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EC proposing new experiments, no mandates Commission outlines measures to ensure access to scientific information, CORDIS News, February 17, 2007. Excerpt:
Author attitudes toward OA journals Ji-Hong Park, Exploring the Willingness of Scholars to Accept Open Access: A Grounded Theory Approach, Journal of Scholarly Publishing, January 2007. Only a fraction of the abstract is free online, at least so far. (Thanks to William Walsh, who has paid access and blogged the full abstract along with an additional excerpt.)
PS: As Walsh points out in his blog comment, the authors focus on OA journals, not OA as such. From the additional excerpt that Walsh posts, it appears that they focus on fee-based OA journals, not on OA journals as such. Stevan Harnad's impressions of the Brussels meeting Stevan Harnad, Impressions from Brussels EC Meeting, Open Access Archivangelism, February 17, 2007. Excerpt;
I'm leaving town in a few minutes, and will be on the road for five days with limited opportunities for blogging and email. I'll be further behind than usual and will start to catch up on February 22. I would have been on the road for a separate trip the past three days, but I was grounded by the New England blizzard. I'm sorry I had to cancel my talk at Bowdoin College but glad I was able to blog the first wave of news about the Brussels conference.
U of California considers an indirect OA mandate The University of California is considering a Draft Open Access Policy dated January 29, 2007 (but based on a proposal from May 30, 2006). Here's the heart of it:
The draft policy also includes a draft author's addendum, to help authors retain the rights they need to authorize OA. The policy was drafted by a working group convened by Wyatt R. Hume, the UC's Provost and Executive Vice President, who has asked (February 7, 2007) the UC campuses to review it by May 20, 2007. Also see the policy home page and FAQ. Comment. This is a strong policy for the largest university system in the US, and well along the process toward adoption. It could trigger a wave of similar policies across the country. It doesn't directly require faculty to deposit their work in an OA repository, but it does require them to give the university permission to disseminate an OA copy. (Like other university mandates, this one has exceptions and faculty may opt out for specific works.) One gets the impression that the university will actually provide OA whenever it has permission, but that is unstated. If we assume it, then this "permission mandate" becomes an OA mandate. Definitely one to watch. Access levels to ecology articles in Google Scholar Marilyn Christianson, Ecology Articles in Google Scholar: Levels of Access to Articles in Core Journals, Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Winter 2007.
BioMed Central has started a blog, although it's still in a pre-launch phase. Today, for example, BMC Publisher Matt Cockerill posted a note about the Brussels Conference, and included a link to his own presentation, Open Access publishing works. The new blog also alerts us to two other new BMC blogs, one at Chemistry Central and one at PhysMath Central. PS: This is a smart move for an OA publisher. Welcome to the blogosphere! I couldn't blog this earlier because the document wouldn't load for me. But it loaded for Richard Poynder, who sent me a copy. Many thanks, Richard. On Scientific Information In The Digital Age: Access, Dissemination And Preservation, a Communication from the Commission of the European Communities to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic And Social Committee, Brussels, February 15, 2006. Excerpt:
Comments.
Preview of Volltextsuche Online Mathias Schindler, VTO, the German Google Book Search Killer? Google Blogoscoped, February 13, 2007. (Thanks to Klaus Graf.) Excerpt:
"Denial, rigidity, and attack" Charles W. Bailey, Jr., The Brussels Declaration: You Don�t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows, DigitalKoans, February 15, 2007. Excerpt:
FreeCulture responds to the WashPost Gavin Baker, Let the Light Shine In, Washington Post, February 16, 2007. A letter to the editor. Baker is the Open Access Director at FreeCulture.org.
PS: Exactly. For background, see my blog post on the original article and how it catered to the AAP's new campaign of media messaging. Another call for OA to clinical drug trial data Mike Adams, The health care reform legislation that Congress should pass, but won't, NewsTarget, February 16, 2007. Adams makes 13 suggestions; here's #4:
PS: See PLoS Clinical Trials. Gigi Sohn on the information commons Gigi Sohn, The Information Commons and the Future of Innovation, Scholarship, and Creativity, a multimedia PPT presentation for Educause, February 14, 2007. Unfortunately I couldn't see it because Educause funnels it through HorizonWimba's Live Classrooom software instead of just putting open-format files online. I tried to jump through the Live-Classroom hoops but I couldn't turn off all the pop-up blockers installed on my computer. I especially regret this because Gigi is a friend and colleague: she's the co-founder and President of Public Knowledge, where I'm the OA Project Director. Update. Here are Gigi's PPT slides without the audio or video (thanks to William Walsh). Research Commissioner's opening address in Brussels Janez Potočnik, 'Scientific Publishing in the European Research Area' � Access, Dissemination and Preservation in the Digital Age, the opening address at the Brussels conference of the same title (February 15-16, 2007). Potočnik is the European Commissioner for Science and Research. Excerpt:
The documents from Brussels (almost) The European Commission has finally put the documents from the Brussels meeting online, or at least it has tried. It lists the URLs on a February 15 press release but forgot to mention which URL belongs to which document. Normally you could click through to find this useful information, but two of the URLs fail, for different reasons. I confirmed the URLs and learned their intended targets from other EC pages, particularly the i2010 Digital Library Initiative and the the Science and Society publication page.
