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UK govt reports calls for OA to more UK public data Call to open up public data use, BBC News, June 8, 2007. Excerpt:
Open courseware at MIT and beyond Kim Thomas, MIT sets learning free, Information World Review, June 4, 2007. Excerpt:
OCLC Systems & Services has posted a call for papers for an upcoming issue devoted to OA . Proposals are due by July 1, 2007. Elsevier opens IJSS backfile after two year embargo Elsevier's International Journal of Solids and Structures has decided to make its back issues OA after a two-year embargo. Details from Zhigang Suo on the iMechanica blog:
There's a short note about OA at the University of Oldenburg in the new DINI report, Changing Infrastructures for Academic Services: Information Management in German Universities (undated but announced this week). Even though the report is online under a CC license, the PDF is locked (why?) and I only have time to rekey this paragraph from p. 347:
PS: This is the first I've heard of an OA policy at Oldenburg. Does the word "requires" in the first sentence refer to a publish-or-perish policy or to an OA mandate? If the former, then what form does Oldenburg's commitment to OA take? If anyone can shed light on this, please drop me a line or post a note to SOAF. Open data on real-time web activity Akamai has opened up its real-time web monitor, formerly restricted to paying customers. The monitor shows real-time traffic volume, latency times, and attack frequencies around the world. (Thanks to Glyn Moody.) Pedro Beltr�o, Nature Precedings, a pre-print server for biomedical research, Public Rambling, June 7, 2007. Excerpt:
Update. Also see Bryan Vickery's thoughts on Nature Precedings, mixed with his reminiscences of Elsevier's now-defunct Chemistry Preprint Server. Excerpt:
Nature launches three OA resources Community service: Introducing three free-access websites for research networking and outreach, Nature, June 7, 2007. Excerpt:
PS: Kudos to Nature for adding these OA resources to its lengthy list of earlier OA projects and experiments. Update. See Nature's June 8 press release on Nature Precedings:
Update. Also see the Science Commons blog post on Nature Precedings. Excerpt: This is the biological equivalent of the physics arXiv, but with a critical improvement. Placing pre-prints online solves the problem of an individual�s ability to access an article. But in the absence of an explicit copyright license, it�s unclear what that individual can actually do with the downloaded file. Nature�s choice to use CC-BY is a validation of the need to grant rights in advance to users, and of the CC-BY license in a truly Open Access service. Stevan Harnad, The University of Leicester Archive -- and What to Deposit Where, Open Access Archivangelism, June 8, 2007.
Dean Giustini, PubMedCentral Canada? Open Medicine blog, June 4, 2007. Excerpt:
An anonymous blogger has posted some notes on the SSP conference, Imagining the Future: Scholarly Communication 2.0 (San Francisco, June 6-8, 2007). The post on Day One is password protected. Excerpt from Day Two:
Comment. I'm glad to hear an AAPS insider say that all three of the AAPS journals are OA. But the AAPS web site says that only two of its journals (AAPS Journal and AAPS PharmSciTech) are OA and that access to the third (Pharmaceutical Research) is limited to members of the society. I'd welcome clarification of this; but either way, I applaud the AAPS for its commitment to OA. A blog on OA in ophthalmology and dermatology OATES : Open Access To Eye and Skin is a new blog by Sara Kuhn. From the site:
PS: I love the fact that OA is now big enough to call forth specialized resources like this one. I also love the way Sara has posted TOC feeds from the major OA ophthalmology and dermatology journals directly to the blog sidebar --something that more general resources (like OAN) could never do. Every research niche should have a blog like this one. Need for informal communication to supplement formal publication Aaron Rowe, New Stem Cell Journal in Print this Month, Wired Science, June 8, 2007. Excerpt:
The Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) publishes 22 journals, all of them OA. (Thanks to Caroline Sutton.) From the TUMS Publications page:
New OA journal on public health communication Cases in Public Health Communication and Marketing is a new peer-reviewed OA journal from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. It's edited and run by graduate students at GWU's Public Health Communication & Marketing program. The inaugural issue is now online. (Thanks to R. Craig Lefebvre.) Peter Murray-Rust, Electronic Theses (ETD2007), A Scientist and the Web, June 8, 2007. Excerpt:
