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Materials science journal converts to no-fee OA After seven years of TA publishing, Science and Technology of Advanced Materials converted to no-fee OA with its January-March issue. From Teruo Kishi's editorial in that issue:
The Open Access Directory (OAD) list of Data repositories is now open for community editing. OAD is a wiki, and you can help the cause by adding or revising entries to its lists. Labels: Hot
Case study of the OA Journal of Maps Mike J. Smith, Open Access Journal Publication: Implementation, Copyright and Dissemination, Using the Journal of Maps as a Case Study, forthcoming in the proceedings from Digital Mapping Techniques '07, Columbia, South Carolina, May 20-23, 2007. Excerpt:
Publisher business models using CC licenses John Buckman, Short film about Creative Commons Business Models, buckman's magnatune blog, June 30, 2008. Excerpt:
The three 10 minute interviews are with John Buckman, Tom Reynolds, and Timo Hannay. Here's the full 30 minute video. Notes from Edinburgh on data sharing St�phane Goldstein has blogged some notes on the eScience Institute workshop, Data Sharing in the Biosciences : a sociological perspective (Edinburgh, June 26, 2008). Excerpt:
Effect of online access on researcher behavior Arthur Eger, Database statistics applied to investigate the effects of electronic information services on publication of academic research � a comparative study covering Austria, Germany and Switzerland, GMS Medizin - Bibliothek - Information, June 26, 2008. (Thanks to MedInfo.)
From the body of the paper:
Comment. I see two implications for OA:
The compelling argument for OA to Indian research 'Open access can vastly help Indian science', India PR Wire, July 4, 2008. Excerpt:
Comment. Update. Stevan's piece was published in the May 25 issue: How India can provide immediate open access now. (Thanks to D.K. Sahu.) It's a letter to the editor responding to the editorial of P. Balaram in the April 10 issue. (Also see my comment on Balaram's editorial.) From Stevan's letter:
Barbara Malina (ed.), Open Access Opportunities and Challenges: A Handbook, the German UNESCO Commission, July 2008. A 144 pp. collection of articles on OA by 38 authors. (Thanks to Napoleon Miradon.) This is an English translation of Open Access: Chancen und Herausforderungen - ein Handbuch, which the German UNESCO Commission published on June 6, 2007. PS: The German edition includes a short section 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. The English edition includes an abridgement and update (as of September 2007) of the same longer piece. Comment. Also see Canessa and Zennaro's Science Dissemination using Open Access, which I blogged this morning. That makes two books on OA in one day. If you count Kylie Pappalardo's Understanding Open Access in the Academic Environment: A Guide for Authors, which I blogged on Tuesday, then that's three books on OA in three days. Labels: Hot The final projects from Heather Morrison's course on open access (University of British Columbia, Spring 2008) are now online. Heather says the projects include "subject guides to open access resources for the environment, chemistry, environmental and occupational health, HIV/AIDS, Media Studies, a tutorial on preservation issues, and a draft research projects on OA mandates." OA monographs from Bauhaus-Universit�t Weimar Hybrides Publizieren: Gemeinschaftsprojekt von Verlag und Bibliothek der Bauhaus-Universit�t, a press release from Bauhaus-Universit�t Weimar, July 1, 2008. (Thanks to Klaus Graf.) Read the press release in German or Google's English. At Bauhaus-Universit�t Weimar, the press and library are working together to publish a series of dual-edition (OA/TA) monographs, and just published their first title, Die Realit�t des Imagin�ren. E. Canessa and M. Zennaro (eds.), Science Dissemination using Open Access, a new book published under a CC-NC-ND license by the Science Dissemination Unit of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, July 2008. The book knits together pieces from many sources into a single narrative. (Disclosure: some of the pieces are mine.) It's available as a downloadable PDF (4.74 MB, 196 pp.) or an online edition in an ebook viewer with turning pages. From today's announcement:
Labels: Hot Milestone for the E-LIS repository E-LIS has passed the milestone of 8,000 deposited documents. (Thanks to Andrew Waller.) New communication channels for biology Videos of the presentations at New Communication Channels for Biology (San Diego, June 26-27, 2008) are now online. (Thanks to Bora Zivkovic.) Chris Rusbridge, Research Repository System persistent storage, Digital Curation Blog, July 2, 2008. Excerpt:
PS: For background, see Rusbridge's original post on negative click repositories and some of the buzz it generated. Update (8/5/08). Chris has summarized the responses to his idea. Macquarie VC preparing to propose OA mandate Steven Schwartz, Open Access: what do you think? Macquarie University Vice Chancellor's Office, July 3, 2008. Schwartz is the Vice Chancellor of Macquarie University. Excerpt:
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Labels: Hot Norwegian government considers an OA mandate OA mandate forthcoming in Norway? Co-Action Publishing, June 30, 2008. An English summary of this June 2 document from the Norwegian government. Excerpt:
Comment. There's a good chance that Norway will end up adopting an OA mandate. The government is asking advice from the Norwegian Research Council, which created an OA working group last fall and is now working on an OA position paper. The government is also asking advice from the Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions, which joined SCOAP3 in January 2008, and submitted a pro-OA comment (in English) to the EC in June 2006, calling on the EC to provide OA to publicly-funded research and revealing that it had already called on its own member institutions to adopt local OA policies. Labels: Hot New OA journal of theological librarianship Theological Librarianship is a new peer-reviewed OA journal from the American Theological Library Association. The inaugural issue (June 2008) is now online. (Thanks to David Cassens.)