I'll blog excerpts from the Communication and Staff Working Paper as soon as I can load them. But I didn't want to wait for that before laying out the titles and links. Last year, to facilitate discussion of the OA recommendations in the EC report, the EC launched a Community on Scientific Publications on SINAPSE, its discussion forum for scientific input on policy proposals. It apparently hopes that the discussion of its new position will continue there. Excerpt from the press release:
Excerpt from the FAQ:
Update. I've finally seen (and blogged) the EC Communication on OA. Thanks to all of you who tried to help me around my access problem. Update. I've also blogged an excerpt from Janez Potočnik's opening address at the Brussels meeting. Update. Here's a new and better URL for the Staff Working Paper. More on the EC communication on OA Open access to scientific publishing draws controversy, EurActiv, February 16, 2007. Excerpt:
PS: This article gets a lot wrong about the EC report recommendations (as if they required grantees to publish in OA journals or as if they required non-OA journals to convert to OA) and the history of OA (as if it all started with the Berlin Declaration). I've limited my excerpt to what's new from the Brussels meeting, and I hope it's more trustworthy on those developments than it is on previous developments.
OA archiving in French mathematics Anna Wojciechowska, Analysis of the use of open archives in the fields of mathematics and computer science, OCLC Systems and Services, 23, 1 (2007) pp. 54-69 (accessible only to subscribers). Abstract:
Cooperation between institutional and disciplinary repositories Ann G. Green and Myron P. Gutmann, Building partnerships among social science researchers, institution-based repositories and domain specific data archives, OCLC Systems and Services, 23, 1 (2007) pp. 35-53 (accessible only to subscribers). Abstract:
Brussels Declaration "reads a lot like the start of a PR campaign" Self-Evident? In a Shot at Public Access Advocates, Publishers Release Brussels Declaration, Library Journal Academic Newswire, February 15, 2007. Excerpt:
EU To Support More Cost-Free Access To Research Results, Wall Street Journal, February 15, 2007. Only this introductory snippet is free for non-subscribers:
EU will support OA experiments EU outlines digital age strategy, The Parliament, February 15, 2007. Excerpt:
EU "throwing its weight" behind OA Paul Meller, EU to push online publication of scientific data, InfoWorld, February 15, 2007. Excerpt:
PS: The EC statement still isn't available online. To judge from this story, it's strong enough to justify the lede but squishy enough to justify publisher expressions of gratitude. More later. EU "may" require OA to publicly-funded research The EU Observer news ticker reported this item (no direct URL) at 13:46 EU Central time this afternoon:
PS: I know that today at the Brussels scientific publishing conference the EC distributed hardcopies of its non-binding communication on an EU-wide OA mandate. If anyone has the electronic text, I'd be very grateful for a copy. Canada's Synergies project awarded $5.8 million A small announcement of big news for Canadian OA from the Public Knowledge Project: The Canadian Foundation of Innovation awarded $5.8 million to the Synergies project over the next 4 years, for the development of scholarly publishing technologies, featuring Erudit and Open Journal Systems. 20,000+ signatures for OA presented to the EC Worldwide petition on open access delivered to European Commission, a press release from JISC, February 15, 2007. Excerpt:
PS: The short-term goal of this petition was to generate a large number of signatures for today's presentation. But the campaign is not over until the EC adopts a strong EU-wide OA policy. Hence, the petition is still open for signatures. If you haven't already signed, please do so and spread the word. If you have already signed, thank you. When I just checked, the signature tally was up to 21,143. BMC OA colloquium presentations The presentations from the BioMed Central Colloquium, Open Access: How Can We Achieve Quality and Quantity? (London, February 8, 2007), are now online. Responses to high-priced journals A reader named BCK has posted a long comment at Archivalia on high-priced journals in physics, the Stuttgart decision a few years ago to cancel all Elsevier titles, and the CERN project to convert all TA journals in particle physics to OA. Read it in German or in Google's English. Barry Bergman, Free-science movement gains a foothold at Berkeley, UC Berkeley News, February 14, 2007. Excerpt:
From the sidebar:
Open-source repository and DL software Sanjo Jose, Adoption of Open Source Digital Library Software Packages: a Survey, in Manoj K. Kumar (ed.), Proceedings CALIBER 2007: 5th International Convention on Automation of Libraries in Education and Research Institutions, 2007, pp. 98-102, Punjab University, Chandigarh, India. Self-archived February 14, 2007.