PS: Hear, hear. For a supporting argument, see my article from last July, Open access to electronic theses and dissertations. The UK Medical Research Council (MRC) has added a data access policy to its larger open access policy. Excerpt:
Comparing PublicationsList and the Depot The blogger behind Disruptive Library Technology Jester has written a detailed comparison of PublicationsList and the UK Depot. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.) Lorcan Dempsey on the CIC-Google deal Lorcan Dempsey, Systemic change: CIC and Google, Lorcan Dempsey's weblog, June 6, 2007. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.) Excerpt:
Last year's book edited by Giandomenico Sica, Open Access, Open Problems (Polimetrica, 2006), was not only OA from birth, thanks to the publisher, but has now been self-archived in E-LIS, also thanks to the publisher. The book contains essays by Antonella De Robbio, Takashi Kunisawa, Derek Law, Paul Uhlir, and myself. PS: Kudos to Polimetrica. I applaud OA publishers who archive their works in independent OA repositories, assuring authors and readers alike that the works will remain OA no matter what happens to the publisher. A post from Read Doug's Mind:
Internet & Society 2007 podcasts Podcasts of the major talks at the Berkman Center's Internet & Society 2007 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 31 - June 1, 2007) are now online. PS: I was scheduled to facilitate a session with Stuart Shieber on what universities can do to promote OA, but fell ill and couldn't make it. I thank Stuart for taking the session alone on short notice. OA plus print-on-demand for Emory rare books Emory University is digitizing thousands of its rare public-domain books and will make them available in OA and print-on-demand editions. The Emory library houses more than 200,000 public-domain books. For details, see yesterday's press release. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.) Tracey Caldwell, R&D finds answers in the crowd, Information World Review, June 4, 2007. Excerpt:
Comment. OA research already takes full advantage of Linus' Law that, given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. Non-OA research must settle for a lesser degree of this problem-solving power through limited and strategic sharing with motivated problem-solvers. As organized by Innocentive, it works well enough to attract some major corporations. But the better it works, the more we should remind ourselves how much better unfettered sharing can work. Federated searching of US government OA databases Drew Robb, Exploring the deep web, GCN, June 4, 2007. Excerpt:
Summary of the Manchester repository conference JISC has issued a summary on the now-concluded conference, About Digital repositories: Dealing with the digital deluge (Manchester, June 5-6, 2007). Excerpt:
Two weeks ago I blogged a Tom Matrullo interview with JSTOR's Bruce Heterick, in which Heterick said, or seemed to say, that JSTOR was considering OA:
Matrullo has now blogged Heterick's clarification:
PS: All right, noted. But why isn't JSTOR considering OA? Why not OA for the sufficiently old issues of participating journals on which JSTOR has already amortized its investment? JSTOR is a non-profit corporation. Handbook on OA from the German UNESCO Commission The German UNESCO Commission (Deutschen UNESCO-Kommission or DUK) has published an OA handbook, Open Access: Chancen und Herausforderungen - ein Handbuch, June 6, 2007. Edited by Barbara Malina, the volume contains separate sections by 38 authors spread over five chapters:
PS: Chapter 5 includes a short section (pp. 121-125) by me on OA in the US, an abridgement of my longer piece in Neil Jacobs (ed.), Open Access: Key strategic, technical and economic aspects, Chandos, 2006. Thanks to Philipp Disselbeck for translating it into German. 12 research universities join Google Library project All 12 universities in the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) have joined the Google Library project. From Google's press release (June 6, 2007):
More from the CIC press release (June 6, 2007):
Also see the CIC's collection of related links, such as an FAQ and highlights of the member libraries. More from Dan Carnevale's story in today's Chronicle of Higher Education (accessible only to subscribers):
Comments.
