Friday, May 29, 2015

OATP primary

OATP primary

Unnecessary Services - Open Access Archivangelism

Posted: 29 May 2015 05:23 PM PDT

Mike Eisen writes: "I believe we should get rid of publishers… the services they provide are either easy to replicate (formatting articles to look pretty) or they currently do extremely poorly (peer review)… these services are unnecessary… [we should] move to a system where you post things when you want to post them, and that people comment/rate/annotate articles as they read them post publication." 1. PLOS (like other publishers) seems to be charging a hefty price for "services that are unnecessary." ;>) 2. I agree completely that we should get rid of unnecessary services and their costs. But how to do that, while they are still controlled by publishers and bundled into subscriptions in exchange for access? My answer is the one Mike calls "parasitic": Institutions and funders worldwide mandate Green OA (with the "copy-request" Button to circumvent publisher OA embargoes). The cancellations that that will make possible will force publishers to drop the unnecessary services and their costs and downsize to Fair-Gold for peer review alone.. 3. But I disagree with Mike about peer-review: it will remain the sole essential service. And the (oft-voiced) notion that peer-review can be replaced by crowd-sourcing, after "publication" is pure speculation, supported by no evidence that it can ensure quality at least as well as classical peer review, nor that is it scalable and sustainable

Associate Managing Editor - Open Access

Posted: 29 May 2015 08:18 AM PDT

"As an Associate Managing Editor-Open Access, you will be the leader of an Open Access-focused team within Wiley's Peer Review Management (PRM) team, and will have 2-3 direct reports. The ideal candidate will be detail-oriented and have interest in product development. The successful candidate will play a crucial role in guiding the development of the operation of Wiley's growing Open Access program through driving workflow efficiency...."

HHuLOA OA Good Practice project - open access and research development Tickets, York | Eventbrite

Posted: 29 May 2015 04:19 AM PDT

"The HEFCE REF Open Access policy is seeking to make open access an embedded part of research dissemination within institutions. This driver has been valuable in raising awareness of open access amongst academic staff, and provided a real impetus to getting open access processes and workflows established. As we work towards the implementation date in April 2016, there is a clear focus on the process detail of what needs to be put in place, and contrasting concerns around how the cultural change this deadline requires can be brought about, in both cases to ensure compliance. The Jisc Open Access Good Practice Pathfinder projects have been exploring the full range of issues related to rolling out open access for the HEFCE policy. HHuLOA has brought together three institutions that have a particular view on this. Hull, Huddersfield and Lincoln all carry out research, but would like to grow this capability over time. Given that open access is promoted as a means of increasing awareness of research outputs, and generate greater interest in the research of an institution, how might open access be able to contribute to the development of research? Where does open access sit in within research strategy, and what place does it have in growing research income and reputation? This event will encompass two parts: dissemination of the work carried out by the HHuLOA project to date, and a workshop to explore how open access can support research development that is building on this work. Please join us to learn about how the HEFCE open access stick can also be a strategic carrot for the research development of the institution and share your own experiences of this relationship."

UCL launches UK’s first fully Open Access university press

Posted: 29 May 2015 04:13 AM PDT

"UCL is pleased to announce the launch of UCL Press, the University's in house publishing arm. UCL Press will be the first fully Open Access university press in the UK with all books, journals and monographs freely available online, creating a diverse and accessible global knowledge resource. UCL Press aims to combine responsiveness, innovation and quality publishing to become the Open Access publisher of choice for authors, editors and readers. Using a range of Open Access platforms, UCL Press will publish cutting-edge research across all topics with books submitted by both UCL and non-UCL authors. The Press will mainly focus on scholarly monographs, textbooks and journals and its three inaugural titles include: Temptation in the Archives by Lisa Jardine, Treasures from UCL by Gillian Furlong and The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology: Characters and Collections by Alice Stevenson. The founding ethos of UCL Press builds upon UCL's wider commitment to communicating and engaging with the world. Open Access ensures academic research is accessible to everyone, as all publications are freely available online with no payment restrictions ..."

"Common Errors in Ecological Data Sharing" by Karina E. Kervin, William K. Michener et al.

