Friday, January 23, 2015

Future Science Group launches open-access journal | EurekAlert! Science News SU initiative strives towards more open-access materials - The Gateway Digital Science | Shaking Up Science


 

Posted: 22 Jan 2015 07:52 AM PST
"Martin Weller's book [The Battle for Open: How Openness Won and Why it Doesn't Feel Like Victory] is written in a beguilingly approachable style, reminiscent of 101 position papers and blog posts aimed at thrashing out the role of the modern university within contemporary society. However, there the similarities end. What we have here is a clear and unequivocal account of how higher education is being dismantled in order to monetise that most precious of assets, namely the contents of academics' heads...."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 03:26 AM PST
"Future Science Group (FSG) has launched Future Science Open, the publisher's first fully open access journal. Each month, Future Science Open will publish research in all areas of biotechnology and medicine, as well as topics in biological, life and physical sciences that are relevant to human health. Future Science Open will consider publication of all original research articles that have been conducted with scientific rigor and research integrity. All articles submitted to Future Science Open will undergo peer review by a minimum of three independent experts. The journal will also feature review articles, editorials and perspective pieces, providing readers with a leading source of commentary and analysis in the field of biomedical research ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 03:24 AM PST
"Changes to how students access academic materials at the University of Alberta may lead to less-expensive trips to the book store. The Students' Union has been working with the university administration to reduce the access code costs students face for online homework software and textbooks. The SU also partnered up with U of A Libraries to increase the amount of course-specific textbooks in libraries. SU Vice-President (Academic) Kathryn Orydzuk said they have been working on a policy that requires professors who teach using software that requires access codes to provide a cost-free alternative for students. Her research into open access materials was sparked by numerous complaints about the WebAssign program frequently used by engineering and science professors for quizzes and assignments. Online teaching programs such as APLIA, MyStatsLab and WebAssign usually sell for more than $100 and are often accompanied with a textbook, which may further increase the price of the purchase. 'Academic materials represent a barrier to the affordability of post-secondary education,' Orydzuk said. As a result, students are paying twice for the same thing, she said. Assessment and grading costs are usually covered in students' tuition, but many professors were using online access code programs — which required an additional purchase — as a percentage of students' grades ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 03:21 AM PST
"As part of our community, it's likely you will have seen the news today about the proposed joint merger between parts of our parent company, Macmillan Science and Education, and Springer Science+Business Media. Perhaps you are also wondering what this means for us at Digital Science and for our portfolio companies. Digital Science will not be joining the new joint venture.  Instead we will remain wholly owned by our parent company, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group (HPG). Upon completion of the necessary regulatory approvals later this year, HPG will also be the majority shareholder for the newly formed joint venture. For our businesses this is exciting news as we graduate from being a technology incubator to a full, independent Holtzbrinck company ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 03:19 AM PST
" ... I have put 'merger' in inverted commas because you could also describe this as a German dynastic marriage, or indeed you could describe it as an acquisition, since the architect of the deal, Stefan von Holtzbrinck, ends up holding 53% of the equity. Holtzbrinck, of course, remains a family company and started as a major player in German national and regional newspapers. Like another family company, DMGT, this generation has seen the instability of basing the family wealth solely in newsprint. DMGT, through diversification supported and encouraged by Vere and then Jonathan Harmsworth, is now a B2B company with a minority proportion of its activity in newspapers. The Von Holtzbrinck route was different, but ends in the same place: the minority of its interests are now in scientific information, academic publishing and education. The critical threat that the demise of newspapers would sink the family ship is now over. And over in a very clever way. Keep 'merger' in quotes. While Macmillan always had to get bigger to become a rival to Wiley in a market dominated by Elsevier, Springer always had to sell. It has had so many suitors over the years that it qualified for a place on Parship, the Holtzbrinck dating site. The current relationship with BC Partners is a tertiary private equity deal, something unheard of before this century. But the result of Cinven and Candover buying the decaying hulk of Springer from Bertelsmann was a clean-up, followed by a sale to EQT and GIC. Which was followed by more streamlining and margin improvement and a sale to BC Partners for 3.3 billion euros. There could have been little improvement to