OpenDemocracy Campaigns to Support Open Content, iCommons blog, June 6, 2007. Excerpt:
PS: I call this the Public TV model of OA: "It's free but please pay anyway." It won't work for every OA provider but I'm glad it's working for OpenDemocracy.
OA thesis on university presses Heinz Pampel, Universit�tsverlage im Spannungsfeld zwischen Wissenschaft und Literaturversorgung. Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme, Diploma thesis, Bibliotheks- und Medienmanagement, Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart, 2007. Self-archived May 23, 2007. (Thanks to Klaus Graf.) In German but with this English-language abstract:
Most of the presentations from the IASSIST meeting, Building Global Knowledge Communities with Open Data (Montreal, May 15-18, 2007), are now online. The benefits of open licensing Candace Hare, Copyfight: Creative Commons, Open Licensing, Bringing Information to the People (and Letting Them Use It), Dalhousie Journal of Information & Management, Winter 2007. (Thanks to Charles W. Bailey, Jr.)
Why academic women should embrace OA Why Women in Academia Should Embrace Open Access, Co-Action, undated but apparently released in the past couple of days. Excerpt:
Carl Lagoze and Herbert Van de Sompel, Compound Information Objects: The OAI-ORE Perspective, Open Archives Initiative, May 28, 2007.
P�ter Jacs�, Trends in Professional and Academic Online Information Services, a paper presented at INFORUM 2007 (Prague, May 22-24, 2007). The full presentation is available as text or slides. (Thanks to Kidney Notes.)
Jean-Claude Bradley on open notebook science Bill Turner, The Pursuit of Automation: Open Notebook Science. The Per Contra Interview with Jean-Claude Bradley, Per Contra, Summer 2007. (Thanks to Coturnix.) Excerpt:
The digital library of the Abbey of St. Gallen The Abbey Library of St. Gallen --the oldest library in Switzerland-- has created a free online digital library, Codices Electronici Sangallenses. Currently it contains high-res digital copies of 144 manuscripts (57,500+ pages) and plans to add many more from its collection dating back to the 8th century. (Thanks to Donat Agosti.) Comment. The digital library limits access to those who accept its terms of use. The terms exclude commercial use and require non-commercial users to cite or link to the source. Most importantly, the terms include the catch-all exception, "We reserve the right to refuse the use of our content in particular cases." Since the 19th century, the library has been owned by the Canton of St. Gallen, not the Catholic Church, and it appears that Swiss taxpayers have paid all the costs of digitizing these public-domain manuscripts. St. Gallen should remove the permission barriers and make the files OA.
More evidence that Google indexing boosts book sales Brock Read, Some Publishers Warm to Google Book Search, Chronicle of Higher Education blog, June 5, 2007.