Posted: 29 May 2015 04:02 AM PDT

[Abstract] Objectives: (1) to identify common errors in data organization and metadata completeness that would preclude a 'reader' from being able to interpret and re-use the data for a new purpose; and (2) to develop a set of best practices derived from these common errors that would guide researchers in creating more usable data products that could be readily shared, interpreted, and used. Methods: We used directed qualitative content analysis to assess and categorize data and metadata errors identified by peer reviewers of data papers published in the Ecological Society of America's (ESA) Ecological Archives. Descriptive statistics provided the relative frequency of the errors identified during the peer review process. Results: There were seven overarching error categories: Collection & Organization, Assure, Description, Preserve, Discover, Integrate, and Analyze/Visualize. These categories represent errors researchers regularly make at each stage of the Data Life Cycle. Collection & Organization and Description errors were some of the most common errors, both of which occurred in over 90% of the papers. Conclusions: Publishing data for sharing and reuse is error prone, and each stage of the Data Life Cycle presents opportunities for mistakes. The most common errors occurred when the researcher did not provide adequate metadata to enable others to interpret and potentially re-use the data. Fortunately, there are ways to minimize these mistakes through carefully recording all details about study context, data collection, QA/ QC, and analytical procedures from the beginning of a research project and then including this descriptive information in the metadata.

Open Access Monographs: Summary Report of Online Survey

Posted: 29 May 2015 03:48 AM PDT

"Though Open Access journals have captured much of the publishing industry's attention thus far, the scholarly monograph also offers the potential to change how libraries, publishers and researchers disseminate research. This is particularly true for humanities and social sciences researchers for whom the scholarly monograph remains the gold standard. As this movement grows, librarians face the daunting task of parsing, cataloguing and supporting patrons in the use of ever-increasing quantities of OA content outside of established channels while new institutional OA mandates are shifting the focus of library budgets and disrupting the acquisitions business model. Because of this, PCG is exploring the institutional impact on resource management and the potential shift from outright purchase to author publishing charges. Following on our 2014 OA Library Survey, this report specifically covers OA books and addresses acquisitions issues such as cataloguing of OA monographs, selection criteria and library outreach to educate the research community of OA resources. The survey investigates the evolution of library funds to cover publishing fees, alternative sources of funding from the university, spending priorities and emerging acquisitions models. Publishers were also asked about the involvement of their own organizations and their views of the future of OA book publishing."

Open Access Books Slowly on the Rise

Posted: 29 May 2015 01:27 AM PDT

Use the link to access the press release.

The Founders: The Evolution of edX at Harvard and MIT | News | Commencement 2015 | The Harvard Crimson

Posted: 29 May 2015 01:21 AM PDT

"In 2012, Harvard and MIT announced a collaboration that changed the virtual education landscape: edX, an online platform intended to make course material from the two schools available for free to a global audience. The founders shared a threefold mission—to expand access to education, improve teaching and learning on their campuses and online, and research the effects of their initiatives in order to improve teaching and learning. Today, the platform has partnered with more than 50 colleges and universities but remains governed by its co-founders, Harvard and MIT. But in the years since the schools introduced edX to the world, the platform has manifested itself on the two Cambridge campuses uniquely. More than 83 percent of undergraduates at MIT have used the school's Residential MITx system— a learning management system adapted, but separate, from edX—for a 'substantial' portion of the work in one or more of their courses, according to MITx's website and faculty involved in the program. Beyond that system, professors at MIT often harvest assignments and data from their Massive Online Open Courses they create on the platform and readapt them for their on-campus classes. While Harvard groups have made substantive efforts to introduce HarvardX into courses across the University, the platform has not had as much of a widespread presence on this campus as it has on MIT's ..."

Virginia Libraries: Vol. 61, 2015

Posted: 29 May 2015 01:17 AM PDT

Use the link to access the full text issue of the journal Virginia Libraries.  

