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Moira Paterson and three co-authors, DART: a new missile in Australia's e-research strategy, Online Information Review, 31, 2 (2007) pp. 116-134. Only this abstract is free online, at least so far.
The new issue of Vine (vol. 37, no. 1, 2007) has three articles on knowledge sharing. Only abstracts are free online, at least so far.
An OA funder mandate from Flanders The chief Flemish research agency, Research Foundation - Flanders (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen, or FWO) has adopted an OA mandate for FWO-funded research. (Thanks to DRIVER News and several correspondents.) The policy is contained in Article 2, �2, of the new agreement for researchers. Here's Sigi Jottkandt's English translation:
I understand that more details will be available soon. PS: Kudos to all involved at the FWO. I don't know whether this is related to the OA mandate at the University of Liege, announced just last month, or to the 15 signatures to the Berlin Declaration from Belgian university rectors and government ministers announced the month before. But there's no doubt that Belgium is now one of the world's OA hot spots. Rachel Mayberry, Web repository to be available next semester, Daily O'Collegian, April 3, 2007. Excerpt:
New OA journal of digital humanities The inaugural issue of the Digital Humanities Quarterly is finally online. (I blogged its launch in October 2005.) It looks like it will be worth the wait. Here's an excerpt from the inaugural editorial by Julia Flanders, Wendell Piez, and Melissa Terras:
The OECD follows through on open data If you remember, in January 2004 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued its Declaration on Access to Research Data From Public Funding. Thirty-four signatory nations declared their "commitment to...work towards the establishment of access regimes for digital research data from public funding in accordance with" a set of principles that included "openness". In December 2006 the OECD followed up with a Recommendation of the Council concerning Access to Research Data from Public Funding. (I missed it at the time and thank Andreas H�bner for noticing.) Here's my boiled down version of the new Recommendation: we (the OECD) should offer further guidance for national policy; member nations should adopt open data policies; we should review their progress; and we should keep our recommendations up to date with new technologies and research practices. Excerpt:
The document then includes a lengthy section entitled, Principles And Guidelines For Access To Research Data From Public Funding, which spells out 13 principles for member nations to try to fulfill. The first is "openness": "Openness means access on equal terms for the international research community at the lowest possible cost, preferably at no more than the marginal cost of dissemination. Open access to research data from public funding should be easy, timely, user-friendly and preferably Internet-based." Free movement of knowledge for the EU The EU Research Commissioner, Janez Potocnik, is proposing to make "movement of knowledge" a fifth freedom alongside the movement of goods, services, capital, and labor guaranteed by the EU Treaty. He spells out his concept in a new green paper, The European Research Area: New Perspectives, April 4, 2007. Excerpt:
At several points throughout the paper he inserts a text box with unanswered questions, as if for future discussion. The only mention of open access comes up in Question 21:
Potocnik doesn't mention in this green paper that the EC received strong "yes" answers to this question from an EC-sponsored study in 2006, a December 2006 statement from the Scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC), and a January 2007 report from the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB). His own February 2007 Communication on the subject gave a "yes" answer as well (p. 7): "Initiatives leading to wider access to and dissemination of scientific information are necessary, especially with regard to journal articles and research data produced on the basis of public funding." It's a little late to treat this merely as a topic for future discussion. It's time to firm up the EC's commitment to the answer and to act on it. Also see the press release on his green paper. Update. The EC will welcome public comments on Potocnik's green paper from May 1 to August 31, 2007. French report on mandating green OA Dominique L'Hostis and Pascal Aventurier, Open archives: Towards a policy of mandatory deposit? A summary report on current developments, researcher practices and the role of institutions, INRA, March 4, 2007. An English translation and update of the French original from November 2006. (Thanks to H�l�ne Bosc.) Excerpt:
Rufus Pollock, The Need for More Openness, a PPT presentation at the conference, Copyright and Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences (Edinburgh, March 30, 2007). On open access, open data, and how current copyright law blocks desirable advances. Also see his blog notes on the conference. Excerpt:
Canada's New Government Provides Free Online Access to Digital Mapping Data, a press release from the Canadian government, April 5, 2007. Excerpt:
Update. The folks at the UK Free Our Data campaign have confirmed that the Canadian mapping data are free for commercial as well as noncommercial use: ...I�ve spoken to Ann Martin, who is director of the digital dissemination division at NRCan, and she confirms: yes, the data can be sold on without any royalties being due. That�s a change from the situation that used to prevail, where NRCan would license the data to users and resellers; there was also a royalty structure which meant resellers had to pay some of their earnings back to NRCan....Ms Martin told me that the previous licensing system was complex: "it almost cost more to administer than it brought in," she said. Update. Here's another from the same folks: Since writing [the above] however I�ve also been contacted by Tracey Lauriault, of the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa. She points out...[that] Canada�s federal maps might be free, but the really useful data lie closer to the local level - and those are still charged for, quite substantially in some cases.... The April issue of the Hardin Scholarly Communication News is now online. This issue has 13 brief stories on OA-related developments. While all have been blogged here, it's a digest that helps see the forest through the trees. Willinsky podcast on the sea change in scholarly publishing John Willinsky, Open Access: The Sea Change in Scholarly Publishing, a podcast of a recent talk at the University of Alberta. (Thanks to OA Librarian.) Alma Swan, Open Access and the Progress of Science, American Scientist, April-June 2007. Excerpt:
Comment. Alma is right: the central question is whether OA advances science and scholarship better than the current system. If it does, then we should agree on the goal and work together on the means. We may be close to agreement on the goal already --or at least most the bickering seems to be about the means. Some of this bickering is unavoidable: there are some honest disagreements about the means. But some is not: there is widespread fixation on illusory problems and repetition of groundless objections. This confuses many researchers and policy-makers new to the debate, who erroneously conclude that the disagreements go to the merits of OA itself rather than to implementation details. If we were more explicit in our agreement on the goal, then more stakeholders would join the work of implementing it and the work could be less fractious and more collaborative. And if we encountered new, real problems --problems not already solved and not based on misunderstandings-- then we could start from agreement that they were worth solving. Update. Steve Hitchcock has blogged some excerpts from discussion lists in which supporters and critics of OA were debating the issues raised by Alma Swan's article. (Alma's article was already in press at the time.)
