New Location

This blog has moved to a new location: http://scholcomm.bc.edu

Open Access To Research: An Ideal Complicated By Reality

The article "Open Access To Research: An Ideal Complicated By Reality" appeared in Forbes on 29th July. Though the authors support open access and the new Obama-administration policy, details of which are to be announced in August, they point out that some kinds of research conducted at university, “primarily government-funded classified research and some industry-sponsored research—do not always appear in scientific publications and are sometimes at odds with the ideal of transparency and open communication of knowledge”. 

Debate over Dissertation Embargoes

Last week the American Historical Association issued a statement recommending that University policies allow extended embargo periods for history dissertations in order to give adequate time for their authors to publish.
Debate on this issue has been swirling in scholarly communication circles for some time, reflecting and probably causing, a fair amount of anxiety among students. Often the debate is fueled by misinformation.
On Thursday the Harvard University Press blog included a very evenhanded post on the issue.
For the full flavor of the opinion, please read the whole post, but below are a few important points:

"Most people involved in this discussion likely understand that a publication-ready dissertation is a rare thing. Generally speaking, when we at HUP take on a young scholar’s first book, whether in history or other disciplines, we expect that the final product will be so broadened, deepened, reconsidered, and restructured that the availability of the dissertation is irrelevant.  ....

 HUP Assistant Editor Brian Distelberg, for instance, notes how a project’s discoverability can be the means by which his interest is sparked:

I’m always looking out for exciting new scholarship that might make for a good book, whether in formally published journal articles and conference programs, or in the conversation on Twitter and in the history blogosphere, or in conversations with scholars I meet. And so, to whatever extent open access to a dissertation increases the odds of its ideas being read and discussed more widely, I tend to think it increases the odds of my hearing about them

 In this whole discussion, academic publishers tend to be characterized as a strangely passive lot, sitting back, keeping the gate, waiting for scholars to come to us and meet our terms for entry. If that was ever the case, it certainly is no longer. An enormous part of a university press acquisitions editor’s job is to be out scouting for new voices, new ideas, and new inquiries. And as Distelberg notes, much of that scouting takes place online, where these conversations are happening. If you can’t find it, you can’t sign it."

Transcribe Bentham: A Participatory Initiative

Transcribe Bentham is a collaborative transcription initiative whose goal is to digitize and make available digital images of the unpublished manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832), the utilitarian philosopher. The project is based at University College London. There are 60,000 papers written by Bentham in UCL’s library but several thousands of these papers, potentially of immense historical and philosophical importance, have yet to be transcribed and studied. By transcribing this material for the first time, two important tasks will be accomplished:

• making Bentham’s thought accessible to the world at large
• and helping UCL’s Bentham Project, which was founded in 1959 to produce the new, authoritative edition of the Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham.

Anyone can participate in this project. "You do not need any specialist knowledge or training, technical expertise, or historical background: just some enthusiasm (and, perhaps, some patience)."

Volunteers are asked to encode their transcripts in Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)-compliant XML. The project managers realize that this may seem off-putting to some volunteers. Accordingly, in an attempt to make the addition of mark-up as straightforward as possible they have created the ‘Transcription Toolbar’. Instead of typing the tags oneself, simply clicking on a button will generate the required piece of mark-up.

For more information  see the Transcribe Bentham website.

Fred Friend on the state of Open Access: Where are we, what still needs to be done?

Richard Poynder interviews Fred Friend "on the state of Open Access: Where are we, what still needs to be done?"

Friend has little time for hybrid journals:

The concept of hybrid subscription/APC-paid gold OA journals looked attractive when they first appeared but the model has not been implemented widely. Even ignoring suspicions of “double-dipping”, the model has suffered from the flaws in both the subscription and APC-paid models. Rather than overcoming the flaws in the subscription model, hybrid journals have added to those flaws the flaws in the APC-paid model. 

In principle hybrid journals could have assisted in a transition to an individual-article publishing model, but the continuing publisher accounting model by journal title rather than by individual article has rendered hybrid journals ineffective as a mechanism for change. Journal titles are a convenient way of grouping related articles but are not a good basis for cost-effective business models.  

Friend's expectations for OA in 2013:

Obviously more growth in OA content and commitment, but perhaps even more important are the stories we are beginning to hear of the value of sharing research and teaching resources freely across the world. 

Open access is good in itself, but the real benefit from the ability of researchers, teachers and learners to share content without financial, legal or technical barriers lies in the intellectual, economic and social growth which results from that sharing. 

Click here for the complete interview.

The British Library's Renaissance Festival Books

Festival: Entry of Ernst, Archduke of Austria, into Antwerp (14 June, 1594)

Page details: Illustration View of the procession making its way through the countryside towards Antwerp. 