And to balance the picture, here's more evidence that some publishers mistake indexing and fair-use snippets for reprinting, mistake intellectual property for real property, and somehow get shareholders to accept buffoonery in place of understanding: From today's issue of Library Journal Academic Newswire:
Synthesizing the surveys on self-archiving Agn�s Magron, Auto-archivage des publications scientifiques : Synth�se d'enqu�tes men�es aupr�s des chercheurs. Apparently a preprint. Self-archived June 4, 2007. (Thanks to Pintiniblog.) There's no abstract. Read it in French or Google's English. OA research project to restore sight to the blind Two universities, a hospital, and an anonymous donor have launched an OA research project to restore sight to those blinded by Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD). Details in today's announcement from University College London:
Australian repository presentations The presentations from the APSR conference, The Adaptable Repository (Sydney, May 3, 2007), are now online. (Thanks to DigitalKoans.) Web 2.0 tools to improve research diffusion Ismael Pe�a-L�pez, The Personal Research Portal: Towards a Social Science of Web 2.0, ICTlogy, June 5, 2007. Excerpt:
Copyright on different versions Lolly Gasaway, Copyright protection for successive versions, �ollectanea, May 30, 2007. Excerpt:
Comment. Thanks to Klaus Graf for the alert. In his email to me, he asked this basic question: "If an author signs a copyright transfer for the final draft, is he free to use the preprint (an earlier version) for a repository?" First, a key piece of context: about 91% of non-OA journals allow preprint archiving and about 63% allow postprint archiving. If we limit the question to the small minority of journals that allow neither, then I suspect that the answer will depend on how much the published version differs from the preprint. But as far as I know the question has never been litigated. If it has, I'd be grateful if someone could point me to the case(s). Congratulations to Ted and Carl Bergstrom Ted and Carl Bergstrom have been named the SPARC Innovators for 2007. From today's announcement:
From the longer account at the SPARC Innovator site:
OA to oldest edition of Homer's Iliad Amy Hackney Blackwell, Robot Scans Ancient Manuscript in 3-D, Wired, June 5, 2007. (Thanks to Ross Scaife.) Excerpt:
More on OA to law and and legal scholarship Claire M. Germain, Legal Information Management in a Global and Digital Age: Revolution and Tradition, Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 07-005, April 27, 2007. (Thanks to Lawrence Solum.)
Eddie Kovsky, A Professor�s Network, Idaho Business Review, June 4, 2007. (Thanks to LGM, LLC.) Excerpt:
Another survey of author attitudes William Walsh has blogged some notes on four presentations at NASIG 2007 (Louisville, May 31 - June 3, 2007). See esp. his notes on Roger Schonfeld's presentation. Excerpt:
Comment. I'm not surprised that authors ranked "wide circulation and reading" at the top of their list of important characteristics in a journal. What needs some thought is the finding that "available for free" ranked sixth. Did the survey or interview somehow create an artificial distinction between wide circulation and OA? (The bad survey interpretation.) Are authors largely unaware that OA journals have a much wider circulation than even the best-selling TA journals? (The clueless author interpretation.) Or are authors merely saying that they needn't publish in an OA journal when they can usually deposit the same articles in an OA repository? (The clueful author interpretation.) Update (June 11, 2007). Roger Schonfeld has posted five slides on this survey from his larger presentation. (Thanks, Roger.) The wording of the original question is in slide #3. The two relevant options for authors were these:
His own interpretation of the results is in slide #5:
The UK Depot officially launches today Although the Depot was announced back in April, it wasn't officially launched until today at the JISC conference About Digital repositories: Dealing with the digital deluge (Manchester, June 5-6, 2007). From JISC's new announcement:
In the name of OA, CC retires DevNations license Lawrence Lessig, Retiring standalone DevNations and one Sampling license, Creative Commons blog, June 5, 2007.
Comment. This is a good call. It's true that freeing up access for developing countries only, and not for all countries, falls far short of OA. But it's also true that regional or HINARI-style access is an advance on standard toll access. If more providers were using the DevNations license, then CC would have to choose between support for full OA and support for a popular half-measure. But as it is, the decision is an easy one. More importantly, if CC wanted to cater to every kind of publisher policy, it would offer licenses with every kind of restriction. But it doesn't. By phasing out the DevNations license in part because it imposes an unacceptable access restriction, it shows that its mission is to promote sharing, not to cover every niche in the copyright landscape. (For a CC variation that supports restrictive as well as unrestrictive licenses, see Registered Commons.)