Preserving OA journals with LOCKSS JISC and the University of Glasgow have launched OpenLOCKSS, a new program to use LOCKSS for preserving OA journals. From the announcement:
Openness to data is part of their long-term preservation Adrian Burton, Avoiding a digital dark age, Science Alert, April 5, 2007. Burton is the Project Leader for the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR). Excerpt:
SSHRC funding program will help OA journals Aid to Open-Access Research Journals, a new funding program from Canada's Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). (Thanks to Heather Morrison.) From the page:
The application deadline for the current funding cycle is June 30, 2007. The results will be announced in September. Richard Poynder interviews Leo Waaijers Richard Poynder, The OA Interviews: Leo Waaijers, Open and Shut? April 4, 2007. Excerpt:
How libraries will use their copies of Google-scanned books Jill E. Grogg and Beth Ashmore, Google Book Search Libraries and Their Digital Copies, Searcher, April 2007. Excerpt:
High-citation journal attributes its success to OA Gary Taubes interviews Derek McPhee in the April issue of Thomson's In-Cites. (Thanks to Dietrich Rordorf.) Excerpt:
JISC invests in UK institutional repositories JISC has announced significant new funding for institutional repositories in the UK. From its press release (March 30, 2007):
More on French plans to provide OA through HAL INRIA�s Literature Goes Open Access, IRISA News, April 2, 2007. Excerpt:
Open Medicine launches this month Tanya Talaga, Fired editors launch online medical journal, Toronto Star, April 2, 2007. Excerpt:
For data, public domain is better than CC license Jo Walsh, Copyright not applicable to geodata? Open Knowledge Foundation weblog, April 1, 2007. Excerpt:
Update. Also see Eric Kansa's further reflections, esp. on the incentives to cite those who discovered or published certain facts, even if the facts themselves are in the public domain. I just mailed the April issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter. This issue takes a close look at two publisher policies to charge fees for OA archiving (green OA): the AuthorChoice policy from the American Chemical Society and the new agreement between Elsevier and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The round-up section briefly notes 77 OA developments from March.
Librarians anticipate public access to publicly-funded research The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) has released its list of the Top Ten Assumptions for the future of academic libraries, March 31, 2007. Excerpt:
A group of public-interest advocacy organizations asked Congress on Thursday to provide OA to the highly-regarded, publicly-funded, non-classified reports from the Congressional Research Service (CRS). (Thanks to Mike Carroll.) From the press release (March 29, 2007):
OA aids collaborative research William J. Turkel, Digital Infrastructure for Collaborative Research, Digital History Hacks, March 30, 2007. Excerpt:
Heather Morrison, Dramatic Growth of Open Access: March 31, 2007 Update and Open Data Edition, Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, March 31, 2007. Excerpt:
Stevan Harnad, Learned Societies: By Their Works Shall Ye Know Them, Open Access Archivangelism, April 1, 2007.
OA mandate at new, merged Research Council Today marks the start of the merger between the Particle Physics & Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) and the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC), two of the Research Councils UK (RCUK). The new merged entity will be called the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). PPARC mandated OA for PPARC-funded research while the CCLRC merely encouraged without requiring OA for CCLRC-funded research. (The CCLRC OA policy is apparently no longer online). The STFC has adopted the PPARC policy. See the STFC Research Grants Handbook, Section 8.2 on dissemination:
Update. Stevan Harnad's comment: [This] means that instead of 5 out of 8 UK Research Councils mandating OA, 5 out of 7 now mandate OA. Worldwide, we have reached 23 Green OA Self-Archiving Mandates adopted (9 institutional, 3 departmental, 11 funder mandates, including the European Research Council, ERC) plus 6 more proposed (1 multi-institutional, 5 funder mandates), two of them (FRPAA in the US and EC A1 in Europe) big ones. |