The British Library has digitized 253 Renaissance festival books (selected from over 2,000 in the BL's collection) that describe the magnificent festivals and ceremonies that took place in Europe between 1475 and 1700 - marriages and funerals of royalty and nobility, coronations, stately entries into cities and other grand events. The books are presented in their original languages, and include bindings, preliminary material, title pages and dedications. The texts are fully searchable using a wide range of search terms, covering such areas as participants (named in the titles of the books), places, topics, bibliographical details, and elements of the visual and performing arts.

Images of Works of Art in Museum Collections: The Experience of Open Access; A Study of 11 Museums

The Council on Library and Information Resources recently published the report Images of Works of Art in Museum Collections: The Experience of Open Access; A Study of 11 Museums. Authored by Kristin Kelly, the report was prepared for The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The following museums are included in the study:

• British Museum, London
• Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis
• J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Morgan Library and Museum, New York
• National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• Victoria and Albert Museum, London
• Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
• Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
• Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven

From the Report's Executive Summary:

This report describes the current approaches of 11 art museums in the United States and the United Kingdom to the use of images of works of art that are in their collections and are in the public domain. Each approach is slightly different. By presenting the thought processes and methods used in these institutions, this report aims to inform the decision making of other museums that are considering open access to images in their collections. 

Following are the key findings presented in this report: 

• Providing open access is a mission-driven decision.
• Different museums look at open access in different ways.
• Internal process is important.
• Loss of control fades as a concern.
• Technology matters.
• Revenue matters less than many institutions think it does.
• Change is good.

Treaty to boost access for visually impaired

From today's WIPO press release:

International negotiators meeting under the auspices of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) adopted today a landmark new treaty that boosts access to books for the benefit of hundreds of millions of people who are blind, visually impaired and print-disabled.
The treaty, approved after more than a week of intense debate among negotiators gathered in Marrakesh, Morocco, is the culmination of years of work on improving access for the blind, visually impaired, and print disabled to published works in formats such as Braille, large print text and audio books.....

The treaty, called the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or otherwise Print Disabled, addresses the “book famine” by requiring its contracting parties to adopt national law provisions that permit the reproduction, distribution and making available of published works in accessible formats through limitations and exceptions to the rights of copyright rightholders.
It also provides for the exchange of these accessible format works across borders by organizations that serve the people who are blind, visually impaired, and print disabled. It will harmonize limitations and exceptions so that these organizations can operate across borders. This sharing of works in accessible formats should increase the overall number of works available because it will eliminate duplication and increase efficiency. Instead of five countries producing accessible versions of the same work, the five countries will each be able to produce an accessible version of a different work, which can then be shared with each of the other countries.

We will need to follow closely how this is adopted and implemented in the US.

Duelling proposals to provide repository services

From The Chronicle of Higher Education:

As federal agencies scramble to meet an August 22 deadline to comply with a recent White House directive to expand public access to research, a group of university and library organizations says it has a workable, higher-education-driven solution.This week, the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, and the Association of Research Libraries are offering a plan they call the Shared Access Research Ecosystem, or Share.
Share would expand on systems that universities and libraries have long been building to support the sharing and preservation of research. The groups behind Share have been circulating a document, dated June 7, that lays out the basics behind the idea.
Academic institutions have invested heavily in “the infrastructure, tools, and services necessary to provide effective and efficient access to their research and scholarship,” the document says. “Share envisions that universities will collaborate with the federal government and others to host cross-institutional digital repositories of public-access research publications.”

In the meantime, a group of publishers have proposed a public private partnership plan of their own:

A group of scholarly publishers is proposing a publisher-run partnership to make it easier for agencies and researchers to comply with the federal government’s new open-access policy.
Called Chorus—the Clearinghouse for the Open Research of the United States—the partnership would use publishers’ existing infrastructure to identify and provide free access to peer-reviewed articles based on publicly supported research. The proposal comes as an August deadline looms for federal agencies to comply with the new policy.