Not piracy, not civil disobedience, and not OA Jeffrey Young, Textbook Piracy Grows Online, Prompting a Counterattack From Publishers, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 1, 2008. Also see the CHE's blog post on the story, if only because it supports user comments. From the article:
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Update (10/10/08). Textbook Torrents shut down. More on the balance of OA and patient privacy Matthew Dublin, CARe Program's Balancing Act for Patient Privacy and Open Access, Genome Technology, July/August 2008. Excerpt:
Nature News looks at PLoS' finances Declan Butler, PLoS stays afloat with bulk publishing, Nature News, July 2, 2008. Excerpt:
Comment. Declan Butler last used tax records to investigate PLoS' finances in June 2006. See some of the comments (first set, second set) generated by his investigation. Update. The story has now triggered a large number of comments (scroll to the bottom of the page). Also see blog comments by Charles Bailey, Mike Dunford, Jonathan Eisen, Timo Hannay, Alex Holcombe, Bill Hooker, Lars Juhl Jensen, GrrlScientist, Greg Laden, Anders Norgaard, and John Wilbanks. Gavin Yamey, Excluding the poor from accessing biomedical literature: A rights violation that impedes global health, Health and Human Rights, 10, 1 (2008). Excerpt:
Comment. This is the most careful rights-based argument for OA that I've seen, and the only one that ties the argument closely to relevant provisions of international treaties on human rights. Yesterday the European Commission released this very brief announcement:
Comment. For OA-related excerpts from the Council Conclusions (November 2007) and the Commission Communication (February 2007), and my comments, see my two blog posts on the Conclusions (one, two) and my blog post and newsletter article on the Communication. Both documents fall short of endorsing the near-consensus recommendations for an OA mandate the EC received from the EU research community. In the Communication, the EC said that "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" (p. 7), and that it would eventually "issue specific guidelines on the publication of articles in open repositories after an embargo period" (p. 8). I suspect that the coming OA pilot is not the same as the coming OA guidelines, but just an experiment to help shape the guidelines. Labels: Hot Presentations from eIFL meetings The presentations from the eIFL meeting of repository managers from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine (Kyiv, June 18-21, 2008) are now online. Thirteen are in Russian, two in English. The presentations from the eIFL workshop on Open Access: New Models for Scholarly Communication in Moldova (Chisinau, Moldova, June 23-24, 2008) are now online. Eight are in Russian, five in English, and one in Romanian. The US Department of Energy has launched the DOE Data Explorer (DDE). From the site:
Each dataset has two web pages, one a prose description with associated metadata and the other an interface for searching, browsing, and downloading. For example, see the two pages (1, 2) for the DOE file of Evaluated Nuclear [Reaction] Data. UK contest for creative uses of OA public sector info What would you create with public information? A contest from the UK government. (Thanks to Glyn Moody and Richard King.) Excerpt:
I just mailed the July issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter. This issue takes a close look at how access barriers create a "last-mile problem" for knowledge. The round-up section briefly notes 128 OA developments from June. Labels: Hot
Book-length guide to OA for academic authors Kylie Pappalardo, Understanding Open Access in the Academic Environment: A Guide for Authors, Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) Law Project, June 2008. A very comprehensive 150 pp. guide for authors. Excerpt:
Labels: Hot Presentations from Italian OA conference
The presentations from Open Access, digital preservation e deposito legale: Policy, progetti e servizi per la ricerca [Open Access, digital preservation and legal deposit: Policy, projects and services for research communities] (Rome, May 8, 2008) are now online. The presentations are in a mix of English and Italian.
