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La Quadrature du Net, Copyright dogmatism temporarily kicked out of European Parliament, press release, February 19, 2009.
See also our past post on the Medina report. Labels: Hot Hacking WTO to support public goods, including OA research In January, I blogged James Love's Knowledge as a Public Good: Two Mechanisms, a presentation at the Fórum Mundial Ciência E Democracia (Belém, Parã, Brazil, January 26, 2009). But at the time I didn't appreciate the subtle suggestion he made there. Thanks to David Bollier for pointing it out. First, David Bollier sets the stage:
Now from Love himself:
Update (3/29/09). Also see Glyn Moody's article on Love's hack. Comments on the Conyers bill, #5 Here are some more comments from the press and blogosphere on the re-introduction of the Conyers bill (a.k.a. Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, HR 801), which would overturn the OA policy at the NIH. Also see our past collections (1, 2, 3, 4). From the Association of Health Care Journalists:
From Charles Bailey at DigitalKoans:
From John Hawks:
From Nathan Georgette at Open Access Blog:
From the open letter to Rep. Conyers on behalf of NetCoalition.com:
From T. Scott Plutchak at T. Scott:
Primer on US copyright law for databases Michael Carroll, Copyright in Databases, Carrollogos, February 20, 2009. Excerpt:
Durham statement on OA for legal scholarship Law library directors meeting at Duke Law School in Durham, North Carolina, last November have released the Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship (February 11, 2009). Excerpt:
Labels: Hot
While the OA proposal at Obama CTO continues to do well, there's another way to tell urge the Obama administration to require OA for publicly-funded research. I just added the same proposal to the Open Our Government List (OOGL) from the Sunlight Foundation. But this time, I added a sentence about the Conyers bill. Here's the whole proposal:
The purpose of OOGL is "to add a public element to the crafting of [Obama's] Open Government Directive that is itself transparent, participatory, and collaborative." Because OOGL is new, the #1 proposal has only 98 votes. Hence, it shouldn't be hard to make the OA proposal rise quickly, if you take a moment to vote and spread the word. Is this just an empty exercise in casting votes that don't matter? I don't think so. The Sunlight Foundation has a good record in working effectively for open government in the US, and I'm counting on it to fight for the ideas which rise to the top of its list. See our past posts on the Sunlight Foundation. If you're wondering, the Obama transition team's Citizen's Briefing Book stopped accepting input on January 16. It too contained an OA proposal (blogged here on January 11). A tool for crowdsourcing digitization of public domain books
Patti Lane, reCaptcha: How to turn blather into books, Christian Science Monitor, February 19, 2009.
UK Conservatives call for access to PSI
Adam Afriyie, Government must improve access to data, The Conservative Party, February 10, 2009. Afriyie is a Conservative shadow minister for Innovation, Universities and Skills.
See also the Free Our Data blog post on the event where Afriyie delivered the speech. Péter Jacsó, SCImago Country Rank Database, Péter's Digital Reference Shelf, February 2009. A review of the OA SCImago database of journal data. ... Scimago is a top-notch free system with extensive and very important bibliometric statistics about nearly 16,000 serial publications (that I did not review here) and more than 230 countries and territories. ... [T]he free Scimago Country Database (which is far more than a Country Rank list), is an excellent free ready-reference source. See also our past posts on SCImago. Free or discounted access to JSTOR in developing countries eIFL.net and JSTOR have signed an agreement to provide free or discounted access to institutions in eIFL member countries. The project joins efforts such as HINARI (see our past posts) and OARE (see our past posts) to expand access to TA resources in developing countries. Notes on Scottish repository conference
Sarah Gentleman, Making research accessible: repositories, open access and the issue of usage, Research Information Network, undated but recent. Notes on Open Access Research Repository - What's in it for you? (Stirling, February 13, 2009).
Profile of CC @ the U. Michigan Library
Cameron Parkins, University of Michigan Library, Creative Commons, February 19, 2009.
Comparing 39 impact measurements Johan Bollen, Herbert Van de Sompel, Aric Hagberg, and Ryan Chute, A principal component analysis of 39 scientific impact measures, a preprint deposited in arXiv February 12, 2009. (Thanks to Philip Davis.)
