News blog

Is altruism better than no altruism?

Competitive altruism is pretty petty, and we might not count it as moral behavior at all.  But it can still benefit people.  The person who gives $1,000 to a charity in order to be listed as a “gold donor” has still helped people with his money.  In fact, he’s helped exactly as much as the person who gives the same amount out of true empathy.  So should charitable organizations or individuals designing policy care about the intention, or just the act?  
SciAm Blogs.

Open access aids science research

Open access to this research has been debated for several years. Advocates have argued that the ability to freely access government-funded information is not only fair but also enables innovation otherwise stymied by pay walls and restrictive websites. Scientific advances are collaborative. Innovation sparks further innovation as researchers exchange ideas.

Says - Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner on politico.com

UK: House Of Commons BUSINESS, INNOVATION AND SKILLS COMMITTEE meets today

Today (see scedule here), the Business , Innovation and Skills Committee  is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the administration, expenditure and policy of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and its associated public bodies, including Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).
Mendeley were bought outright this week by Reed Elsevier, the Dutch publishing house who publish more than 2000 scientific journals, including the Lancet. Victor Henning is joined by Jason Priem of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of a recent horizon scanning feature in Nature, to discuss the future of science publication and how this wealth of research will be managed in the future.
BBC Radio.

Knowledge exchange – Value of research: Metrics for datasets from a cultural and technical point of view

This report seeks to further explore the possibilities of metrics for datasets (…) and an effective reward system that aligns the main interests of the main stakeholders involved in the process. (…) The most important recommendations include the general adoption of data sharing and data publication among scholars; the development of a reward system for scientists that includes data metrics; reducing the costs of data publication; reducing existing negative cultural perceptions of researchers regarding data publication; developing standards for preservation, publication, identification and citation of datasets; more coordination of data repository initiatives; and further development of interoperability protocols across different actors.

Open Science, Reproducibility, Credit and Collaboration

Open science is a philosophy as much as it is an imperative. It is asking scientists to give up the unspoken reciprocal partnerships between data generators and those who use the data down the road. (…) Reciprocation is necessary, but that it is a potential benefit provided to the data generators that we may be losing in a move to central repositories. Data generation is costly, it is high (or higher) risk, and it is often slow, but it is critical to move macro-scale research forward, and to find the teleconnections between ecosystems that can help push science forward. 
Blog.  

Open Access, the Impact Agenda and resistance to the neoliberal paradigm

 OA is no more prone to the aspects of neoliberal practice outlined above than traditional scholarly publishing. Some arguments are surfacing that, in OA, we hand over our work for others to then privatise. (…)  OA could actually undermine neoliberal competitive practices of the privatisation of knowledge. Why else would publishers be getting so hot under the collar? Finally, could OA exist outside these aspects of neoliberal doctrine? Well, of course, we are dependent on technology, produced under the system of late-capitalism, for our non-rivalrous commodity exchange. In some senses, then: no. However, the same can be said for industrial printing under conventional scholarly publishing.
A critical view on open access research within the neoliberal publishing industries. See also the discussion.

OPEN RESEARCH DATA HANDBOOK – CALL FOR CASE STUDIES

The OKF Open Research Data Handbook – a collaborative and volunteer-led guide to Open Research Data practices – is beginning to take shape and we need you! We’re looking for case studies showing benefits from open research data: either researchers who have personal stories to share or people with relevant expertise willing to write short sections. Designed to provide an introduction to open research data, we’re looking to develop a resource that will explain what open research data actually is, the benefits of opening up research data, as well as the processes and tools which researchers need to do so, giving examples from different academic disciplines.
Open Knowledge Foundation.

This video is of the “Copyright, Licensing, Open Access” session from the 18-19 March 2013 “MOOCs and Libraries: Massive Opportunity or Overwhelming Challenge?” event hosted by OCLC Research and the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. As courses are being offered online to a diverse and geographically distributed audience, what are the challenges for licensing and clearing copyright for materials used in courses? Are there opportunities for advancing the conversation on open access with faculty? Featuring Brandon Butler, Director of Public Policy Initiatives, Association of Research Libraries; Kevin Smith, Scholarly Communications Officer, Duke University; Kenny Crews, Director, Copyright Advisory Office, Columbia University; and Kyle K. Courtney, Manager of Faculty Research and Scholarship, Harvard Law School. See the MOOCs and Libraries event page athttp://www.oclc.org/research/events/2… for a complete overview of this event.
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

Conference on open access and its use in libraries

See this workshop OA workflow to Extract, Transform, Map, and Publish dynamic metadata at Elag 2013.
This year’s tag line will be ‘Inside Out Library’: while ELAG (European Library Automation Group) 2013 will still be focused on specific, library related IT issues, we want to expand the aim and target audience by addressing innovative topics such as Open Access. ELAG 2013 will also host two pre-conferences: THATCamp, which focuses on researchers in the digital humanities, and an joint OpenAIRE/LIBER workshop ‘Dealing with data’ . ELAG 2013 is hosted by Ghent University Library and the Ghent University Faculty Library Arts & Philosophy, and will take place from May 28th until May 31st 2013.
Pre-conferences on May 28th is free. Registration is open.