See also: We previously blogged a presentation by Maria Cassella at this conference. Update. See also Elena Giglia's report on the conference (in Italian). Retroactive OA to Nobel-winning science Open Access to Nobel Prize awarded work � a pilot project, an announcement from Sweden's OpenAcess.se. Also see the less formal presentation of the idea. (Thanks to Jan Hagerlid.) Excerpt from the former:
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Labels: Hot Quarterly report on the growth of OA Heather Morrison, The Dramatic Growth of Open Access: June 30, 2008, Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, June 30, 2008. Excerpt:
Update (7/6/08). Also see Heather's correction. Labels: Hot Owen Stephens and/or Damyanti Patel have been blogging some notes on the talks at ALA 2008 (Anaheim, June 26 - July 2, 2008). Here are some of their OA-related posts: Antony Williams, ChEBI, Rich Text Formats and Advances Towards Wikiing, ChemSpider Blog, June 30, 2008. Excerpt:
UK food lobby raising FUD about OA The UK Food Standards Agency is considering an OA policy. This by itself isn't news. It's been considering an OA policy since 2004. But now lobbyists are noticing and raising concerns. What's new here is that the lobbyists are not publishers but food manufacturers. Apparently they object to some FSA-sponsored research done at Southampton, which led to a proposal to ban certain food colorings. But instead of (or in addition to) criticizing the science, they are criticizing OA, as if it would lower peer-review standards. For details, see Rick Pendrous, Experts raise concerns over FSA's possible adoption of 'open access' research policy, Food Manufacture, July 1, 2008. Excerpt:
Comment. As usual, the lobbyists don't connect the dots or try to show how OA is supposed to jeopardize peer review. The food manufacturers may be completely misinformed and believe that the essence of OA is to bypass peer review rather than to remove access barriers to peer-reviewed research. We know that this misconception is widespread among people new to the issue who haven't taken the trouble to read about it. Or, like the publishing lobby, the food lobby may know that OA is compatible with strong, independent peer review but prefer to raise FUD than concede the point. Either way, however, it's a false and deceptive line to take. For a detailed response, see my article from September 2007. Gunther Eysenbach has written a lengthy argument (June 28) in support of gold OA mandates (mandating submission to OA journals rather than deposit in OA repositories), and Stevan Harnad has written a lengthy rebuttal (June 30). Both are difficult to excerpt, so I'll just refer you to the full texts. Comment. But I'm not neutral on the question. I've often argued against gold OA mandates (for example, here), although as far as I know only one institution has ever considered adopting one. I've also often defended the principle that universities should not limit the freedom of researchers to submit their work to the journals of their choice (most recently here). So I'm not persuaded by Gunther's argument, even though I strongly support gold OA, see the efficiencies he underlines, and want to take advantage of them as we free up the money to pay for OA journals, now largely locked away in TA journal subscriptions. Gunther's argument overstates the sense in which OA repositories "publish" (hence the sense in which they create a parallel publishing system) and understates the difficulties of restricting where scholars can submit their work (whether or not the restrictions favor OA). Authors would face serious career difficulties in accepting these restrictions and policymakers would face serious political difficulties in imposing them. Gunther is right that the author difficulties would disappear if all journals were OA. But because of the policymaker difficulties, that simply will not happen, not by legislative fiat and not by funder collusion. It matters that OA archiving is much simpler and much less expensive than publishing, and doesn't create a full parallel system. It matters that OA archiving is minimally parallel, or supplementary, and doesn't require regulating publishers. It matters that OA archiving is under the control of scholars and universities, and doesn't require waiting for markets or legislation. These features make OA archiving a natural strategy for the early and middle stages of a campaign like ours, because it can harness unilateral action by persuaded individuals and institutions. Deeper institutional change is necessary too, and it's happening. But it must come late, as a result, not early, as a strategy. Charles Bailey's retrospective of online publishing
Charles Bailey has posted a look back at his 19 years of Internet digital publishing. The description from his blog post:
June issue of Psychosomatic Medicine is OA
The June issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, a special issue on HIV, is available OA. (Thanks to Jim Till.)
New OA collection on veterinary medicine
The American Veterinary Medical Association has released an OA collection of articles on disaster preparedness and response. (Thanks to the National Network of Libraries of Medicine.)
See also our earlier post on the AVMA's participation with OA.