Kevin Smith examines the two proposals and finds fault with CHORUS:

First, I think CHORUS is being touted, at least in what I have read, by comparing it to a straw man.  Its principle virtue seems to be that it would not cost the government as much as setting up lots of government-run repositories, clones of PubMed Central.  But it is not clear that that option is being seriously suggested by anyone.  Certainly many of us encouraged the agencies to look at the benefits of PMC for inspiration and not sacrifice those benefits in their own plans, but that does not mean that each agency must “reinvent the wheel,” no matter how successful that wheel has been.  So the principle virtue of CHORUS seems to be that it does not do what no one is suggesting be done.
The most important thing to understand about CHORUS is that it is a dark archive.  The research papers in CHORUS would not be directly accessible to anyone; they would be “illuminated” only if a “trigger event” occurred.  Routine access would, instead, be provided on the proprietary platforms of each publisher, while the CHORUS site would simply collect metadata about the openly-accessible articles and point researchers to the specific publisher platforms.
- See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2013/06/10/better-than-joining-the-chorus/#sthash.ERNFc2Jl.dpuf

First, I think CHORUS is being touted, at least in what I have read, by comparing it to a straw man.  Its principle virtue seems to be that it would not cost the government as much as setting up lots of government-run repositories, clones of PubMed Central.  But it is not clear that that option is being seriously suggested by anyone.  Certainly many of us encouraged the agencies to look at the benefits of PMC for inspiration and not sacrifice those benefits in their own plans, but that does not mean that each agency must “reinvent the wheel,” no matter how successful that wheel has been.  So the principle virtue of CHORUS seems to be that it does not do what no one is suggesting be done.
The most important thing to understand about CHORUS is that it is a dark archive.  The research papers in CHORUS would not be directly accessible to anyone; they would be “illuminated” only if a “trigger event” occurred.  Routine access would, instead, be provided on the proprietary platforms of each publisher, while the CHORUS site would simply collect metadata about the openly-accessible articles and point researchers to the specific publisher platforms.
- See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2013/06/10/better-than-joining-the-chorus/#sthash.h5ouYCOV.dpuf

First, I think CHORUS is being touted, at least in what I have read, by comparing it to a straw man. Its principle virtue seems to be that it would not cost the government as much as setting up lots of government-run repositories, clones of PubMed Central. But it is not clear that that option is being seriously suggested by anyone. Certainly many of us encouraged the agencies to look at the benefits of PMC for inspiration and not sacrifice those benefits in their own plans, but that does not mean that each agency must “reinvent the wheel,” no matter how successful that wheel has been. So the principle virtue of CHORUS seems to be that it does not do what no one is suggesting be done.


The most important thing to understand about CHORUS is that it is a dark archive. The research papers in CHORUS would not be directly accessible to anyone; they would be “illuminated” only if a “trigger event” occurred. Routine access would, instead, be provided on the proprietary platforms of each publisher, while the CHORUS site would simply collect metadata about the openly-accessible articles and point researchers to the specific publisher platforms.

First, I think CHORUS is being touted, at least in what I have read, by comparing it to a straw man.  Its principle virtue seems to be that it would not cost the government as much as setting up lots of government-run repositories, clones of PubMed Central.  But it is not clear that that option is being seriously suggested by anyone.  Certainly many of us encouraged the agencies to look at the benefits of PMC for inspiration and not sacrifice those benefits in their own plans, but that does not mean that each agency must “reinvent the wheel,” no matter how successful that wheel has been.  So the principle virtue of CHORUS seems to be that it does not do what no one is suggesting be done.
The most important thing to understand about CHORUS is that it is a dark archive.  The research papers in CHORUS would not be directly accessible to anyone; they would be “illuminated” only if a “trigger event” occurred.  Routine access would, instead, be provided on the proprietary platforms of each publisher, while the CHORUS site would simply collect metadata about the openly-accessible articles and point researchers to the specific publisher platforms.
- See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2013/06/10/better-than-joining-the-chorus/#sthash.ERNFc2Jl.dpuf

First, I think CHORUS is being touted, at least in what I have read, by comparing it to a straw man.  Its principle virtue seems to be that it would not cost the government as much as setting up lots of government-run repositories, clones of PubMed Central.  But it is not clear that that option is being seriously suggested by anyone.  Certainly many of us encouraged the agencies to look at the benefits of PMC for inspiration and not sacrifice those benefits in their own plans, but that does not mean that each agency must “reinvent the wheel,” no matter how successful that wheel has been.  So the principle virtue of CHORUS seems to be that it does not do what no one is suggesting be done.
The most important thing to understand about CHORUS is that it is a dark archive.  The research papers in CHORUS would not be directly accessible to anyone; they would be “illuminated” only if a “trigger event” occurred.  Routine access would, instead, be provided on the proprietary platforms of each publisher, while the CHORUS site would simply collect metadata about the openly-accessible articles and point researchers to the specific publisher platforms.
- See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2013/06/10/better-than-joining-the-chorus/#sthash.siJhUCGr.dpuf

