Monday, January 12, 2015

A new, public view of the sky


OATP primary

Posted: 10 Jan 2015 08:48 AM PST
"The Authors Guild's doomed lawsuit against libraries finally petered out this week, when the writers' organization agreed to end the litigation. The move closes the door on a battle about digital books dating to 2011, when the Authors Guild alleged that universities participating in the HathiTrust (a joint digital book-storage project of 13 universities) infringed copyright by working with Google to digitize books in order to make them searchable ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 08:46 AM PST
Use the link to access presentations from the recent conference.  "The 7th UNICA Scholarly Communication Seminar: Visibility, Visibility, Visibility was hosted by Sapienza University of Rome (Faculty of Civil and Industrial Engineering), in cooperation with "Tor Vergata" and Roma Tre Universities, 27-28 November 2014. It gathered nearly 70 librarians and university experts in information science and learning & research support services."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 08:42 AM PST
" ... American universities and government groups spend $10-billion each year to access the science. That's ten billion dollars to buy back content we have often already paid for in the first place. We may shell out for Murdoch's news services, too, but the fees are more affordable, Murdoch's empire isn't funded by tax dollars, and Murdoch pays his staff to create their original products. As Monbiot said, journals make Murdoch look like a socialist. Even more amazing: despite this outrageous set-up and all the attention to it over the last 20 years, the status quo is still firmly entrenched, especially when it comes to health research. All of us — physicians, policymakers, journalists, curious patients — can't access many of the latest research findings, unless we fork over a hefty sum or it happens to be published in an open access journal ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 08:39 AM PST
Use the link to access the guide.
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 08:37 AM PST
"After suffering two major defeats in its legal battle with the HathiTrust (a consortium of Google's library scanning partners) the Authors Guild this week finally did what many expected them to do long ago: they declared victory, and ended the litigation. In a stipulation filed with the court this week, the Authors Guild v. HathiTrust was officially dismissed, by agreement of the parties. In a concession, HathiTrust officials agreed that the organization would, for a five-year period, notify the Authors Guild if it decides to change its practices ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 08:33 AM PST
Off we go, Lucy and I, out into the Yorkshire cold to attend an Open Access (OA) advocacy event held at The University of Bradford. We are warmly welcomed to a great afternoon with engaging speakers, and a fun exercise from the man behind the OA innovations at the University of Huddersfield, Graham Stone.
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 08:31 AM PST
"Apps, videos and chatrooms are among the tools students now find themselves using in class. But with all the buzz about the growing trend of e-learning in Hong Kong, is education really just a click away? Technology guru Dr Yuen Kin-sun has reservations about e-learning. He thinks more must be done to help schools reap the full benefits of learning online. As director of the Open University of Hong Kong's educational technology and publishing unit, he strives to make quality learning materials freely available online. The Education Bureau launched the E-textbooks Market Development Scheme in 2012 to provide a subsidy to non-profit-making organisations to develop e-textbooks for schools that are cheaper than printed textbooks. Since then, Yuen and his team have been developing e-textbooks as desirable alternatives to printed textbooks. The scheme was initiated to curb rising textbook prices, but it also set the stage for the implementation of e-learning ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 08:27 AM PST
"Openwords mines massive, preexisting public data resources (like Wiktionary or Apertium) to rapidly provide language learning mobile software for the world's population, particularly for under-served languages. Over half of the world's people do not have a language learning app suited for their language or needs. We're talking about billions of people around the world that speak a language with less than 100 million native speakers. Most of these languages are overlooked by mobile app developers, but Openwords is a startup that aims to address this problem. So why would a startup be able to solve this problem when companies like Rosetta Stone have more than $200 million in revenue each year and Duolingo has tens of millions of dollars in investment? The Openwords app has open source content. Openwords can mine massive, preexisting public data resources like Wiktionary or Apertium (an open machine translator). Thus, Openwords will be able to rapidly provide content for populations without language learning apps. Other companies would need to build this content themselves, but Openwords uses open data that already exists ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 08:24 AM PST
"In March 2014, the University of Canberra officially opened a new building on its campus called the Health Hub, a $15 million facility designed as a new way to integrate teaching, training and research for better healthcare. The Health Hub includes a full-service general practice super clinic run by Ochre Health, a pharmacy, a pathology lab, medical imaging and a range of student-led allied health services such as physiotherapy, exercise physiology, psychology, midwifery and nutrition and dietetics where the university's health science students can get some hands-on experience with real patients. The facility also includes an eHealth laboratory called the Living Lab, run by National ICT Australia (NICTA) and designed to allow researchers, small businesses and clinicians to collaborate on co-designing, co-developing and co-deploying eHealth solutions in a practical clinical environment. According to the Living Lab's technical director, NICTA's Leif Hanlen, one of the benefits of locating the Health Hub in a town like Canberra is that within a 10 or 15-minute drive, there is also another major university in ANU, Calvary's public and private hospitals, an aged care facility and even the Australian Institute of Sport ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 08:19 AM PST
