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October 10, 2008
Tuesday Oct. 14 is Open Access Day
Open Access is a growing international movement that encourages the unrestricted sharing of research results with everyone, everywhere, for the advancement and enjoyment of science and society. Open-access journals and archives make research freely accessible online, without the traditional expensive subscription barriers that limit the reach of research.
The goal of Open Access Day is to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access within the international higher education community and the general public. The founding partners are SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Students for FreeCulture, and the Public Library of Science.
At the Libraries' Open Access Day site, you can find out:
* How many University of Minnesota researchers have published their research in open-access journals since 2003.
* The discount U researchers can get when publishing in open-access journals from Public Library of Science (PLoS), BioMed Central, and Nucleic Acids Research.
* How other universities are celebrating this day.
October 03, 2008
New title from University of Minnesota Press: Digitize This Book!
From the U Press announcement of their new work, Digitize This Book! The Politics of New Media, or Why We Need Open Access Now:
In the sciences, the merits and ramifications of open access—the electronic publishing model that gives readers free, irrevocable, worldwide, and perpetual access to research—have been vigorously debated. Open access is now increasingly proposed as a valid means of both disseminating knowledge and career advancement. In Digitize This Book! Gary Hall presents a timely and ambitious polemic on the potential that open access publishing has to transform both “papercentric” humanities scholarship and the institution of the university itself.
Hall, a pioneer in open access publishing in the humanities, explores the new possibilities that digital media have for creatively and productively blurring the boundaries that separate not just disciplinary fields but also authors from readers. Hall focuses specifically on how open access publishing and archiving can revitalize the field of cultural studies by making it easier to rethink academia and its institutions. At the same time, by unsettling the processes and categories of scholarship, open access raises broader questions about the role of the university as a whole, forcefully challenging both its established identity as an elite ivory tower and its more recent reinvention under the tenets of neoliberalism as knowledge factory and profit center.
Rigorously interrogating the intellectual, political, and ethical implications of open access, Digitize This Book! is a radical call for democratizing access to knowledge and transforming the structures of academic and institutional authority and legitimacy.
Gary Hall is professor of media and performing arts at Coventry University. He is the author of Culture in Bits: The Monstrous Future of Theory, founding coeditor of the peer-reviewed online journal Culture Machine, director of the open access Cultural Studies e-Archive, CSeARCH, and cofounder of the Open Humanities Press.
September 19, 2008
NIH UPDATE: Congressional hearing on legislation to overturn the NIH Public Access Policy
From the September 2008 SPARC News:
On September 9, Representative John Conyers (D-MI), Chairman of the House Committee on Judiciary, introduced legislation that would amend U.S. copyright law, overturn the NIH Public Access Policy, and effectively make it illegal for other U.S. federal agencies to enact similar policies. The proposed legislation is the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (HR6845).
On September 11, 2008, the House Subcommittee on the Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet held a hearing to discuss the proposed legislation. Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC and convener of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, spoke on behalf of the libraries, research institutions, consumer groups, publishing organizations, and patients who support public access and the NIH Policy. Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director of the NIH, also testified to the tremendous advances in science that have already taken place due to public access to NIH-funded research. Transcripts of both Dr. Zerhouni's [PDF] and Ms. Joseph's [PDF] testimony are available online as is as the video [SMI] of the hearing.
The supportive testimony was the culmination of weeks' worth of active engagement by members of the wide coalition that supports public access. Letters that were submitted to Congress to express support for the policy and oppose HR6845 include: Nine national and regional library, publishing, and advocacy organizations [PDF]; and 33 Nobel prize-winners [PDF].
Supporters are encouraged to contact their Senators and Representatives to affirm their support for free and open access to publicly funded research and ask that they oppose HR6845. A specific call to action will be issued shortly. Please visit the ATA Web site for updates.
September 05, 2008
New listing: Publishers allowing the deposition of their published version/PDF in Institutional Repositories
If you're looking at a long list of published works that may be candidates for deposit to the University Digital Conservancy or another repository, it's difficult to know where to begin. SHERPA/RoMEO made determining which of those items are the "low hanging fruit" a little easier last week when they added this page to their site:
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/PDFandIR.html
The page lists all publishers that allow authors to deposit the published version of their article into their institutional repository. As of today, the list includes 51 publishers that allow deposit with no embargo or fee. You'll still need to check the individual publisher's record--some require things like a link to the publisher's site--but you won't need to find the author's post-refereed final draft.
August 29, 2008
Europe begins Open Access pilot for EU-financed research
In a move that echoes the NIH open access mandate, the European Union recently declared that researchers who received its funding must deposit their results in the institutes’ online archive within 12 months of publication. The pilot will run until the end of 2008.
The EU’s August 20 press release gives details and offers several compelling rationales for the move. Some excerpts:
"Easy and free access to the latest knowledge in strategic areas is crucial for EU research competitiveness. This open access pilot is an important step towards achieving the 'fifth freedom', the free movement of knowledge amongst Member States, researchers, industry and the public at large," said EU Commissioner for Science and Research Janez Potočnik. "Beyond, it is a fair return to the public of research that is funded by EU money."
[…]
This embargo period will allow scientific publishers to get a return on their investment.
Open access to research articles, previously accessible through journal subscriptions, can help to increase the impact of the EU's € 50 billion investment in research and development and avoid wasting time and valuable resources on duplicative research. With access to a wider selection of literature, researchers can build upon this knowledge to further their own work. Small and medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs can also benefit from improved access to the latest research developments to speed up commercialization and innovation.