First, I think CHORUS is being touted, at least in what I have read, by comparing it to a straw man.  Its principle virtue seems to be that it would not cost the government as much as setting up lots of government-run repositories, clones of PubMed Central.  But it is not clear that that option is being seriously suggested by anyone.  Certainly many of us encouraged the agencies to look at the benefits of PMC for inspiration and not sacrifice those benefits in their own plans, but that does not mean that each agency must “reinvent the wheel,” no matter how successful that wheel has been.  So the principle virtue of CHORUS seems to be that it does not do what no one is suggesting be done.
The most important thing to understand about CHORUS is that it is a dark archive.  The research papers in CHORUS would not be directly accessible to anyone; they would be “illuminated” only if a “trigger event” occurred.  Routine access would, instead, be provided on the proprietary platforms of each publisher, while the CHORUS site would simply collect metadata about the openly-accessible articles and point researchers to the specific publisher platforms.
- See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2013/06/10/better-than-joining-the-chorus/#sthash.siJhUCGr.dpuf

UNESCO Publications to be Open Access

UNESCO is making its publications open access, that is freely available to anyone with internet access.

Extracts from Press Release:

UNESCO will make its digital publications available to millions of people around the world free-of-charge with an open license. Following a decision by the Organization’s Executive Board in April, UNESCO has become the first member of the United Nations to adopt such an Open Access policy for its publications. The new policy means that anyone will be able to download, translate, adapt, distribute and re-share UNESCO publications and data without paying.. . . 

Starting from July 2013, hundreds of downloadable digital UNESCO publications will be available to users through a new Open Access Repository with a multilingual interface. All new publications will be released with an open license. UNESCO will also seek ways to apply it retroactively, i.e. to works already published.. If UNESCO enters into special agreements with publishing partners the Open Access policy need not apply. Co-publishers will be strongly encouraged to adhere to the requirements of the new policy. 

By championing Open Access for its publications, UNESCO reinforces a fundamental goal of an Intergovernmental Organization - to ensure that all the knowledge it creates is made available to the widest possible audience.

Darwin Correspondence Project: Darwin-Hooker Letters

A recent press release by the University of Cambridge states that the 40-year friendship of Charles Darwin and Joseph Hooker, the most significant and scientifically important of Darwin’s life, can now be explored by anyone in the world with access to the Internet.

Their decades of correspondence include Darwin’s most famous letter, where he first cautiously reveals not only that he thinks species change, but also that he has worked out a completely new theory as to how. Giving voice to such a theory, he admits, is like ‘confessing a murder’.

The 1,200 letters between Darwin and Hooker, 300 of which have not been published before, are being made available in more than 5,000 images by Cambridge’s Digital Library (http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/) - which launched to millions of ‘hits’ with the online publication of Isaac Newton’s archive in 2011.

For more information, and links to selected letters see: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwin-hooker-letters.

Wellcome Trust Supports Open Access Award Programme

The Wellcome Trust has joined with the Public Library of Science and Google to launch the Accelerating Science Award Program (ASAP) to recognise the use of scientific research, published through open access, that has led to innovations in any field that benefit society. 

This new, innovative programme recognises individuals who have used, applied or remixed scientific research - published through open access - to innovate and make a difference in science, medicine, business, technology or society as a whole. Potential nominees include individuals, teams or groups of collaborators (such as scientists, researchers, educators, social services, technology leaders, entrepreneurs, policy makers, patient advocates, public health workers and students) who have used scientific research in transformative ways.. . . 

ASAP is sponsored by 24 global organisations that value the transformative impact of applying scientific research, published through open access, to extend the reach of science and medicine.

Click here for the full press release

MIT's Global Open Access Outreach

Four years after MIT faculty established their Open Access Policy to facilitate the widest outreach possible globally to their research, Ellen Finnie Duranceau, MIT's Program Manager, Scholarly Publishing and Licensing, provided a fascinating analysis of where MIT's scholarship is being downloaded:

Only one-third of the use originates in the United States, while North America as a whole accounts for 36% of the activity. Downloads are otherwise widely distributed, with even the well-populated and research-intensive countries of China, India, and the UK contributing just 10%, 6%, and 5% respectively. Downloads from around the world include those from Nigeria and Argentina (both 0.1%), Estonia (.05%) and Malta (.02%). Europe is the origin of consistent activity, including from Italy (2%), Poland (0.7%), and Spain (.01%). Australia and New Zealand account for an additional 2% of downloads.

Open Educational Resources as Learning Materials

ARL has released a pre-publication version of an article on “OpenEducational Resources as Learning Materials: Prospects and Strategies forUniversity Libraries,” which will be featured in the forthcoming Research Library Issues (RLI) no. 280.

