewed manuscripts a condition of funding? If the template does not yet include OA indicators, does anyone know how to lobby UNESCO to include them before the final version is released in May?
Max Planck Society will pay gold OA journal fees The Max Planck Society has agreed to pay the publication fees for MPS authors when they publish in any of the 17 OA journals from Copernicus Publications. (Thanks to Jean-Pierre Gattuso.) From the MPS press release, January 28, 2008:
JISC released the final report of the Digital Repositories and Archives Inventory (DRAI) project, January 1, 2008. From the executive summary:
Cameron Neylon has tried to imagine what the last three or four decades of chemistry would have been like if researchers had routinely made their data OA. (Thanks to Peter Murray-Rust.) Columbia and Microsoft sign book-scanning deal Columbia University has struck a deal with Microsoft to digitize public-domain books from the Columbia library. From yesterday's announcement:
PS: Columbia joined the Google Library Project just last month (December 13, 2007), making it one of a small but growing number of universities to work with both Google and OCA/Microsoft. Also see the story on the Columbia-Microsoft deal in today's Library Journal Academic Newswire. Reducing the cost of facilitating peer review Martijn J. Schuemie and Jan A. Kors, Jane: Suggesting Journals, Finding Experts, Bioinformatics, January 28, 2008.
Comment. This is a nifty tool with far-reaching potential. It will help readers find new literature on a given topic, help authors find appropriate journals for new work, and help editors find referees for new submissions. The last function should reduce the cost of facilitating peer review, by at least a little, and thereby reduce the costs of journal publishing. That will help both OA and TA journals. But since, on average, OA journals operate on tighter budgets than TA journals, it will give OA journals a relatively larger bump in viability. Currently, the Jane author/title index is limited to Medline, and therefore to biomedicine. But over time the concept could be extended to cover all disciplines. Elsevier's WiserWiki adopts an open license Elsevier has officially launched the beta edition of WiserWiki, its medical wiki open for editing by board certified doctors. From yesterday's announcement:
Comment. See my comments on WiserWiki's first appearance last November. Again, I commend Elsevier for this experiment with free online research. I also commend it for adopting an open license, which addresses my chief criticism of the pre-beta edition.
Copyfraud and the public domain Carol Ebbinghouse, 'Copyfraud' and Public Domain Works, The Searcher, January 2008 (accessible only to subscribers). Thanks to Free Government Information for the alert and for this excerpt:
More on Microsoft's OA chemistry project Richard Van Noorden, Microsoft ventures into open access chemistry, Chemistry World, January 29, 2008. Excerpt:
PS: For background, see Peter Murray-Rust's blog post on the eChemistry project from last December. Aggregator of blogs on OERs and OA The Open Courseware Consortium has launched OER Blogs, an aggregator of blogs devoted to open educational resources (OERs) and OA. Educating Minnesota faculty about copyright and OA Amber Kispert, Libraries teach faculty authors about copyright issues, The Minnesota Daily, January 28, 2008. Excerpt:
Update. Also see Minnesota's 6-minute self-playing PowerPoint presentation on author rights. OA textbooks for Florida schools Meris Stansbury, Florida adopts open-content reading platform, eSchool News, January 24, 2008. (Thanks to the Creative Commons blog.) Excerpt:
Primer on OA journal publishing Jan Velterop, Open access and publishing, part (pp. 117-121) of the E-Resources Management Handbook from UKSG, January 24, 2008. Velterop is the Open Access Director at Springer.
From the body of the chapter:
New webometric ranking of world universities The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities has released its January 2008 rankings. From the "about the ranking" page:
The January 2008 edition includes "a completely new Repositories Ranking according to the webometrics criteria for classifying all the institutional and thematic repositories with an autonomous web domain or subdomain." Comments
OA portal of medical education Vangelis G. Alexiou and Matthew E. Falagas, e-meducation.org: an open access medical education web portal, BMC Medical Education, January 24, 2008. Abstract:
Student guide to OA to scholarship SPARC releases new campaign for student engagement, a press release from SPARC, January 28, 2008. Excerpt:
PS: Explore the richness of the Right to Research web site and check out the bibliography, timeline, brochure, blog, email list, list of OA benefits for students, and list of what students can do to support OA. HP to power 'knowledge society' in India, Chennai Online, January 28, 2008.
Support for OA from high-energy physicists CERN's SCOAP3 project has created a page OA endorsements from high-energy physicists. More on mandates, self-interest, professional responsibility, consent, and coercion Stevan Harnad, On Open Access, Self-Interest and Coercion, Open Access Archivangelism, January 27, 2008. Excerpt:
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A P2P-based repository for digital content Offsystem is a new P2P-based repository for digital content. The system scrambles deposits and the download URL reassembles them. Deposits may be OA (if you share the download URL) or private (if you don't). From the site:
Also see today's announcement on the official launch and Ars Technica's August 2006 article on the pre-launch edition. Peter Murray-Rust has blogged some notes on the Academic Publishing in Europe conference (Berlin, January 21-23, 2008). Excerpt:
An alpha version of DRIVER's portal of European research repositories is now online. (Thanks to David Mattison.) From the site:
Unanimous OA recommendations from the European University Association On January 25, the European University Association (EUA) unanimously adopted the recommendations of its Working Group on Open Access. (Thanks to Bernard Rentier via Stevan Harnad.) Excerpt:
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