be made this time round. Springer had recreated its Springerlink online platform and the company is undoubtedly back amongst the market leaders in terms of profitability, so the only way to go was a trade sale. The solution in this deal is just that, staged to the benefit of both parties. BC get to exit their 47%, possibly via an IPO, in the next three years, at an enhanced valuation secured through the Macmillan assets, and especially Nature Publishing. Holtzbrinck get a satisfying revaluation of their Macmillan purchase when the IPO goes through, and probably an opportunity to grow their stake. So both can go happily hand in hand to the German regulator, and get a big tick for accomplishing one of the prized national objectives – keeping Springer, the historical home of German chemistry as it reshaped late nineteenth century science, as a German company. Finally, as you look at this deal, do the maths. Holtzbrinck have merged into this deal their assets at Macmillan to form a company worth 5 billion euros. Their partner put in a company worth 3.3 billion euros two years ago. Holtzbrinck get 53%, depending on how much debt is left in 2-4 years time , and how much of this the partners decide to turn into equity. Sounds good to me! ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 03:16 AM PST
"A new systematic review has found that only 53% of clinical trials are published in journal articles. The review included 39 studies which looked at how many trials were published after being entered on a clinical trial database or approved by an ethics committee. The authors of the review also found that trials with positive findings were three times more likely to be published than those with negative results and that research funded by governments was twice as likely to be published as research funded by industry. The review did not look at how many trials had reported results via clinical trial registers rather than in journal articles. Previous research has found that results posted on trial registers contain more complete information than journal articles but only 22% of trials report their results promptly on a register in this way, even when required to do so by law. Most national registers are set up in a way that prompts people filling them out for the essential items of information that should be included in a summary of results from the trial. This is why AllTrials is calling for reports that cover these details, whatever their format (a journal article or a summary or a grant report for example), to be added to the trial registrations, not just published elsewhere, and for fuller reports (such as the clinical study reports used in product license applications) to be made available when they are produced. The review was written by researchers with the OPEN Project (To Overcome failure to Publish nEgative fiNdings), an initiative funded by the European Commission to gauge the impact of publication bias on medicine and to recommend ways of reducing that bias."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 03:14 AM PST
"... During the transition to this new world of advanced access and online firsts, more and more scientists began blogging and participating in crowdsourced commentary. Today, many stakeholders agree that the publishing system ought to be replaced with a more efficient and transparent platform: one that benefits both authors and readers. But before we can improve upon the existing formula, we must assess its utility. Scholarly journals serve two major functions: curation and dissemination. Under the current framework, the curatorial function that journal editors and peer reviewers fulfill is considered problematic by many scientists: there is often tremendous disagreement among editors and reviewers about what constitutes a sufficiently "significant" advance to warrant publication in a specific journal1. Acceptance of a given manuscript largely reflects a value judgment of reviewers and editors about the impact that a paper may have on the relevant scientific field. The Internet helped democratize publishing. Scientists today can post a body of research and allow all interested readers to evaluate the work's merit. This is why some scientists are now uploading pre-refereed work to servers like ArXiv and the life science-focused BioRxiv. Posting their work on public archives also ensures that anybody who wishes to access the work can read it for free. Post-publication review has traditionally been implemented in the—peer-reviewed and edited—pages of journals, but is now being done in newer fora (e.g. PubPeer).  In addition, post-publication review is replacing pre-publication review in some new open-access journals (e.g., F1000 Research and PeerJ). Furthermore, databases, search engines, and social media have essentially commandeered the curatorial function that journals are meant to fulfill. In the past, editors curated the content of a journal into a coherent body of work. Scientists now use Google Scholar, Web of Science, and other databases to identify articles of interest. They use Twitter and other social media to follow scientists doing work relevant to their own, and to engage in conversations about current issues in their field. Rather than reading journals from cover to cover, scientists today are reading exactly what's relevant to them with the help of personalized, web-based tools. This brings us back to journals, and the role they play in the dissemination of information ... By combining preprints, transparent peer review (reviews received as well as reviews written about others' work), post-publication peer review, and web analytics, hiring and promotion committees could glean a better idea of an investigator's impact on her field; this holistic approach would yield more robust data than the number of Nature papers a researcher has, or the number of times her Cell work was cited ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 03:11 AM PST