OA companies on publishing industry hot list
Outsell has released its list of "30 to Watch" in the information industry. Included are the British Medical Journal, Flat World Knowledge, and Public Library of Science. See the December 18 press release or the (TA) report.
Your comments on the future of Depot Consultation on Role of the Depot, EDINA, February 16, 2009. Excerpt:
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Update (2/21/09). Also see Stevan Harnad's comments:
Combining wiki-style openness and expertise Larry Sanger, The Fate of Expertise after WIKIPEDIA, Episteme, February 2009. Sanger is the founder of Citizendium and co-founder of Wikipedia.
From the conclusion:
CODATA has posted a review of its activities on data sharing in 2008.
Interview with Science Commons' John Wilbanks
James Turner, ETech Preview: Science Commons Wants Data to Be Free, O'Reilly Radar, February 19, 2009. A podcast interview with John Wilbanks, with transcript.
Update. See also the comments at Molecular Philosophy. Libraries to publishers: how you can help The Association of Research Libraries has released the ARL Statement to Scholarly Publishers on the Global Economic Crisis, February 19, 2009. From yesterday's press release:
From the statement itself:
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DEFF adopts the KE open license Denmark's Electronic Research Library (Danmarks Elektroniske Fag- og Forskningsbibliotek, or DEFF) has adopted a Danish translation of the Knowledge Exchange's License to Publish. The license previously existed in English, Dutch, and Spanish. Here's how KE summarizes the main provisions of the license:
PS: Also see our past posts on DEFF and KE. DEFF is one of the founding partners of KE. The DiPP 3.0 license in English Germany's Digital Peer Publishing (DiPP) project has released an English translation of the latest version (3.0) of the DiPP License. DiPP has also updated the license FAQ, although it's in German only. Also see our post from last November on the initial release of the 3.0 license. Frank Norman, UK PubMedCentral, Trading Knowledge, February 18, 2009. (Thanks to Branwen Hide.) Excerpt:
OA for the AAAI digital library The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is converting the technical content in its its digital library to OA. (Thanks to Cornelius Puschmann.) From the January 16 announcement:
More on the NIH's willingness to work with IRs Stevan Harnad, NIH Open to Closer Collaboration With Institutional Repositories, Open Access Archivangelism, February 19, 2009.
Generalizing the OA impact advantage Jan Velterop, Industry-funded research IFfy? The Parachute, February 14, 2009. Excerpt:
Comment. Jan's hypothesis suggests a fascinating and potentially testable way to generalize the thesis behind the OA impact advantage: any kind of increased access should also increase impact. OA increases access in a large and conspicuous way. Systematically distributing non-OA reprints increases access in a smaller way, and for people outside medicine, a less conspicuous way; but it may carry its own impact advantage. As usual, the difficulty is to identify an appropriate control group so that we test the hypothesis by comparing apples with apples. Would it be enough to compare reprinted articles with unreprinted articles from the same journal? The same issue of the same journal? Would it be enough to compare the impact of an article before and after it was reprinted? What other kinds of access enhancements, short of OA, could be tested for an impact advantage? TA journal circulation? More confirmation of the OA impact advantage James A. Evans and Jacob Reimer, Open Access and Global Participation in Science, Science Magazine, February 20, 2009. (The DOI-based URL is broken, at least for now.) Only this abstract is free online, at least so far:
Also see Stevan Harnad's comments. Read his full post or this summary:
For other comments, see Elie Dolgin, Online access = more citations, The Scientist, February 19, 2009 (free registration required). Excerpt:
Also see Yun Xie, Open, electronic access to research crucial for global reach, Ars Technica, February 19, 2009. Excerpt:
Also see Philip Davis, Open Access and Global Participation in Science, Scholarly Kitchen, February 19, 2009. Excerpt:
Also see the interview with James Evans from the National Science Foundation, February 19, 2009. Update (2/24/09). Also see Mike Eisen's comments:
Update (2/25/09). Also see Stevan Harnad's two elaborations on his first comments (1, 2), which I've blogged separately here. How is unauthorized downloading affecting university presses?
Scott Jaschik, Pirates vs. University Presses, Inside Higher Ed, February 18, 2009.