The survey covers DSpace, EPrints, Fedora, and Greenstone. Open repositories presentations The presentations from Open Repositories 2007 (San Antonio, January 23-26, 2007) are now online. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.) Harvard students launch OA thesis repository As part of the National Day of Action for OA, the students at Harvard College Free Culture have announced an OA Thesis Repository for undergraduate senior theses. It will use CC licenses and start accepting deposits on March 1. Comment. Apart from the Harvard-Smithsonian digital video library, Harvard still doesn't have an institutional repository and it's time for it to launch one. On the one hand, I applaud the students for refusing to wait for the larger institution to act. But on the other, the student thesis repository will not, apparently, be OAI-compliant. If Harvard launched a general OAI-compliant IR, it would help all its constituents. Students could use a section of it, faculty would enlarge their already considerable audience and impact, and researchers worldwide would have access to Harvard's research output. We're still in the incunabular stage of electronic publishing John Ottenhoff, Renaissance Women, Text Encoding and the Digital Humanities: An Interview with Julia Flanders, Academic Commons, February 2007. Excerpt:
Eric Kansa, Open Context: Community Data-sharing and Tagging, Academic Commons, February 2007.
More on the Brussels Declaration Matt Hodgkinson, Declaration of Pomposity, and a Declaration of War? Journalology, February 15, 2007. Excerpt:
Student action for OA in the US In the US, today is the National Day of Action in support of OA and FRPAA, organized by FreeCulture and the Alliance for Taxpayer Access. Here's a list of events taking place across the country. (Thanks to Gavin Baker.) Spread the word, especially to students on your campus. Jim Giles, Key biology databases go wiki, Nature, February 15, 2007 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt:
Data exclusivity for clinical trial data slows the development of generic drugs Karin Timmermans, Monopolizing Clinical Trial Data: Implications and Trends, PLoS Medicine, February 13, 2007. From the PLoS press release:
From the paper itself: [M]ore countries should resist demands that monopolize the use of clinical trial data and blur the boundaries between the intellectual property regime and regulatory requirements for pharmaceuticals. And the health sector should pay more attention to these developments outside its immediate purview, wake up to the far-reaching implications of these developments, and voice its concerns more widely and more effectively. Failing that, the battle for access to medicines will be lost on these new and little-known fronts. "It cannot be the purpose of the EU to keep such publishers in business" Joan Bakewell, A blow to the idea that knowledge is for all to share, The Independent, February 2, 2007. Primarily about cuts to the British Library budget, but eventually touching on OA to journal literature. Excerpt:
Tom Sanders, Belgian newspapers claim final victory in Google spat, Information World Review, February 14, 2007. Excerpt:
Also see the statement from Rachel Whetstone, Google's European Director of Communications and Public Affairs. I'm still thinking about how the decision might affect Google's book-digitization projects, especially the opt-out Library project (as opposed to the opt-in Publisher project). Meantime, John Blossom's comment makes good sense:
In short, if you don't know whether Google boosts net sales, then investigate; and if it does boost net sales, then cooperate (and celebrate), don't litigate. Update. Here's another good comment, from Ben Vershbow: [The newspaper suit is] an act of stunning shortsightedness....What the Belgians are in fact doing is rendering their papers invisible to a potentially global audience. Instead of lashing out against what is essentially a free advertising service, why not rethink your own ad structure to account for the fact that more and more readers today are coming through search engines and not your front page? While you're at it, rethink the whole idea of a front page. Or better yet, join forces with other newspapers, form your own federated search service and beat Google at its own game. Cognitive dissonance at the AAP The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is criticizing the Bush administration for censoring government science about global warming. For the OA connection, see my comments below; but first an excerpt from the AAP's February 7 press release:
Comments.