In this article, authors Marilyn S. Billings, Sarah C. Hutton, Jay Schafer, Charles M. Schweik, and Matt Sheridan provide an overview of open educational resources (OERs), discuss faculty use of OERs as alternatives to traditional resources, and describe the new Open Education Initiative at University of Massachusetts Amherst including the challenges and opportunities it presents. The authors conclude:

While assessment of student and faculty satisfaction is still under way, preliminary indications are that both groups are very satisfied with efforts to challenge the existing model of expensive commercial textbooks with a model using OERs. One-time savings to students of over $205,000 have resulted from an initial investment of $27,000—and these savings will multiply each time the course is taught. Working with faculty and commercial publishers to promote and facilitate the adoption of open educational resources and other hybrid models places the libraries in an excellent position to uphold their public land-grant mission and to gain support from campus administration, parents, and students.

Nature Publishes Special Issue: The Future of Publishing

Nature's latest special issue, The Future of Publishing (March 28th, 2013), addresses the many benefits, as well as some perils (identity theft of a scholarly journal!), found in an increasingly digital world of scholarly publishing.  Articles on open access literature and data discuss the role transformations required of researchers and libraries in this changing landscape.  Another raises logical questions about the high cost and relative value of scholarly publishers arising when inexpensive open access is an option.  One article highlights the enhanced discovery, as well as more elemental packaging, of article/research content allowed by open access and search engine enhancements.  Public access advocates give their prescriptions for pushing forward in this realm, while others address the straw men thrown up by those opposed to the Creative Commons attribution license. An interview with Robert Darnton, Director of the Harvard University Library, anticipates the April 18 - 19 launch of the Digital Public Library of America. 

Journal of Library Administration's Editorial Board Resigns

The Editor and Editorial Board for the Journal of Library Administration have recently resigned due to the Journal’s restrictive author’s rights. Damon E. Jaggers, the former Editors  of JLA, has written:

“The Board believes that the licensing terms in the Taylor & Francis author agreement are too restrictive and out-of-step with the expectations of authors in the LIS community . . . . A large and growing number of current and potential authors to JLA have pushed back on the licensing terms included in the Taylor & Francis author agreement. Several authors have refused to publish with the journal under the current licensing terms. Several others have demanded to add addenda to the author agreement to clarify what they find to be confusing language about the exclusivity of the publishing rights Taylor & Francis requires . . . .After much discussion, the only alternative presented by Taylor & Francis tied a less restrictive license to a $2995 per article fee to be paid by the author.  As you know, this is not a viable licensing option for authors from the LIS community who are generally not conducting research under large grants. . . .Thus, the Board came to the conclusion that it is not possible to produce a quality journal under the current licensing terms offered by Taylor & Francis and chose to collectively resign.”

To learn more about this resignation, take a look at this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and a blog entry from the Association of College & Research Libraries.

French Scholars Say ‘Oui’ to Open Access

On 15 March sixty senior French humanities and social sciences academics published a statement in Le Monde expressing support of open access. The Time Higher Education provides an overview of the statement.

Extract:

. . . . The signatories, who include university presidents, librarians and journal editors, warn that if the humanities and social sciences were to opt out of wider moves towards open access they “would become isolated and ultimately extinct”. The statement, titled “Who Is Afraid of Open Access?”, was published on 15 March and has received more than 2,000 endorsements on a dedicated website, I love open access . . . .

It says open access has the potential to “take knowledge out of silos” and allow it to play its “pivotal role” in the “collective growth” of society. 

The statement also highlights the success of open access in Latin America, which it says demonstrates its potential to break the dominance of English-language journals, enabling a “plurality of viewpoints, modes of publication, scientific paradigms, and languages”. 

To fear open access is “to commit oneself to a narrow - and, in fact, erroneous - vision of the future”, it says. “The humanities and social sciences can be at the forefront of this opening movement precisely because there is an increasing social demand for their research results.”

Extracts from the actual statement in Le Monde:

. . . . Qui a peur de l'accès ouvert ? L'accès privatif bride la dissémination des idées et est inadapté aux nouveaux paradigmes offerts par le numérique. Il est temps de voir dans le Web une formidable occasion dans le domaine de l'innovation, de la diffusion des savoirs et de l'émergence de nouvelles idées. 

Nous n'avons pas peur de l'accès ouvert. Sortir les savoirs des silos et des frontières des campus, c'est les ouvrir à tous, c'est reconnaître à la connaissance un rôle moteur dans nos sociétés, c'est ouvrir des perspectives d'enrichissement collectif. . . . 

New EU Initiative: Opening up Scientific Data

In Stockholm on Monday, 18 March, 2013, Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, announced that all scientists receiving funding from European Union sources will be required to publish their results as Open Access. She also discussed the launch of the global Research Data Alliance.