Open Data Helps Nepal Earthquake

Posted: 29 May 2015 01:12 AM PDT

"Our hearts go out to the victims of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, and its surrounding areas on April 25th, 2015. With 120 aftershocks, there is very little Nepal could have done to prepare for such devastation. As relief teams file in to organize funding, sort through rubble, and assist those in need — organization is key. Fast Company tells a unique story about how open data is cutting costs, and increasing the timeliness of aid in Nepal. It's no secret open data is a key player in non-governmental organizations (NGO's) and disaster relief. As relief organizations develop and implement an assistance plan, time is rarely in their favor. With this realization, The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) created a unique platform to house open data and relief efforts under one roof. Human Data Exchange (HDX) is a simple interface with necessary geospatial data in simplified and usable formats to unify the information going out to all NGO's for a natural disaster. This merge minimizes NGO's planning time, and maximizes time alleviating those in despair. It is truly a win-win ..."

Open Data and Creativity in Africa | Sustainable Cities Collective

Posted: 29 May 2015 01:09 AM PDT

"What ripple effects occur when authorities make the data they own publicly accessible? Since Cape Town launched its open data policy, we found these 9+ examples of open data used effectively ..."

McMaster supports international declaration on open access | McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Posted: 29 May 2015 01:04 AM PDT

"McMaster has taken a significant step in support of open access publishing of scholarly research. The University is now a signatory to the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, a major international statement meant to encourage researchers to make their scholarly articles publicly available online, free of financial or legal barriers. The McMaster University Senate passed the motion to sign the Berlin Declaration in March 2015; McMaster University president Patrick Deane added his name to the list of signatories on behalf of the University earlier this month. The motion was brought to Senate by Nicholas Kevlahan, Senator and Chair of McMaster's Department of Mathematics & Statistics, in partnership with Vivian Lewis, McMaster University Librarian. Kevlahan says that by signing the Berlin Declaration, McMaster is underscoring the importance of publishing open access ..."

Elsevier clashes with researchers over open access publishing for academic texts - Rear Vision - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Posted: 29 May 2015 12:59 AM PDT

"Academic publishing is a multi-million dollar business dominated by just a few major publishing houses. Many academics and open access advocates believe that's unfair—publishers simply take researchers' work and sell it back to them, they say. Stan Correy takes a look at the state of play ..."

ThinkData Works and IBM Partner to Make Open Data More Accessible - MarketWatch

Posted: 29 May 2015 12:53 AM PDT

"IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it is now offering ThinkData Works' open data solution on IBM's platform-as-a-service, Bluemix, to give application developers access to clean, open data from all levels of government in Canada. By building up-to-date and relevant public data directly into Bluemix, IBM and ThinkData Works' Namara.io are providing developers, business, and citizens with the resources they need to innovative and build data-driven applications and services that can help solve industry problems and address new challenges in ways previously unavailable. This new access to high value data is currently leveraged by businesses of all sizes, from blue chip organizations providing services to millions of people, to small startups aiming to innovate within a specific sector, such as healthcare, banking, transportation and education. One of the main challenges currently facing open data is that most government organizations make data available in multiple locations, on separate portals and in conflicting formats. This makes it difficult to access in user-friendly ways, often deterring businesses and developers from working with the data altogether. To address this problem, Namara.io aggregates and catalogues all available data from multiple public sources and organizes them on a searchable platform. It then provides a common application program interface (API) to all its open data, making it simple to maintain content sharing among users and applications ..."

Elsevier Under Attack for it’s Open Access Policy | Library and Information Services Updates

Posted: 29 May 2015 12:48 AM PDT

"Publishing gants, Elsevier have recently come under attack for it's Open Access Policy. Experts are criticising them for creating 'unnecessary barriers', which are the opposite of what Open Access stands for. After the policy was revised in April, the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) denounced the changes and urged Elsevier to revise them. Backed by more than 32 organisations and 100 individuals, a petition was signed after an analysis by COAR and the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition concluded that the policy posed a 'significant obstacle to the dissemination and use of research knowledge, and creates unnecessary barriers for Elsevier published authors in complying with funders' open access policies'. Click below for further readings on the tsm ..."