OA repository for Hong Kong cultural heritage The Hong Kong Jockey Club has donated $80 million to create Hong Kong Memory, an OA repository for the cultural heritage of Hong Kong. Knowledge first and profit second, or vice versa? Heather Morrison, The Mission of the STM Publisher: Scholarship - or Profit? Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, February 13, 2007. Excerpt:
Heather follows this with separate posts on the mission statements of McGraw Hill ("McGraw-Hill, if this is self-evident - why is disseminating knowledge not mentioned in your own mission statement?") and Wiley ("Why does the About Wiley page say nothing about knowledge or dissemination of knowledge?"). Poll shows 86% of European researchers support OA Les Carr, The EC Petition and the EC Poll, a message posted to several discussion lists this morning. Stevan Harnad has posted the same text to his blog and added a short preface and some relevant links. From Stevan's version:
Unspinning the Brussels Declaration Nice comment by William Walsh on the Brussels Declaration:
Definition of "free cultural works" 1.0 New "Definition of Free Cultural Works" Challenges Authors to Rethink Copyright Law, a press release from Erik M�ller and Benjamin Mako Hill, February 14, 2007.
Happy birthday to the Budapest Open Access Initiative, which is five years old today. The BOAI is one of a handful of events that catalyzed the international open access movement. The BOAI offered a definition of OA that has structured action and opinion ever since. It was the first to call for OA journals and OA archives as complementary strategies. It was the first to generalize the call for OA, in both forms, beyond a certain field or region, the first to be accompanied by significant funding, and the first to use the term open access. The BOAI emerged from a December 2001 meeting in Budapest convened by the Open Society Institute, which committed $3 million to implement its vision. (Disclosure: I helped draft the BOAI and receive support from OSI. Dilemma: Should I understate the BOAI's influence just because I have a connection to it? I can't. Hence this disclosure. Call me biased or write your own birthday greeting, but this is my take.) This isn't the place to recapitulate the last five years of OA activity and show the footprints of the BOAI. But see Open Access in 2006, Open Access in 2005, Open Access in 2004, and Open Access in 2003. I didn't write an OA review for 2002, but I did review OA archiving activity in the first six months after the BOAI launched. And for the details missing from these reviews, there's always my timeline. To the BOAI, live long and prosper --and to all who have worked for OA worldwide, Happy Valentines Day as well.
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) has launched a membership program. See today's press release. From the site:
PS: I said it and I meant it. We need the DOAJ. Please ask your institution to help. What does the EC communication say and who has seen it? See the press release from the STM announcing the Brussels Declaration. A colleague has drawn my attention to this sentence:
I'm glad to see the implication that the Communication calls for some kind of "intervention" and I hope it's the EU-wide OA mandate recommended in the report commissioned by the EC itself. But as far as I know, the EC Communication has not yet been issued. I haven't seen any announcement on any list (and I track the lists that would probably talk about it). There's no mention of it in the EC's press room. It doesn't turn up on a search of the EC site. And the scheduled release date isn't until February 15. Did publishers get an advance copy? Publishers issue a Brussels Declaration The International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) has released the Brussels Declaration on STM Publishing, February 13, 2007. Here it is unabridged, but for the signatures:
The declaration is currently signed by 8 publisher associations and 35 publishers, including some of the largest like Elsevier, Wiley, Blackwell, Springer, Macmillan, and McGraw Hill. It is open for more signatures. Comments.
17 Belgian officials sign the Berlin Declaration Last week we heard that 13 Belgian university rectors and two government ministers planned to sign the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge on February 13 --today. But today there are 17 new Belgian signatures on the Declaration: 15 rectors and two ministers. This is an excellent way for Brussels to welcome the participants in Thursday's EC-hosted conference on OA and scientific publishing. The case for using author addenda to retain rights R. Michael Tanner, Copyrights and the Paradox of Scholarly Publishing, a preprint, Draft 3, December 4, 2006. Tanner is the Provost of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
PS: The CIC author addendum refers readers to Tanner's article "for a fuller consideration of the issues addressed herein". Last month on his blog, David Warlick triggered a flood of comments by asking why librarians were still necessary. One reader, Stephen Downes, focused his response on OA:
(Thanks to Paul Pival.) Bevin P. Engelward and Richard J. Roberts, Open Access to Research Is in the Public Interest, PLoS Biology, February 13, 2007. An editorial. Excerpt: With very little fanfare, American science will make a sizeable leap forward in the coming year �if Congress and the National Institutes of Health deliver on their promise for public access to medical research.... Engelward is an Associate Professor of Molecular Toxicology at MIT; Roberts is Chief Scientific Officer for New England Biolabs and winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Nine pricing models for ejournals Golnessa Galyani Moghaddam, Pricing and Publishing Models of Electronic Journals, SRELS - Journal of Information Management, 43, 4 (December 2006) pp. 375-390. Self-archived February 11, 2007. Abstract: There has been a crisis in scholarly communication since the late 1980�s due to the spiraling costs of scientific journals. Libraries were the first to experience the effects of the breakdown as they struggled to keep up with the exploding volume and cost of journals in Science, Technology, and Medicine (STM). As the cost of serials in major libraries soared, libraries were forced to cancel millions of dollars worth of subscriptions. Most pricing and publishing models were created to offer a constructive response to this issue. The aim of these initiatives is to transform scientific journal publishing into a market-aware and fiscally responsible enterprise. There are many pricing and publishing models for electronic journals. The following models are explained in this paper: TULIP, PEAK, SPARK, BioOne, HighWire Press, Project MUSE, JSTOR, PubMed, and EPIC. Publishers add value but their prices are unaffordable Martyn Daniels, Open Access - Who Pays? Booksellers Association, February 13, 2007. Excerpt:
Setting the stage for this week's EC-hosted conference Jessica Shepherd, Open season for researchers, The Guardian, February 13, 2007. Excerpt:
New draft author addendum from CIC The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) has released a draft Provosts� Statement On Publishing Agreements. It includes an author addendum enabling scholars to retain the rights they need to authorize postprint archiving. (Thanks to Eric Mockensturm, who reports that CIC sent the draft to Penn State's Faculty Senate Committee on Research for comment.) Excerpt:
Comments.