August 15, 2008
Student video contest promotes the value of information sharing
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) is offering a $1000 award, and two $500 runner-up awards, to the student videos "that imaginatively portray the benefits of the open, legal exchange of information on the Internet."
Instructors may wish to consider this as a class assignment. In its August 12 press release, SPARC suggests that:
The contest will be especially relevant to classes in subjects including: film and video production; literature, media, and cinema studies; digital arts; communication; library and information science; computer science and information technology; education; science, technology, and society; and history of science, or for any course for which new fluencies like film-making may be an appropriate expression of class assignments and deliverables.
The application deadline is November 30, 2008.
Resources and more information is available at:
August 08, 2008
Oxford U Press agrees to make deposits for NIH authors
This week, Oxford University Press issued the following press release. Their offer will make it much easier for U-MN authors with NIH funding to submit articles to OUP journals in compliance with the agency's new open access requirement.
Oxford Journals today announced that they will deposit into PubMed Central (PMC) any articles published in any of their biomedical journals which are identified by the authors as being funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This development helps authors to comply with the public access policies of the NIH.
The NIH policy ‘requires investigators funded by the NIH to submit to PMC an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscript upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication.’
Any NIH-funded manuscripts submitted to Oxford Journals from 31st July 2008 onwards will be identified and tagged, and the final published version will then be sent to PMC for them to include on their platform. NIH-funded articles which are open access will be available immediately, and those which are not open access will be available after 12 months. To clarify, in both cases, the final published version of the NIH funded article will be hosted at PMC, rather than the original manuscript. Data feeds between PMC and the journals concerned have already been set up, and now Oxford Journals will work with our authors to identify which articles are funded by the NIH.
Martin Richardson, Managing Director of Oxford Journals, comments, ‘already all of our open access articles are being deposited into PMC. Now any NIH-funded authors who publish their articles in one of our journals will not need to deposit them into PMC themselves – Oxford Journals will do so for no charge on their behalf.'
Oxford Journals has also prepared some information and guidelines for authors of various funding agencies, which can be found here.
July 25, 2008
NIH policy leads to jump in PubMed Central deposits
Library Journal Academic Newswire for July 24, 2008 reports:
[S]ubmissions to PMC began steadily rising in December 2007, soon after it became clear a mandatory policy would be adopted in 2008. By the first month following passage of the new policy, January 2008, monthly submissions to PMC hit an all-time high of 1255, and have continued to increase significantly every month so far this year. In April 2008, when the policy officially took effect, submissions spiked even more sharply, rising from 1852 total submissions in March, to 2,765 in April and 2,593 in May. The April/May 2008 figures represent well over double the number of submissions for the same months in 2007 (1,198 PMC submissions in April ’07; 948 in May ’07). Although official figures for June have not yet been posted, the NIH’s Dr. David Lipman told the LJ Academic Newswire the submission totals were higher than May.
The NIH statistics are available here. The graph makes a compelling visual.
http://www.nihms.nih.gov/stats/index.html
July 18, 2008
"Open Students: Students for open access to research" site premieres
Open Students, a site devoted to issues of interest to emerging scholars, premiered earlier this year. It is produced by SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, and led by Gavin Baker, a 2007 graduate of the University of Florida. The site discusses fair use of academic works in dissertations, the cost of subscription and pay per view access to scholarly literature, the potential of open access and self-archiving, and what students can do to improve the scholarly publishing system.
Open Students welcomes submissions from guest bloggers.
July 11, 2008
White House guidelines: open exchange of research data and results by federal scientists
At the end of May, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released "Core Principles for Communication of the Results of Scientific Research Conducted by Scientists Employed by Federal Civilian Agencies" [PDF]. The guidelines state, in part:
Research data produced by scientists working within Federal agencies should, to the maximum extent possible and consistent with existing Federal law, regulations, and Presidential directives and orders, be made publicly available consistent with established practices in the relevant fields of research.
1. Agencies should develop, and update as necessary, clear guidelines regarding processes for sharing research data and results generated by Federal scientists. These guidelines should be consistent with the Information Quality Act guidelines.
2. In developing the guidelines, agencies should endeavor to establish clear policies regarding preservation and storage of and access to publicly available data.
3. Agencies should work to ensure awareness of and compliance with these guidelines, and ensure that responses to requests for publicly releasable information are made promptly, accurately, and completely....
Peter Suber, in his June 27, 2008 Open Access News blog, offers many observations. Key excerpts:
Note two aspects of this subset:
1. The guidelines only apply to research by agency employees, not research by grantees. The distinction matters because under US law (17 USC 105), research by government employees is uncopyrightable.
2. The guidelines only apply to data, not texts. This distinction also matters because (most) data elements are uncopyrightable facts.
[...]
The guidelines apply to research funded by 15 named federal agencies: NASA, NSF, NIH, EPA, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs. OSTP is asking all 15 agencies to develop policies in accordance with the guidelines and submit a progress report by July 31, 2008.
OSTP is calling for an open data mandate, but may or may not succeed in getting one. The statute requires OSTP to write the guidelines but it doesn't require the agencies to comply. It does ask the OSTP to "ensure" that the agencies adopt policies in conformity with its principles, but it's unclear what power OSTP has to do that. On the other hand, the agencies may comply voluntarily. Not only will they face little or no counter-lobbying from publishers, but the OSTP developed the guidelines in the first place "in consultation with...the heads of all Federal civilian agencies that conduct scientific research" (COMPETES Act, Section 1009).