N.B. Several comments on the article suggest OA as an alternative. Student op-ed on open textbooks
Catherine Simpson, Online freedom, The Diamondback, February 19, 2009. The Diamondback is a student newspaper at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Reports from JISC developer conference
Reports from the JISC Developer Happiness Days (London, February 9-13, 2009) are highlighting new repository technologies, e.g.:
Julie Kelly and Louise Letnes, RePEc archives: AgEcon Search, The RePEc Blog, February 18, 2009.
See also our past posts on AgEcon Search. Report on EU digital libraries meeting
JISC's Kate Fernie has posted a report on the EU's Information Day on the third Call for Proposals of the ICT Policy Support Programme on digital libraries (Luxembourg, February 17, 2009); see also this blog post. From the report:
See also our past posts on Europeana. The Public Knowledge Project has released Open Archives Harvester 2.3.0. From yesterday's announcement:
OA proposal moves up a rank at Obama CTO The proposal to require OA for publicly-funded research is now ranked #11 on Obama CTO, the unofficial web site collecting recommendations for the Obama administration. Yesterday it was #12. Thanks to all who responded to my call to spread the word and muster up additional votes. Every little bit helps in making the case for the NIH policy, and against the Conyers bill, to Congress and the Obama administration. Americans: Contact the House Judiciary Committee US citizens: The American Library Association has created an action alert to send a message to your representative in support of the NIH policy and opposing the Conyers bill. It only works if your representative is a member of the House Judiciary Committee. (If you don't know whether your representative is a member, you needn't look it up; once you enter your 9 digit zip code in the form, it will tell you.) If your representative is not a member of the Judiciary Committee, it would still help to send him or her a message. The Alliance for Taxpayer Access has drafted a sample letter, which you can revise for maximum impact. If you have the time, it would help even more to send a message to each member of the Judiciary Committee, not just your own representative. Charles Bailey has collected the contact information for each member. Labels: Hot Notes on repository policy event
Gareth J. Johnson, Repositories and policy - SUTEr Event at the National Library of Wales, UoL Library Blog, February 19, 2009. Notes on SUETr Repository Policy Event (Aberystwyth, February 18, 2009).
Physiopedia is a recently launched OA, FDL-licensed wiki for physiotherapy. (Thanks to Jason Harris.)
A survey on how scholars use Wikipedia PLoS is helping the Wikimedia Foundation run a survey of Wikipedia use among the scholarly community. (Thanks to Donna Okubo.) From the site:
Jane Park, CC Licensing Your Dissertations, Creative Commons, February 17, 2009.
Comment. Peter notes that use of CC licenses for dissertations dates to at least 2006; see this example from Caltech. See also the comments on the CC blog post for other examples. Update. See also danah boyd's comments. Medpedia, an OA medical wiki, launched its public beta on February 17. See also our past posts on Medpedia.
Iryna Kuchma, eIFL.net and Bioline International signed the Memorandum of Understanding to promote open access, eIFL, February 16, 2009.
eIFL.net and Bioline International have identified an opportunity for cooperation in order to advance the development of Open Access and in particular open access journals in developing and transitional countries. Joint activities will aim to encourage more publishers to make available their journals on an Open Access basis, and will attempt to encourage more libraries to use and to promote this valuable free source of peer-reviewed scientific information. OA proposal moving up on Obama CTO The proposal to require OA for publicly-funded research is ranked #12 on Obama CTO, the unofficial web site collecting recommendations for the Obama administration. But it's only 21 votes away from spot #11. Can we spread the word further and drum up a couple dozen more votes? Every little bit will help in making the case to Congress and the Obama administration for the NIH policy and against the Conyers bill. Comments on the Conyers bill, #4 Here are some more comments from the press and blogosphere on the re-introduction of the Conyers bill (a.k.a. Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, HR 801), which would overturn the OA policy at the NIH. Also see our past collections (1, 2, 3). From The Last Psychiatrist:
From Peter Murray at Disruptive Library Technology Jester:
From the open letter to the House Judiciary Committee from 10 library associations, scientific publishers, public interest groups (AALL, ALA, ASCB, ACRL, ARL, GWLA, PK, PLoS, SPARC, and SLA):
From Fernando Pereira at Earning My Turns:
Call for an OA mandate for publicly-funded research in Germany Jonathan Gray, Public interest information policy in Germany, Open Knowledge Foundation Wiki, February 17, 2009. The unabridged English version of an article, in German, from Das Progressiv Zentrum, January 29 2009. Excerpt:
OA mandate at SFI now in effect The beautifully strong OA mandate at Science Foundation Ireland took effect on February 1. SFI is the largest research funder in Ireland. Thanks to OA@UCD and Niamh Brennan for the alert and for this piece of news:
Also see our past posts on Science Foundation Ireland. Another call for an EU-wide OA mandate Jean-Claude Guédon, Between Excellence and Quality : The European Research Area in Search of Itself, a preprint, self-archived February 3, 2009.