OA and the pricing crisis at Macalester College Veronique Bergeron, Nation-wide movement seeks to open access to medical research, Mac Weekly (student newspaper at Macalester College), February 12, 2007. Excerpt:
Notes on the Open Repositories meeting Eric Lease Morgan has written up some notes on his trip to Open Repositories 2007 (San Antonio, January 23-26, 2007). Excerpt:
Pharma companies provide open data from self-interest Matthew Herper and Robert Langreth, Biology Goes Open Source, Forbes, February 12, 2007. (Thanks to Slashdot via Garrett Eastman.) Excerpt:
CC licenses for cultural heritage Esther Hoorn, Creative Commons Licences for cultural heritage institutions: A Dutch perspective, IVIR, September 2006 (73 pp. PDF). Excerpt:
Second SPARC Europe award for scholarly communications It's time to send SPARC Europe your nominations for the Second Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications. From today's announcement:
PS: Note that the deadline for nominations (February 23) is only 11 days from today. The blogging rector explains why he will sign the Berlin Declaration If you remember the announcement from last week, 13 Belgian university rectors and other officials plan to sign the Berlin Declaration on Open Access in Brussels tomorrow. One of the rectors is Bernard Rentier of the University of Liege. Today, Rentier blogged 11 reasons why he plans to sign, four answers to frequently asked questions that faculty might ask about OA, and notes on five OA policies worldwide. Read it in French or Google's English. This week's EC-hosted conference on scientific publishing Mark Chillingworth, Scientific publishing conference, will it be war or peace pact? Information World Review blog, February 12, 2007.
Subsidized journal access in Chile Paula Leighton, Online science library boosts access in Chile, SciDev.Net, February 12, 2007. Excerpt:
PS: This is not open access but subsidized toll access, a topic I don't normally cover here. But for other large examples in recent news, see (1) yesterday's story in The Hindu about subsidized JSTOR access in India and (2) Friday's story in CBC News about the $25 million grant from the Canadian government to the Canadian Research Knowledge Network to provide participating universities with access to social science and humanities research. Randy Dotinga, Open-Access Debate: Public Library of Science Responds, Wired News, February 11, 2007.
Report on the Bangalore OA workshop Barbara Kirsop, Open access and developing countries, Current Science, February 10, 2007. A report on the Workshop on electronic publishing and open access (Bangalore, November 2-3, 2006). Excerpt:
David Weinberger, BioMed Central and Open Science Endeavors, The Filter, January 2007. Scroll to article [1]. Excerpt:
Stevan Harnad, Pitting Petitions Against Pit-Bulls: Sense Versus Sensationalism, Open Access Archivangelism, February 11, 2007. Excerpt: CRITIQUE OF: Goldacre, Ben (2007) Open access and the price of knowledge. The Guardian, Saturday February 10, 2007.... Small investments with a large payoff Heather Morrison, Year-End Investments Towards Open Access, Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, February 10, 2007.
Scholarly communication from an eCommerce perspective Roger Clarke and Danny Kingsley, ePublishing's Impacts on Formal Scholarly Communications, a preprint submitted to the 20th Bled eCommerce Conference, February 11, 2007. Abstract: The dimensions of change in formal communications among scholars are considered from the perspective of eCommerce researchers. The primary vehicle for formal communications in most disciplines and research domains has been articles published in journals. The digital era has brought with it major changes in how articles are accessed and in the economics of journal publishing. The new potentials for community-based endeavour create the likelihood of upheaval in what has been a highly profitable industry sector. From the body of the paper:
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