The bottom line is that journals cost money
Open access is a utopian pipe dream, says Richard Hoyle.TimesHigherEducation.
Open access is a utopian pipe dream, says Richard Hoyle.TimesHigherEducation.
The PMC (PubMed Central) Open Access Subset is a relatively small part of the total collection of articles in PMC. Articles in the PMC Open Access Subset are still protected by copyright, but are made available under a Creative Commons or similar license that generally allows more liberal redistribution and reuse than a traditional copyrighted work. Please refer to the license statement in each article for specific terms of use. The license terms are not identical for all articles in this subset
Science ministers from the G8 group of the world’s richest countries have jointly endorsed the need to increase access to publicly-funded research.
The New York State Senate and Assembly are considering the Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act (S4050 / A180). This bill—which would give the public access to the results of tens from millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded research—is a crucial step in the fight for open access.
The very fundamental difference from socialism is that with open access doesn’t ask anyone to make do with less. Because it deals with access to digital, rather than physical, goods, infinite perfect copies are free.
Scifund 201 – Open Notebook Science: Enhance your research through open access note taking.Cost: FREE. However, we aren’t just giving this course away. Course participants must pledge to share what they have learned with their colleagues.
When: June 17 – 30, 2013 (two weeks)
Where: The Internet! This course will be a highly interactive community effort and will take place largely through Google+ and WordPress blogs. Who: Active research scientists in any country in any discipline at any level (from graduate student to emeritus professor to government scientist to NGO scientist). This course is intended to introduce open access into the research environment. What course participants will gain from the course:Time that course participants should expect to spend on course: The course is broken down into 4 modules (roughly one every three days) and will require 1-2 hours to complete each module. Expect 3-4 hours of time dedicated to the course each week. Deadline for completing course application: June 12. To keep the class size reasonable, course participants will need to fill out a brief application form. Decisions on applications will be given by June 14. Requirements for course participants. Course participants must:
An understanding of open philosophy and how it pertains to research.
Experience publishing your notes openly, which encourages responsible lab behavior, develops writing and communication skills, and can supplement your outreach efforts.
Benefits of electronic note taking such as search, easy organization, and real-time access for collaborators and lab mates (as well as yourself).
be fluent in written and spoken English
have access to a computer with a webcam
have access to the Internet (with speeds capable of video chatting)
want to have fun and willing to share their research with the world.
Course instructors:
Anthony Salvagno, Biophysicist, University of New Mexico, open notebook curator
Jai Ranganathan, Conservation Biologist, University of California, Santa Barbara. Co-founder, SciFund Challenge.
CHORUS (for ClearingHouse for the Open Research of the United Status) is clearly an effort on the part of publishers to minimize the savings that will ultimately accrue to the federal government, other funders and universities from public access policies. If CHORUS is adopted, publishers will without a doubt try to fold the costs of creating and maintaining the system into their subscription/site license charges – the routinely ask libraries to pay for all of their “value added” services. Thus not only would potential savings never materialize, the government would end up paying the costs of CHORUS indirectly.Michael Eisen. Blog. See also this skeptical post and this list of assembled links.
Nine years ago today the Open Knowledge Foundation was born. We’ve come a long way from our humble beginnings in Cambridge in 2004. From government to science to culture, open knowledge is now on its way to being established as an essential part of our information environment.See also the Global Open Knowledge Foundation MeetUp, wich will take place in the Public Library of Science, San Francisco, CA, this thursday, June 6th, 2013.
If one isn’t very familiar with OA journals, then one needs to be cautious about selecting one. For authors in the biomedical area, it’s preferable that the journal be indexed in PubMed, the widely-used bibliographic database. A convenient way to check this is to enter the full name of the journal into the PubMed Single Citation Matcher.
endorsed during the 2nd Annual Global Meeting, 27 – 29 May 2013, Berlin / Germany. The proposed activities aim at raising awareness for open access, at promoting and supporting open access, and at assessing the implementation of the actions suggested. The action plan is designed to take into account that participants in the GRC come from various backgrounds, have various degrees of expertise in dealing with open access, and have different remits. Thus, funding agencies need to consider which of the proposed activities are appropriate to be taken up by (possibly consortia of) participants in the GRC.
Interesting enough, research shows that there is a weakening relationship between the impact factor and papers’ citations in the digital age. And that can have consequences, according to the authors: ”If this pattern should continue, it might bring an end to the use of impact factor as a way to evaluate the quality of journals, papers and researcher”.
Back in February we reported on a worrying attempt by the European Commission to reframe the discussion about modernizing copyright in Europe purely in terms of licensing, reflected in the name of the initiative, “Licences for Europe”. …techdirt.
The Wellcome Trust has announced plans to extend its open access policy to include scholarly monographs and book chapters
A variety of schemes would allow the academy to reclaim control of its knowledge and labour, says Steffen BöhmTimes Higher Education.
Alice Bell: Science funding bodies should be opened up to the public, not just industryThe Guardian Blog.
Confirmed speakers:
Major changes are underway in the US and around the globe in the methods by which scientific and medical research findings and data sets are circulated among researchers and disseminated to the public.
While searching for Arabic content on open access, I found the Arab Initiatives in Open Access blog, which is moderated by Dr. Sulieman AlShuhri, Amal AlSalem, Dr. Abdel-Rahman Farrag, and Dr. Ramadan Elaiess. The blog not only covers recent developments in the open access field, but also delivers its content in Arabic.
In collaboration with the Arab initiatives of Open Access blog ( aioa.blogspot.com),QScience presents Sulieman AlShuhri, AIOA founder, Asst. Professor at Al-Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Saudi Arabia and e-DocsLab research fellow. Sulieman speaks about the AIOA blog, about open access, and about the benefits of publishing in open access. The video transcripts (English andArabic Transcript) can be found below. Note that the video is in Arabic with English subtitles.
On 31st of May 2013 (1 PM Brussels time / CET), as part of the “Future Fridays” series of webinars on Futurium, Cameron Neylon, Advocacy Director atPLOS presents his vision of the Future of Open Science.
Participation to all webinars is free and open to all who are interested in the subject. The webinar will take place entirely online in a virtual room.
hugely complex and often contradictory landscape that the House of Lords Science & Technology Committee and the BIS Committee have had to struggle to get to grips with.
Seeking to clarify its position on the related issues of open access publication of scientific literature and evaluation of research by metrics, ICSU has reached out to its membership organizations for their input. The results of this process may lead to corresponding resolutions being proposed to the General Assembly in September 2014.
ICSU has asked its members to comment in general on these interrelated issues, and specifically in relation to the following questions:
- What requirements do funders of research in your country or subject area currently make, or plan to make, as regards open access publication, including open access to data? What advantages and disadvantages do you see in such open access requirements, whether in your country/subject area or elsewhere?
- To what extent are metrics being used to evaluate universities, departments and individuals in your country or subject area, what metrics are used, and how are these influencing publication trends and incentives for researchers?
- What useful role, if any, do you think ICSU can play in these matters?
Stefan Kasberger, Open Knowledge Foundation Austria, Graz OC13 – Open Commons Kongress 14.05.2013 Wissensturm Linz Lernen und Leben mit digitalen Gemeingütern Veranstalterinnen: Johannes Kepler Universität Linz und Open Commons Region Linz.