H�l�ne Bosc, Open Access and copyright reform, Opening Scientific Communication, June 1, 2007. In French but with this English-language abstract:
The Spring issue of the Journal of Electronic Publishing is now online. Here are the OA-related articles:
Time for open file formats at Science and Nature? Science and Nature are not accepting submissions created by Microsoft Word 2007. (Thanks to Rob Weir via Slashdot.) From Science's instructions for Word users:
From Nature's instructions for Word users:
I like Rob Weir's advice:
Xiaorong Shao, Perceptions of Open Access Publishing among Academic Journal Editors in China, Serials Review, June 2007. Only this abstract is free online, at least so far:
Assessing the success of OA archiving Jingfeng Xia and L. Sun, Factors to Assess Self-Archiving in Institutional Repositories, Serials Review, June 2007. Only this abstract is free online, at least so far:
McGraw-Hill sues Google Book Search but uses it to attract visitors McGraw-Hill is still suing Google Book Search for its library project but has added the search box to its web site. Details in Juan Carlos Perez, Google�s Book Search Available in Publisher Sites, Network World, June 1, 2007. (Thanks to DigitalKoans.) Downloading free data from the US Geological Survey Glenn Letham, The GISuser's Guide to locating and downloading Free USGS data, American Surveyor, June 4, 2007.
OA books at the Second Annual World eBook Fair The Second Annual World eBook Fair will start on July 4, 2007. The plan is to make available over 680,000 OA ebooks. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.) From the announcement:
A bill introduced in the Brazilian Parliament would mandate public universities to mandate OA to their research output, and a new petition supports the bill. Details from Stevan Harnad:
Comments
Major arts database converting to OA The Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance is converting to OA on June 6. For details in German see yesterday's announcement from the Informationsplattform Open Access. Or see the same announcement in Google's English. Although the database has an English title, it's sponsored by the Kunstgeschichtlichen Seminar der Humboldt-Universit�t in Berlin and the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Update. Also see Richard Sietmann, Open Access: Freier Zugang zur Antike, Heise Online, June 7, 2007. OA scientometrics will improve university rankings Stevan Harnad, "Academics strike back at spurious rankings", Open Access Archivangelism, June 3, 2007. Excerpt: Academics strike back at spurious rankings Open access and open review at Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Ulrich Poeschl, "Interactive Open Access Publishing and Collaborative Peer Review," Forschung & Lehre, June 1, 2007. I'm linking to the journal rather than the article because the article isn't yet online, apparently. Thanks to Christoph Steinbeck for the alert and this summary:
Jyoti K. Shah and four co-authors, sIR: siRNA Information Resource, a web-based tool for siRNA sequence design and analysis and an open access siRNA database, BMC Bioinformatics, May 31, 2007. Excerpt from the provisional abstract:
Hindawi submission rate growing fast The number of submissions to Hindawi OA journals is growing fast --over 500 in May 2007 alone, up 70% from May 2006. From today's announcement:
Case study on how an OA edition affects the sales of a print book Tim O'Reilly, Free Downloads vs. Sales: A Publishing Case Study, O'Reilly Radar, June 1, 2007. (Thanks to Cory Doctorow via Charles Bailey.) Excerpt:
PS: For this excerpt I had to omit much of the data and three graphs. See the original post for all the details. I agree with Cory Doctorow who called this the best-ever case-study on free book downloads' impact on sales. Another society journal converts to OA The European Respiratory Society is converting its journal, European Respiratory Review, to OA. Yesterday John Grumble blogged this excerpt from a recent email from ERR:
PS: I have no reason to doubt the Grumble report, but I can't yet find confirmation at the ERS or ERR sites. If anyone can send me an official source for this news, I'll blog the link. Update. Grumble just sent me a copy of the email from the ERS. (Thanks, John.) I still don't have a URL but I can post another excerpt from the email announcement:
The June 1 issue is not yet online and will probably contain an editorial on the conversion to OA. In the round-up section of yesterday's issue of SOAN, I mistakenly said that Michael Geist's inquiry under Canada's Access to Information Act found a lack of interest in OA at the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). I should have said that the lack of interest in OA was at the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). The NHMRC is an Australian agency which encourages OA archiving for the research it funds. My newsletter item was summarizing my blog post of May 28, 2007, which got the agency names right. (What was I thinking?) My apologies to the NHMRC. Thanks to Jim Till for his sharp eye. |