Extracts from Ms. Kroes's speech:

First, the EU is supporting open science. Because I know that we can advance these goals through our policies and platforms. And because I know that our society and our future are best served through science that is faster, better and more open. 

The EU has long invested in research and innovation. Now, even in these difficult times, EU leaders have agreed to significantly increase that investment. It's the right thing to do: faced with weak growth, we must all the more focus on future growth, and all the more ensure the tools and knowledge that can make us more productive. 

But taxpayers who are paying for that research will want to see something back. Directly – through open access to results and data. And indirectly – through making science work better for all of us. 

That's why we will require open access to all publications stemming from EU-funded research. That's why we will progressively open access to the research data, too. And why we're asking national funding bodies to do the same.

More specifically, we are investing in the iCordi project: a leading global forum to chart, demonstrate and drive convergence between emerging data infrastructures. And of course iCordi also supports this Alliance. 

All in all, we are putting openness at the heart of EU research and innovation funding.

Commentary about this new initiative is available in today's Wall Street Journal. More about the global Research Data Alliance is available here.

You Say You Want a Revolution? - Open Access on the March

Abby Clobridge has published a brief, though informative, overview of the Open Access movement over the past year or so. Her article is entitled "You Say You Want a Revolution? - Open Access on the March" and it appears in the March/April 2013 issue of Online Searcher. After focusing on recent OA developments in the "watershed year" of 2012, Clobridge discusses such topics as funding models to support OA publishing, OA awareness, advocacy, author rights, library as publisher, repository management, how to find OA content. She also briefly considers the important question of how to measure the impact and value of open access.

Open Access Explained

PhD Comics have an entertaining, and also very informative, video about scholarly communication issues and open access. It's entitled "Open Access Explained."

"Gold on Hold" -- Editorial in Nature

A 26 February 2013 editorial in Nature while welcoming aspects of the White House's recent Open Access policy expresses disappointment that the policy does not go far enough. Indeed it states that complete OA to research was undermined by the announcement.

The US Office of Science and Technology Policy has asked federal agencies to prepare plans to ensure that all articles and data produced from research that they fund are made publicly accessible within 12 months of publication. That delayed-access approach would have looked progressive five years ago, when the US National Institutes of Health was first putting into practice its mandate that (at least) the authors’ final versions of papers must be freely available within a maximum of a year of publishing — a ‘green’ open-access approach, with which this publication has consistently complied. But in 2013, it looks as if a combination of financial constraints and a lack of firm resolve at the top of the US government is blocking movement towards the policy that ultimately benefits science the most: ‘gold’ open access, in which the published article is immediately freely available, paid for by a processing charge rather than by readers’ subscriptions.

The full editorial

eLife Peer Review Model

The new open access publication eLife has a unique group of funders (The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Wellcome Trust, and the Max Planck Society) and employs an interesting new peer review model.
When a submitted article is invited for full peer review, it is assigned to a review editor. The peer reviewers, all active scientists, share and discuss their comments with each other. The review editor uses the comments to write one letter back to the author with instructions.
eLife describes the process:

Reviewers get together online to discuss their recommendations – communicating openly with one another before a decision is reached, refining their feedback, and working to provide clear and concise guidance to authors. If the work needs essential revision before it can be published, the reviewing editor incorporates those requirements into a single set of instructions for the author to move ahead to the next step. We aim to deliver decisions after peer review within four weeks.

Once the final article is published -- this Decision Letter is part of the material openly accessible with the article. The Author's response to the letter is also published, along with reader comments.
This gives the review process unprecedented transparency.

Important OA Directive from the White House

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has issued a directive requiring Federal agencies to develop plans to support greater accessibility of funded research. This is very big news -- it clears the way for other agencies to follow NIH and make their funded research open to the public. An important paragraph of the directive:

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) hereby directs each Federal agency with over $100 million in annual conduct of research and development expenditures to develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the Federal Government. This includes any results published in peer-reviewed scholarly publications that are based on research that directly arises from Federal funds, as defined in relevant OMB circulars (e.g., A-21 and A-11). It is preferred that agencies work together, where appropriate, to develop these plans.

Peter Suber comments:

This is big. It's big in its own right, and even bigger when put together with FASTR <http://bit.ly/hoap-fastr>, the bipartisan OA bill introduced into both houses of Congress just eight days ago. We now have OA mandates coming from both the executive and legislative branches of government.

White House Announcement

SPARC Applauds Landmark Directive

Science and the Public Parlay: Come a Little Bit Closer

Robin Lloyd in a Scientific American blog posting “Science and the Public Parlay: Come a Little Bit Closer" considers the  bill "Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR)". More on this bill below. Lloyd also considers a number of interesting topics devoted to digital tools for communicating science discussed at the last week's annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science.