"Since its launch in January 2013, F1000Research has published almost 700 articles across the life sciences, written by over 2000 authors. These articles have all been published according to F1000Research's open science philosophy: publication first, followed by open invited peer review, with all referee reports and referees' names published alongside the article. Data sharing is mandatory, the data being accessible from within the article. After just two years, this radically different way of publishing has already received an overwhelmingly positive response from across the scientific community. F1000Research authors and referees come from some of the worlds' most outstanding institutes: all Ivy League universities, and more than 90% of the top research organisations in the UK, Canada and Australia. Johns Hopkins University tops the list as the largest source of authors. Articles include research supported by grants from the top funders, with the majority coming from the NIH, NSF, EU, NSERC and Wellcome Trust. F1000Research's publishing platform has been especially popular with the bioinformatics community, because the article can be linked to a permanent and citable instance of the relevant software code, and a new version of the article can be published when the software itself is updated. Bioinformatics articles now comprise almost one quarter of published articles. F1000Research has also pushed the boundaries of data availability ensuring that all articles contain either the underlying data itself, or a link to the data within an approved repository. Last year, an article by Björn Brembs (Universität Regensburg in Germany) drew attention for having interactive figures that are generated on-the-fly from source data: an important milestone on the path to real-time science ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 08:15 AM PST
"A publication in the prestigious Nature, Cell, or Science is considered the golden ticket to a successful science career. From superior job opportunities to more successful grants, a paper in these journals is definite boost to any scientist's reputation–a token of true scientific ability. Exceedingly competitive, these top tier journals reject more than 90% of manuscripts they receive and continue to have growing submission rates1 There are approximately 10 000 submissions per year for Nature and more than 12 000 for Science1, which is definitely telling of the increasing competition and selectivity to publish. Nevertheless, despite the continuous growth in paper submissions, established scientists have begun to publically criticize these elite journals. One notable example is biologist Dr. Randy Scheckman, 2013 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine. Upon receiving the Nobel Prize, Scheckman wrote a brief commentary in The Guardian2 describing the damaging effects of 'glamour journals.' In the article, he compares Nature, Cell, and Science to high-end fashion brands, highlighting that their main aim is to sell subscriptions and not to display the most important research ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 07:44 AM PST
"American Journal Experts presents 'Five Myths About Open Access Publishing' to help address some of the misconceptions about this movement in international scholarly publishing. AJE supports open access as part of its mission of accelerating the process of global discovery."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 07:40 AM PST
"Adopting open educational resources at Ohio State will set up the university to be one of the higher education leaders in progressive education. Ohio State will increase its reach globally through iTunes U and massive open online courses, while saving hundreds to thousands of dollars for students on campus using digital or open textbooks. To learn more about OER we've planned three events on Feb. 17, 2015 at Thompson Library. ODEE and the libraries are hosting members of the Open Textbook Library who will conduct a librarian discussion, faculty workshop, and an Innovate 365 event to teach the Ohio State community about open educational resources, promote involvement on campus and explain its importance ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 07:36 AM PST
"The models of scientific communication and publication—which have served us all so well for so long—are no longer
fully meeting the spirit of the ECS mission, may not be financially viable, and are hurting the dissemination of the
results of scientific research. The future of Open Access (OA)1 can change not only scholarly publishing, but can change the nature of scientific communication itself. OA has the power to more 'evenly distribute' the advantages currently given to those who can easily access the outputs of scientific research ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 07:30 AM PST
[From Google's English] " ... The international Open Science AG of Open Knowledge taught in the course of this offer from a workshop for those interested. Attended by more than 20 participants from different countries and different discipline such as astrophysics, psychology, economics, life sciences and computer science. To foster networking and deepen the theme Open Science, after a round of introductions, the various facets such as open access, alternative publication channels, open data, repositories and open source as well as opportunities to do research reproducible discussed. In addition, emerging issues were discussed and also presented focal points, organizations and projects in the field of open science. Due to the positive feedback it is very likely also on the upcoming summer camp of the Chaos Computer Club Open Science Meeting enter in August 2015. We look forward to seeing you! ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 07:27 AM PST
" ... Shortly thereafter, in 2012, the Free Open Access to Medical Education (FOAMed) movement started. It not only encourages the active and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge, it also continues to expand physician knowledge, leading to better patient care. Delivering information in the form of podcasts, blogs, or cell phone apps, the FOAMed movement is a global movement allowing all physicians to actively participate and thereby provide better patient care. More can be read about it on one of our favorite blogs, Life in the Fast Lane ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 07:25 AM PST
"Snap-on Incorporated (Kenosha, WI) has been issued patent number 8918245, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by VerticalNews editors. The patent's inventors are Dewhurst, Chris J. (Fermoy, IE); Trsar, Dale A. (Mount Prospect, IL). This patent was filed on June 5, 2007 and was published online on December 23, 2014 ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 12:40 AM PST