"The MIND Group, run by the Mainz-based philosophy professor Thomas Metzinger, has chosen an unusual and innovative way to celebrate a special anniversary. Instead of organizing a one-off event, such as a conference, Professor Thomas Metzinger and Dr. Jennifer Windt are editing a collection of articles that document state-of-the-art research on the mind and the brain, consciousness, and the self. The collection will be freely available online at http://www.open-mind.net to anyone interested and will subsequently be published as a 2,000-page book. The project is supported by a local team of advanced undergraduate and graduate students at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). The contributions were written by 92 junior and senior members of the MIND Group, including internationally renowned researchers working in various areas of philosophy, psychology, and the neurosciences. The collection, which is being announced to the international press, commemorates the 20th meeting of the MIND Group and its more than 10 years of existence ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 03:08 AM PST
"Open.Michigan covered the launch of a new open access journal, and expanded services for publishing open and print-on-demand textbooks and books. It was a good year for MOOCs as well with three Coursera courses offered by U-M faculty that increased their use of Creative Commons licensing for their materials. Our staff traveled quite a bit too, giving presentations locally, nationally, and internationally. One of our most successful collaborations with the U-M Department of Family Medicine wrapped up a multi-year platform conversion and OER project. We celebrated our sixth anniversary, and there are other highlights from the Open.Michigan office, not to mention from around the University and the country! ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 02:49 AM PST
"Open Humans Network is launching soon. Led by Jason Bobe and Madeleine Ball of PersonalGenomes.org, OHN attempts to break down health data silos through an online portal that will connect participants willing to share data about themselves publicly with researchers who are interested in using that public data and contributing their analyses and insight to it. The portal will showcase public health data and facilitate its exploration and download. The Open Humans Network ultimately hopes to revolutionize research by making it easy for anyone to participate in research projects and facilitating highly integrated, longitudinal health data. We had an opportunity to ask Executive Director Jason Bobe a few questions ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 02:47 AM PST
"A professor at Lake Region State College in Devils Lake has written her own open source textbook. An open textbook replaces commercial textbooks in classes and is usually distributed electronically by PDF file or online - and its use is completely free.  Michelle Murphy is an assistant professor of online anatomy and biology at LRSC and says her textbook was tested by her students last fall, and was officially released this month.  She says the students liked that they could carry the books on their phones, tablets or computers - and she says they really appreciated the 'free' price tag ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 02:42 AM PST
"Credit where credit is due, the UK and the USA are sticking to the open data agenda and, according to a new report, are the most transparent governments in the world. However, what is notable from the World Wide Web Foundation's second annual 'Open Data Barometer', which looks at the open data progress of 86 countries across the world, is that many governments are reneging on their commitments and are falling behind. An open data divide is emerging ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 02:40 AM PST
"The US and UK have announced plans to work together on improving digital public services, opening up government data and expanding schemes to teach young people digital skills.   During a visit to Washington last week, prime minister David Cameron and president Barack Obama promised to 'strengthen and expand the ongoing digital partnership' between the two countries.  Specific commitments include sharing best practice on improving digital skills among young people, for example via the new UK computing curriculum and the 'long standing practical experience of teaching code' in US schools.  The UK and US promised to swap expertise on the open data agenda, as exemplified by the US data.gov and UK data.gov.uk websites, which host hundred of thousands of government datasets.  They also committed to jointly promote open data internationally through groups such as the G8 and the 65-nation 'Open Government Partnership' ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 02:37 AM PST
"Note: We shared links to early information about the new UC Press publishing programs launching today and discussed below on infoDOCKET last week as well as last October. Today, the University of California Press formally launched two open access publishing programs, Collabra (an open access megajournal) and Luminos (open access monographs) ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 02:34 AM PST