IRUS-UK for EPrints - Online Forum Registration | Eventbrite

Posted: 29 May 2015 12:37 AM PDT

"Do you have an EPrints repository? Interested in tracking usage statistics? IRUS-UK (Institutional Repository Usage Statistics - UK) are hosting an online forum for anyone interested in discussing usage statistics for EPrints repositories. The forum will be participative in nature, using webinar software to host the discussion. The discussion will be technical in nature, including discussion of installation of the COUNTER-recommended Tracker Protocol, and discussion on best practice in cataloguing and exposing metadata. Current IRUS-UK users will be attending to share their experiences as part of the discussion. We also welcome additional topics for discussion – you can add these when you book your place. Anyone is welcome to join (this is not just for current IRUS-UK participants or just for UK repositories)."

OAPEN Milestone: two million downloads

Posted: 29 May 2015 12:26 AM PDT

"We are happy to announce that, earlier this month, we have reached the milestone of two million book downloads from the OAPEN Library. This is the number of downloads since we started measuring through a COUNTER compliant method with support of IRUS-UK in August 2013. We would like to thank all publishers and research funders for their essential contributions and all libraries, aggregators, and readers for making use of our platform ..."

Knowledge Without Boundaries: eifl 2014 Annual Report

Posted: 29 May 2015 12:06 AM PDT

Use the link to access the report.  

Hybrid Journals: Ensuring Systematic and Standard Discoverability of the Latest Open Access Articles - The Serials Librarian - Volume 68, Issue 1-4

Posted: 28 May 2015 11:59 PM PDT

Use the link to access pay-per-view options for the article published in The Serials Librarian available from Taylor and Francis.[Abstract] An important current challenge for research information providers is ensuring the automated discovery of Open Access (OA) content in hybrid journals. We found no evidence of discovery services that are able to systematically identify the crucially important free full-text availability of OA articles regardless of where and how such articles have been published (i.e., in fully OA journals or in hybrid journals). A solution is important because hybrid journals are proliferating and consequently the chances of missing OA articles is real and is happening. Nearly all of the major publishers now provide such journals in order to take advantage of recent changes in research funder requirements, and to be competitive in the new OA business model. By working with a group of scholarly publisher partners and by using standard metadata elements that publishers are already familiar with, we show a systematic and standardized manner to identify OA at the article level. Our proposal is to embed OA-related elements in the metadata freely exposed by publishers for aggregators and discovery services. For example, in the Table of Content (TOC) Really Simple Syndication feeds the publishers use to announce new journal issues and content. Based on the initial results obtained, we discuss the capabilities of our solution, and evaluate the impact produced by our application in the systematic discoverability of OA content from the participating hybrid journals, using an implementation done with the freely available journal current awareness service—JournalTOCs.

COAR » Re COAR-recting the record

Posted: 28 May 2015 11:53 PM PDT

"On Wednesday May 20, we published a joint Statement against Elsevier's sharing policy. There are now close to 700 signatories to that statement after just one week. In response to the statement, there have been a number of comments on the COAR website, including a comment by Alicia Wise, Elsevier's Director of Access and Policy. You can see her comments at the bottom of the page. In response to this comments, COAR and SPARC have prepared some specific recommendations for Elsevier in terms of how they can improve their policy. These have been posted also on the webpage and are copied below ..."

APC pricing that depends on how much work is involved | Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir les savoirs communs

Posted: 28 May 2015 11:39 PM PDT

"A number of the variations on pricing we see at can be summed up as variable pricing depending on how much work is involved (which seems logical when you think about it). The Journal of Venom Research provides a great example of this approach. The basic OA APC (per year) is GBP 475. This covers unlimited publishing for one year for articles within the recommended size limits. There are extra charges for: extra pages 'if figures, line drawings or tables are of insufficient quality and standard, and do not conform to the journal style, and have to be re-drawn, re-sized or converted into the correct format by the Publisher (minimum charge GB £25 per item). In multi-part figures each part constitutes one item. Authors are generally notified of this at the time of manuscript revision'. extensive reference formatting 'Costs of extensive formatting of references will be passed on to the authors (minimum £50)'. Comment: I like this approach. It gives authors and funders an opportunity to consider whether a little extra work to keep the cost down is worth it or not. Perhaps some of the extra pages can become supplementary material and deposited in the institutional repository rather than being included in the article. A busy author may find the optional work and charges convenient; a poor author may find it worthwhile to do the extra work to keep the costs down. This post is part of the open access article processing charges project ..."
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