From the body of the paper:
Group to set standards for OA to diversity data The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is seeking nominations for a group to develop a framework for the "management and dissemination of ‘primary biodiversity data’ following open access principles." Nominations are due by February 27, 2009. (Thanks to Vishwas Chavan.) Strong support for the NIH policy Raynard Kington, Analysis of Comments and Implementation of the NIH Public Access Policy, Federal Register, February 18, 2009. Kington is the Acting Director of the NIH. This document is the official version of a document released by the NIH last September. Excerpt:
Labels: Hot Arbitrary and incoherent restrictions on self-archiving Stevan Harnad, John Wiley on RoMEO and John the Baptist on Supererogation, Open Access Archivangelism, February 17, 2009.
Robert Cook-Deegan, Dr. Varmus Goes to Washington, American Scientist, March-April 2009. A review of Harold Varmus' memoir, The Art and Politics of Science.
See also our past post on the memoir or all past posts on Varmus. Norwegian universities recommend green OA for Norwegian research Last July, Norway's Ministry of Education and Research (Kunnskapsdepartemente or KD) asked the Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions (Universitets- og høgskolerådet or UHR) for advice on how to provide OA for the nation's research output. In September the UHR launched an OA working group to develop recommendations, and the working group issued its report January 30, 2009. (Thanks to Karen Marie Øvern.) Because the report is a PDF, I can't link to a machine translation. But here's the one sentence announcement in Google's English:
Here's a slightly longer blurb from the working group home page in Google's English:
Comments
Update (later on 2/17/09). While Google Translate doesn't digest PDFs, it will accept cut/pasted text. Charles Bailey has identified the recommendations from the report and cut/pasted the text into Google Translate. (Thanks, Charles.) Here's some of the output:
PS: If we can trust this machine translation, I'd say that UHR is recommending an OA mandate, with deposit in institutional repositories, to be implemented when the repositories are in place. Update (2/18/09). Stian Håklev has done a human translation of the new OA policy at the Norwegian Research Council, blogged here on February 5, and the new OA recommendation from the UHR to the KD, blogged above. (Thanks, Stian!) First, from the NRC policy:
Second, from the UHR recommendation to the KD:
Labels: Hot Dissertation on efficiencies in copyright licensing
Herkko Hietanen, The Pursuit of Efficient Copyright Licensing — How Some Rights Reserved Attempts to Solve the Problems of All Rights Reserved, dissertation at Lappeenranta University of Technology, December 9, 2008. (Thanks to Creative Commons.) Abstract:
Audio interview with ibiblio founder
Frank Stasio and Susan Davis, Meet Paul Jones, The State of Things, February 16, 2009. (Thanks to Truth Happens.)
In the digital realm, Paul Jones is a rock star. He invented ibiblio, a contributor-run, digital library of public domain and creative commons media in the Office of Information Technology Service at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a clinical associate professor at UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Journalism and Mass Communications and a clinical associate professor in the School of Information and Library Science. And, he's the guy who put Roger McGuinn’s catalog online. He also writes poetry and knows his Tar Heel history. Today host Frank Stasio meets the real Paul Jones. UK research assessment: constrained metrics from conflicted provider Stevan Harnad, UK's HEFCE Squandering Its Credibility and Assets In Assessing Research Assessment, Open Access Archivangelism, February 15, 2009. Excerpt: Corbyn, Zoë (2009) "Conflict of interest warning over Evidence sale" [to Thompson Reuters]. Times Higher Education Supplement. 22 January 2009 Indiana U. suggests shared CI for e-publishing Indiana University's new Strategic Plan for Information Technology includes a recommendation to develop a shared cyberinfrastructure for e-publishing. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.)