" ... This September, I joined more than 400,000 others for the Peoples Climate March in New York City. I was encouraged by the 'We Have the Solutions' contingent of the march, which included several groups of scientists. Many of us have been demanding action on climate change from our leaders, including those that attend the Climate Summit negotiations. For me, the latest IPCC report simply reinforces what I've already understood: we must do more to limit greenhouse gas emissions if we want any chance of keeping global temperature change below 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels. The report also reinforces that the conversion to a clean energy economy is already feasible, both economically and technologically. Countries like Germany have been demonstrating the possibilities of renewable energy, despite having sunshine similar to that of Alaska. Of course, the Energiewende transition has not been without growing pains, and most would agree we must address the underlying energy storage issues to fully realize the potential of renewable energy sources like sun, wind and water. Thankfully, we know the scientists of ECS are working on exciting research to improve our understanding and technological capabilities in batteries, photovoltaics, nanotechnology and fuel cells, among other cutting-edge fields. In 2013, the ECS board of directors made a bold, strategic decision to pursue open access. The push for transformation is being driven by a desire to disseminate scientific research and make it more widely accessible, to spread theoretical and practical knowledge that will advance scientific understanding. In March, after launching author choice open access, ECS published our first open access paper in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. Since then, there has been a strong demand for open access publication, with more than 383 papers published as open access as of January 20, 2015. Yet, to be truly open access and to create the most freedom possible for research that may affect the sustainability of our planet, we want to remove all financial barriers in ECS publications. Making the scientific research and data in ECS journals accessible to anyone with an internet connection will only inspire more discoveries, as well as more research and more innovation ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 02:20 AM PST
[From Google's English] "A study commissioned by the FWF survey has revealed that see over two thirds of scientists represents a high to very high demand on open access to scientific data and research Publkationen (Open Access). Based on these findings, the study 'Developing an Effective Market for Open Access Article Processing Charges' (commissioned by the FWF, Wellcome Trust Research Councils UK, etc.), the analysis of the FWF publication costs as well as other international developments, the FWF's open access funding policy adapted ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 02:15 AM PST
"Progress in science and technology can only be achieved by building upon a community knowledge base. This is as true for agricultural development as for anything else. However, current technical, financial, legal and cultural barriers can make it difficult to access and use existing agricultural knowledge.  Open Knowledge initiatives that promote free, unrestricted access to research, data, software and learning materials promise to further accelerate agricultural development, reduce hunger and poverty, and improve food security in less economically developed countries. The Open Knowledge in Agricultural Development (OKAD) article collection will be a platform for authors to share their original research findings, initiatives, case studies, perspectives and opinions relating to Open Knowledge initiatives within all areas in the context of agriculture, agri-food and agro-biodiversity. We encourage the submission of articles on topics including, but not limited to ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 02:12 AM PST
The Biodiversity Heritage Library is committed to providing free and open access to over 500 years of natural history literature from across the globe. Towards that goal, the Library currently contains over 45 million pages of biodiversity content, representing over 155,000 volumes and 90,000 titles. However, hosting the content online is just part of our vision to 'inspire discovery through free access to biodiversity knowledge.' Users must be able to identify content relevant to their work and interest from amongst this vast corpus. For this, metadata is all-important. Metadata is 'data that describes other data.' BHL's metadata describes the digital resources in our collection, providing not only author, title, volume, publication year and place, and article information, but also keywords describing the topics discussed within each book. Eventually, full-text searching will also allow users to search across the actual text within a book to discover items relevant to their search parameters.  Dr. Jane Bromley knows the importance of metadata all too well. It is a critical component of her daily work.  Bromley is a research fellow at The Open University, where she has worked since 2012 as part of a subgroup of the Natural Language Processing group. Under the EU FP7 funded agINFRAproject, which aims to promote data sharing in agricultural sciences, Bromley's subgroup studies information extraction from legacy biodiversity literature. Specifically, they are seeking to enhance an existing specialist agricultural resource, AGRIS.  AGRIS is a collaborative network of more than 150 institutions providing free access to agricultural information in the form of more than 7 million bibliographic references on agricultural research and technology. This multilingual bibliographic database also contains links to related data resources on the Web.  BHL contains a vast amount of agricultural information. Searching the subject 'agriculture' alone produces over 2,100 books and journals in BHL. Recognizing the potential of these resources, Bromley and her colleagues, including Dr. David King and Dr. David Morse, developed a process to enhance AGRIS with BHL content. They relied on BHL's metadata to do this ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 02:08 AM PST