"The National Documentation Centre in Athens will play host to the RECODE project Final Conference this January – an event that will showcase the results from RECODE and officially launch the RECODE Policy Recommendations.  The conference, which will aim to contribute to the on-going dialogue on open science and open access to research data, will be designed around themes such as policies, good practices and challenges for open access to research data, PSI as research data and vice versa.  More information about the event, including details of how to register, can be found by clicking here ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 12:38 AM PST
"The Digital Public Library of America launched on April 18, 2013, less than two years ago. And what a couple of years it has been. From a staff of three people, a starting slate of two million items, and 500 contributing institutions, we are now an organization of 12, with over eight million items from 1,300 contributing institutions. We have materials from all 50 states—and from around the world—in a remarkable 400 languages. Within our collection are millions of books and photographs, maps of all shapes and sizes, material culture and works of art, the products of science and medicine, and rare documents, postcards, and media. But focusing on these numbers and their growth, while gratifying and a signal DPLA is thriving, is perhaps less important than what the numbers represent. DPLA has always been a community effort, and that community, which became active in the planning phase to support the idea of a noncommercial effort to bring together American libraries, archives, and museums, and to make their content freely available to the world, has strengthened even more since 2013. A truly national network and digital platform is emerging, although we still have much to do. A strong commitment to providing open access to our shared cultural heritage, and a deeply collaborative spirit, is what drives us every day. Looking back, 2013 was characterized by a start-up mode: hiring staff, getting the site and infrastructure live, and bringing on a first wave of states and collection. 2014 was a year in which we juggled so much: many new hubs, partners, and content, lining up additional future contributors, and beginning to restructure our technology behind the scenes to prepare for an even more expansive collection and network. Beginning this year, and with the release of our strategic plan for the next three years, the Digital Public Library of America will hit its stride. We encourage you to read the plan to see what's in store, but also to know that it will require your help and support; so much in the plan is community-driven, and will be done with that same emphasis on widespread and productive collaboration ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 12:33 AM PST
" ... To partly solve this, free electronic scientific publishing also called 'Open Access Publishing' has emerged. This grants full access to anyone, for any purpose, but transfers the publication costs to the authors or their organization. Nothing is free! However, currently UiB offers support to cover 'Open Access Article Processing Charges' A side-effect of the open access model is a malignant proliferation in junk publishers with the sole objective of making money without any regards for scientific quality. In year 2011 there were 18 identified predatory publishers, which increased to 693 in 2015. The list is updated through the year on the blog Scholarly Open Access, http://scholarlyoa.com. Take a look at this list when your mailbox is swamped by the numerous offers for publishing! ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 12:30 AM PST
"Last June, Elon Musk and Tesla made some news in freeing up Tesla's patents, hoping to jumpstart the market for electric cars. As we pointed out at the time, this highlighted how patents can, and often do, hold back innovation -- and we hoped that others might take notice. It's taken a while, but at CES this week, Toyota also announced plans to free patents, focusing on the 5,680 patents (including pending patents) it has on fuel cell drive systems. The details still matter, but Toyota says that the patents are all available, "royalty free." The patents seem to cover the whole stack of things necessary to develop hydrogen fuel cell cars -- including the patents for hydrogen stations. Of course, the idea, as with Tesla, is that the market needs to be jumpstarted, and that means a lot of companies working together to help build the infrastructure and educate the market. That's done best by sharing the information and letting everyone compete on the actual execution. But, of course, that's what we've been arguing should be the case for lots of technology areas as well. The patents are only serving to hold back so many markets, not allowing companies to build the best possible products they can, and thus limiting overall innovation and adoption. Hopefully more companies -- and not just automakers -- will start to recognize why this is such a good idea, not just for their own business, but for innovation in general ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 12:27 AM PST
"For the first time, scientists and the public are beginning to see the large-scale structure of the universe, thanks to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. UA scientists provide scientific expertise and crucial technology to the largest project ever undertaken to map the cosmos.  On Jan. 6, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey issued its latest public data release, the final release of the third epoch of the survey. Weighing in at more than 100 Terabytes, 'Data Release 12' (DR12) contains measurements of the properties of nearly half a billion stars and galaxies, making it one of the largest and richest databases in the history of astronomy. 'The most astonishing feature of the SDSS is the breadth of ground-breaking research it enables,' said Daniel Eisenstein of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the director of SDSS-III. Eisenstein started the survey during his tenure as a professor at the UA's Steward Observatory, one of the survey's partner institutions.
'We've searched nearby stars for planets, probed the history of our Milky Way and measured nine billion years of our universe's accelerated expansion,'  he said ..."
Posted: 10 Jan 2015 12:22 AM PST
"Following a successful RFC period we are happy to announce the publication of version 2.2 of the "Schema for the Description of Research Data Repositories". We managed to integrate most of the ideas that we received. In version 2.2 new properties and controlled vocabularies were added and some definitions changed. We thank all contributors for their comments, suggestions and ideas improving the schema and re3data.org ..."
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