Important new OA bill in Congress

A new bill has been introduced in both houses of Congress. It is called Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR).
The bill is similar to FRPAA, which was reintroduced in several Congressional sessions but never passed. It would strengthen the NIH public access mandate and extend it to other Federal agencies.

Comments from the bill's sponsors:

"This bill will give the American people greater access to the important scientific research results they’ve paid for,” Congressman Doyle said today.“Supporting greater collaboration among researchers in the sciences will accelerate scientific innovation and discovery, while giving the public a greater return on their scientific investment.”

“The scientific research community benefits when they are able to share important research and cooperate across scientific fields. Likewise, taxpayers should not be required to pay twice for federally-funded research,” said Congressman Yoder. “This legislation is common sense, and promotes more transparency, accountability, and cooperation within the scientific research community."

"Everyday American taxpayer dollars are supporting researchers and scientists hard at work, when this information is shared, it can be used as a building block for future discoveries," said Representative Lofgren.  "Greater public access can accelerate breakthroughs, where  robust collaborative research can lead to faster commercialization and immense benefits for the public and our economy."

Peter Suber analyzes the bill and compares it FRPAA. 
Full text of the bill.

Publisher Attitudes on ETDs and Prior Publication

Doctoral students frequently ask if making their dissertation/thesis open access can result in publishers, book and/or journal, refusing to consider their work for potential publication.  It’s an important question but also one that’s impossible to answer for all publishers. In the vast publishing community there are many different attitudes about prior publication and open access ETDs. Generally, the best advice for doctoral students is to become familiar with publisher policies in their disciplinary areas and inquire of potential publishers about their specific policies.

There are two articles that students might consult to ascertain some publisher views on this topic. The first is Gail McMillan et al. An Investigation of ETDs as Prior Publications: Findings From the 2011 NDLTD Publishers’ Survey (Sept. 2011).  This provides the very useful results of a 2011 survey of journal editors' and university press directors' attitudes toward online theses and dissertations. The data and the open-ended comments from the survey respondents indicate support for open access to ETDs. The second article is by Jane Morris, Scholarly Communication Librarian, Boston College. It’s entitled “Frequently asked: eTDs and Prior Publication” and it appeared in the Fall 2012 issue of the BC Library Newsletter. Jane goes over some of the issues students should be aware of if they are planning to publish a book and/or articles from their thesis or dissertation. She also provides the very useful observation that there are three often-repeated themes in university advice on this ETD and prior publication issue:

•         A book created from a dissertation is usually heavily revised and becomes a quite different work.

•         Publishers in different fields have different views on prior publication, and you should become familiar with the policies in your field.

•         If you are in doubt, select a reasonable embargo period for your dissertation, keeping it in the dark until you have had a chance to negotiate with potential publishers.

Which is More Cost-Effective: Gold OA or Green OA?

In the current issue of D-Lib Magazine John Houghton, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia and Alma Swan, Key Perspectives, Truro, United Kingdom, argue that disseminating scholarship through open access (OA) is clearly more cost-effective than traditional subscription or toll-access publishing. They also consider the relative merits of Gold OA versus Green OA. They conclude: "In an all-OA world, it seems likely that the net benefits of Gold OA would exceed those of Green OA, although Green OA would have a higher benefit/cost ratio. However, we are not in an all-OA world yet, nor anywhere near it. The most affordable and cost-effective means of moving towards OA in the meantime is through Green OA, which can be adopted unilaterally at the funder, institutional, sectoral and national levels at little cost. Moreover, Green OA may well be the most immediate and cost-effective way to support knowledge transfer and enable innovation across the economy."

Their article is entitled "Planting the Green Seeds for a Golden Harvest: Comments and Clarifications on 'Going for Gold'."

New: Open Library of Humanities

From The Chronicle of Higher Education: Project Aims to Bring PLoS-Style Openness to the Humanities

Several recent publishing ventures and platforms, including the Open Humanities Press and Anvil Academic, are investigating how to bring more open-access journals and monographs online. A brand-spanking-new nonprofit organization, called the Open Library of Humanities, aims to create a humanities-and-social-sciences version of the successful Public Library of Science, or PLoS, which in the past decade has established itself as a major presence in open-access, peer-reviewed scientific publishing. Like PLoS, the Open Library of Humanities, or OLH, will be peer-reviewed.