"Maura Marx, deputy director for library services, will serve as acting director for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Marx assumed the leadership role on January 19, following the end of IMLS Director Susan H. Hildreth's four-year term. Marx will lead the agency until a new director is nominated by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The IMLS directorship alternates between individuals from the museum and library communities. Marx began her term as deputy director for library services in May of 2013. Prior to her appointment, she served as director of the Digital Public Library of America Secretariat at the Berkman Center at Harvard University. Previously, she served as executive director of the Open Knowledge Commons, where she worked to catalyze and raise funds for libraries working on collaborative digital library initiatives. She founded the digital library program at the Boston Public Library and was responsible for its dedication to open principles. Her interests are in cultural heritage, collaboration, and the promotion of all types of open knowledge ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 02:05 AM PST
"Library and information professionals have a complex relationship with research data. We are curators of, advisors and educators about, advocates around, and producers and consumers of research outputs, sometimes wearing several of these hats at once. Because of its historical service role in higher education, the library is a trusted source for guidance regarding where to find data on the one hand and how to properly create, organize, store, secure, and preserve the results of research on the other. In addition, scholars are increasingly turning to the library to find the actual infrastructure for many of the supporting services they need, from institutional repositories to identifier assignment. However, the world of data lacks the ingrained standards and practices the library and academic community have built up over the years. Within this context, JLSC is interested in exploring the many practices, questions, emerging standards, and needs for training necessary to realize the vision of treating research data (i.e. data intentionally generated or examined for the purposes of scholarly analysis) as a first class object of scholarly communication. In particular, we seek to catalyze, within our community of practice, discussion and knowledge exchange about data sharing, data publication and data citation. As co-editors of this special issue, we invite submissions in all of JLSC's publication categories on the variety of issues surrounding data, including but certainly not limited to ..."
Posted: 22 Jan 2015 01:58 AM PST
The Monographs and Open Access Project was set up to consider the place of monographs in the arts, humanities and social science disciplines, and how they fit into the developing world of open access to research. The project was led by Geoffrey Crossick, Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and was commissioned by HEFCE in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Evidence to support the project was gathered through an programme of consultations, surveys, data-gathering and research activities. The research was supported and shaped by an Expert Reference Group of publishers, academics, librarians, funders, open access experts in the UK and overseas. The main findings of the report are as follows: [1] Monographs are a vitally important and distinctive vehicle for research communication, and must be sustained in any moves to open access. The availability of printed books alongside the open-access versions will be essential. [2] Contrary to many perceptions, it would not be appropriate to talk of a crisis of the monograph; this does not mean that monographs are not facing challenges, but the arguments for open access would appear to be for broader and more positive reasons than solving some supposed crisis. [3] Open access offers both short- and long-term advantages for monograph publication and use; many of these are bound up with a transition to digital publishing that has not been at the same speed as that for journals. [4] There is no single dominant emerging business model for supporting open-access publishing of monographs; a range of approaches will coexist for some time and it is unlikely that any single model will emerge as dominant. Policies will therefore need to be flexible. HEFCE will consider this report and discuss its policy implications with other research funders including AHRC and ESRC, recognising that any steps towards policies for open-access monographs should be preceded by a thorough process of consultation and engagement."
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