IU recently named David Lewis as assistant vice president for digital scholarly communications, which will be charged with implementing the recommendations. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.) See also our past posts on IU or David Lewis. Discussion on creating a new OA journal for computational geometry
Jeff Erickson, New free computational geometry journal?, Ernie's 3D Pancakes, February 15, 2009.
Joachim Gudmundsson and Pat Morin are discussing the possibility of establishing a new open access computational geometry journal, which would be completely free, for both readers and authors. So far, there are three relevant posts at Joachim's blog ... Is this just a screw-you replacement for Elsevier's ridiculously overpriced Computational Geometry: Theory & Applications (like similar efforts against Journal of Algorithms or Topology and Its Applications), with the same topical coverage? ... The computational geometry community (traditionally defined) doesn't need yet another journal. Three computational geometry journals is already at least one too many. The only real way to make this fly, at least as a traditional computational geometry journal, would be to convince the editorial board of CGTA to resign en masse, like the boards of J. Alg and Top. Appl. did, and adopt the new home Joachim and Pat are building for them. Hey, I'm all for that. Any journal that charges $31.50 for a single-page listing of its editorial board deserves to freeze in the coldest circle of hell. ... OA to autism research among top autism research events of the year The OA mandate at Autism Speaks leads the organization's Top 10 Autism Research Events of 2008. From its summary:
PS: Also see our November 2008 post on the Autism Speaks OA mandate. The Web site for the PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) project has launched, including a new presentation introducing the project. See also our past posts on the PEER project. Citations to and from OA journals Bhaskar Mukherje, The hyperlinking pattern of open-access journals in library and information science: A cited citing reference study, Library & Information Science Research, February 5, 2009. (Thanks to Pintiniblog.) Only this abstract is free online, at least so far:
Videos from Open Access Day (October 14, 2008) at Duke University are now available. (Thanks to the SPARC videoblog.)
See also our past posts on OA Day 2008, including Kevin Smith's notes on OA Day at Duke.
U of Tennessee launches an OA journal fund Olivia Smithscott, Fund for open access publishing offers opportunities for faculty, The Daily Beacon, February 17, 2009. Excerpt:
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Art Jahnke and Jessica Ullian, University Council Approves Open Access Plan, BU Today, February 17, 2009. Excerpt:
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Update (later on 2/17/09). The text (PDF) adopted by the University Council is now online, with links from the article itself. (Thanks, BU.) When I blogged the article this morning, the links had not yet been added. The Council approved two recommendations: first, to launch an IR, and second, to promote OA "in routine operations" which include the following:
All five ways of promoting OA are desirable. But BU omitted one that would be even more desirable: requiring the deposit of peer-reviewed journal manuscripts in the BU IR. If BU faculty "routinely" use non-exclusive copyright agreements with publishers, as recommended, then they could retain the right to authorize OA through the IR. But is BU encouraging them to use retained rights to authorize OA through the IR? Is it encouraging them to deposit their work in the IR? Will it require either step, with or without an opt-out? Update (2/18/09). Also see Dorothea Salo's comments:
Update (2/19/09). Also see Andrew Albanese's story in Library Journal:
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The Nerdy Doctor, HINARI: Flattering to Deceive, Nerdoc, February 12, 2009.
See also our past posts on HINARI.
Beth R Bernhardt, Dealing with Free E-Journals: Are they worth the effort?, presented at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting (Denver, January 23-28, 2009). A 19-slide presentation. (Thanks to Fabrizio Tinti.)
Presentation on U. Calgary's OA fund
Andrew Waller, The University of Calgary's Open Access Authors Fund, presented at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, January 27, 2009), Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Ontario, January 27, 2009), and Ryerson University (Toronto, January 28, 2009).
This presentation described the origin of and policies and procedures relating to the recently-established Open Access Authors Fund at the University of Calgary. Other Open Access activities at the University of Calgary were also briefly discussed.See also Waller's past presentation on the University of Calgary's OA fund. |