Library Copyright Alliance Comments on Orphan Works

The Library Copyright Alliance, a group of three national library associations representing over 100,000 United States libraries, has filed comments on the Copyright Office notice of inquiry regarding Orphan Works and Mass Digitization.
In the past the LCA has supported legislation on the issue of orphan works -- works whose copyright owner cannot be readily determined or contacted for permission to digitize the work. The new comments take quite a different tack and indicate a new confidence in the strength of fair use:

LCA welcomes this opportunity to comment on the Copyright Office’s October 22, 2012, Notice of Inquiry concerning Orphan Works and Mass Digitization. LCA has a long history of involvement in this issue. It provided extensive comments to the Copyright Office during the course of the Office’s study that led to the Office’s 2006 Orphan Works Report. LCA also actively participated in the negotiations concerning the orphan works legislation introduced in the 109th and the 110th Congresses. Although LCA strongly supported enactment of these bills, significant changes in the copyright landscape over the past seven years convince us that libraries no longer need  legislative reform in order to make appropriate uses of orphan works. (emphasis added)

Open Access to Data for a New, Open Science

In their December 2012 article, "Open Access to data for a new, open science," in European Journal of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (Europa Medicophysica) E. Giglia and A. Swan discuss the increasing importance that authors provide access to their data in their scholarly publications.

Excerpts: 

The Internet has dramatically changed both the way we do and share research and the way we access and preserve information. 

In a print-on-paper age all you could publish was a summary of a research or experiment, in the form of a scientific article. The web now allows us to make public the whole dataset of raw data which stand behind the research or the experiment: we are in the transition between “scientific articles” and “scientific records”, which contain more. New concepts like “nanopublications” or “enhanced publications” were born; more and more journals such as Nature Genetics require authors to publish data alongside the article; and open databases are more and more common. . . . 

Open data are the pillars of open science, which many scientists have long been campaigning for. This paper is aimed at presenting the benefits of open access to research data, for science itself, for researchers, for citizens, for enterprises, for society as a whole. . . .

Mandated Data Archiving Greatly Improves Access to Research Data

The article "Mandated data archiving greatly improves access to research data" by Tomothy H. Vines et al. in the current issue of The FASEB Journal makes a number of interesting points about the value of mandating.

Abstract:
The data underlying scientific papers should be accessible to researchers both now and in the future, but how best can we ensure that these data are available? Here we examine the effectiveness of four approaches to data archiving: no stated archiving policy, recommending (but not requiring) archiving, and two versions of mandating data deposition at acceptance. We control for differences between data types by trying to obtain data from papers that use a single, widespread population genetic analysis, STRUCTURE. At one extreme, we found that mandated data archiving policies that require the inclusion of a data availability statement in the manuscript improve the odds of finding the data online almost 1000- fold compared to having no policy. However, archiving rates at journals with less stringent policies were only very slightly higher than those with no policy at all. We also assessed the effectiveness of asking for data directly from authors and obtained over half of the requested datasets, albeit with ~8 d delay and some disagreement with authors. Given the long-term benefits of data accessibility to the academic community, we believe that journal-based mandatory data archiving policies and mandatory data availability statements should be more widely adopted

A New Open Access Journal from the American Psychological Association

The American Psychological Association is preparing to launch Archives of Scientific Psychology, its first open access journal. The Archives of Scientific Psychology will have the following five unique characteristics:

•  The articles are free; anyone with internet access will be able to read them.
•   Following APA’s Journal Article Reporting Standards, the authors of each article will provide a complete description of the methodology that they used when conducting their research.  
•  The article authors will be making their data open to the public; it will be available from APA or another approved repository. Other researchers will be able to use this data if they obtain permission to do so from the article authors. 
•  Each article will have two versions of an abstract and methodology section.  One version will be geared towards the layperson, the other towards the scholarly community.
•  Both the article and the comments made by reviewers who took part in the peer-review process will be published online.

The American Psychological Association is launching this journal in response to the way social workers and psychologist make decisions about social services.  There is now a professional impetus for those in the helping professions to base treatment and intervention decisions on the best available research. This means that professionals are more carefully evaluating research articles, and having access to the data that underlies the research in the article helps the professionals assess the quality of the information.

   

What else makes this new journal unique? The publication process for journal articles can be a lengthy one, and it is not uncommon for there to be more than a six-month span between the submission of a paper and its’ actual publication date.  This inevitably delays the pace in which critical information can reach the public. The editors of the Archives of Scientific Psychology post new articles on a weekly basis, and they are committed to publishing articles within two weeks of their final acceptance.

The American Psychological Association expects to begin publication of the Archives of Scientific Psychology in early 2013. It will span all psychological disciplines.

Cooper, H. & VardenBos, G. (2012). Archives of Scientific Psychology: a new journal for a new era. Retrieved from: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/ARC-Editorial-090712.pdf

For more information about this new publication, please visit: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/arc/index.aspx