Elsevier opens 7,500 articles for contest Elsevier has launched an Article 2.0 Contest. From the site:
First prize is $2,500. Second and third prizes are $1,000 and $500. Comment. An idea presupposing the removal of price and permission barriers, such as a mash-up with data repositories, Freebase, Google Earth, Open Social, and Skype (or heck, all of the above) isn't likely to win. But it may spark ideas that others are willing to put into practice. Peter Murray-Rust is entering the contest, but he isn't disclosing his idea yet. Update. ChemSpider may also enter the contest. More on the plan for OA to the Founders' papers Peter Hirtle, Free the Founding Fathers! LibraryLaw Blog, June 29, 2008. Excerpt:
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Kathleen Shearer announced at ElPub 2008 (Toronto, June 25-27, 2008) that Canada's National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) is developing an OA policy. Heather Morrison reports:
PS: I'll report more details when I have them. Update. At the CARL Annual Meeting, May 15, 2008, NSERC's Denis Leclerc gave a slide presentation previewing the NSERC policy. Thanks to Heather Morrison, who adds a summary and comments:
Labels: Hot Open Access Policy will give researchers worldwide immediate access to OICR data, Portal, 2, 3 (2008). (Thanks to Heather Morrison.) Excerpt:
Heather Morrison reports that Ouellette announced the OICR policy at ElPub 2008 (Toronto, June 25-27, 2008). More details:
Comment. Kudos to all involved, especially Francis Ouellette and Jim Till. I'm looking forward to the text of the policy. For the policy on which it is modeled, see the OA mandate from CIHR and my comments. Labels: Hot More on the Katz-Harnad exchange at AAUP Stevan Harnad, Exchange with Stan Katz at Association of American University Press Meeting in Montreal, Open Access Archivangelism, June 30, 2008. Excerpt:
PS: Also see my brief response to Katz' blog post. Jennifer Howard, Scholarly Publishers Discuss How They're Adapting to Changing Realities, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 30, 2008 (accessible only to subscribers). More on the AAUP Annual Meeting 2008 (Montreal, June 26-29, 2008). Excerpt:
Portugal's University of Coimbra has launched an institutional repository, Estudo Geral. The IR front page cites the OA Declaration (November 2006) of the Council of the Rectors of Portuguese Universities, which Coimbra endorsed early in 2007. (Thanks to Eloy Rodrigues.)
Blog notes from EADI conference
Gary Edwards, Hard Talk: Interrogating Open Access, 12th European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes General Conference conference blog (Geneva, June 24-28, 2008), June 28, 2008.
Presentation on green and gold OA in Italian
Maria Cassella, Green Road e Gold Road: percorsi interagenti per l'Open Access, presented at Open Access, digital preservation e deposito legale: policy, progetti e servizi per la ricerca (Rome, May 8, 2008). English abstract:
Green Road and Gold Road are complementary strategies to Open Access as stated in the BOAI (2002). Presentation focuses on both Green Road and Gold Road most recent achievements. Addressing long-term worries about the rise of OA Stan Katz has blogged some notes on the OA discussion, including his talk, at the AAUP Annual Meeting 2008 (Montreal, June 26-29, 2008). Excerpt:
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Update (6/30/08). I was right that Stevan would speak for himself. See his blog post. What happened to the California draft OA policy and what might still happen? Norman Oder, At SPARC Forum, News of the University of California�s Open Access Near Miss, Library Journal, June 29, 2008. Excerpt:
Comment. For background, see my blog posts on the UC's draft OA policy from January 2006 and February 2007. (From my January 2006 comment: "If I were at the U of California, I'd send supportive comments immediately to both the Academic Council and the Special Committee on Scholarly Communication. I might recommend a simplification of the policy....) For a recap of the major steps and links, see my postscript on the California policy at the end of my March 2008 article on the Harvard policy. Labels: Hot The Lancet has published two letters to the editor in response to its (remarkably pro-OA) editorial from March 8, 2008. Free online access after free registration. From Matthew J. Cockerill and Melissa Norton, Open-access journals are delivering high impact, and more, June 21, 2008:
From Dr. Sudarshan Kumari, Open access journals are a boon, June 23, 2008:
Details on the Stanford OA mandate Before the Stanford University School of Education (SUSE) voted to adopt an OA mandate, it discussed the OA mandate adopted by Harvard Law School in May 2008. Here's the Stanford Q&A about the Harvard policy and the motion unanimously adopted by the SUSE faculty. Thanks to Stanford's John Willinsky for the documents, permission to distribute them, and for his pivotal role in developing the policy at SUSE. From the Q&A about the Harvard policy:
From the motion unanimously adopted by the SUSE faculty:
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