Tag Archives: Open Access

Is it immoral to hide your research behind a paywall?

As noted a few days ago, I recently had an article published on the Guardian site entitled Hiding your research behind a paywall is immoral. The reaction to that article was fascinating, exhilarating and distressing in fairly equal parts. Fascinating because it generated a fertile stream of 156 comments, most of them substantial. Exhilarating because of some very positive responses. And distressing because some people who I like and respect absolutely hated it. 

[gallery]
The Open Library of the Humanities aims to provide a platform for Open Access publishing that is:
  • Reputable and respected through rigorous peer review
  • Sustainable
  • Digitally preserved and safely archived in perpetuity
  • Non-profit
  • Open in both monetary and permission terms
  • Non-discriminatory (APCs are waiverable)
  • Technically innovative in response to the needs of scholars and librarians
  • A solution to the serials crisis

Open Access Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences Conference

Date: 1 and 2 July 2013
Location: The British Library, London, UK
JISC Collections, in partnership with OAPEN Foundation, is holding a two-day international conference intended for all stakeholders in scholarly communications including European research funders, senior institutional managers, publishers, learned societies, librarians and researchers. The conference aims to raise awareness of open access, to increase understanding of key challenges and to identify where international common policies and frameworks could support the adoption of open access monograph publishing in the humanities and social sciences (HSS).

Open Science – Investigating parameters for participation

Do you want to practice open science?
At the moment I am working on a research design that helps me investigating parameters for participation in open science. The design is, to be honest, not cut in stone yet and my methodological ideas change every now and then. Nonetheless, I documented my overall ideas for a research design in an open 1.5 pages document, accessible via Google Docs (this link). If you have a few minutes free on your hand and interest in the topic, I invite you to scim through the document and leave comments if you have any good thoughts, ideas, criticism and suggestions.

Rising demands around world for copyright exceptions

Internationally, the World Intellectual Property Organisation was looking at a range of new copyright exceptions and limitations. Nationally, an increasing number of EU countries were recognising the need for reforms while testing new ideas in this field. But it was suggested that a common European solution was needed to avoid fragmentation and to seize benefits for a European Digital Single Market.
University World News.

Elsevier In Advanced Talks To Buy Mendeley For Around $100M To Beef Up In Social, Open Source Education Content

The world of ed-tech is ramping up another notch, and getting a lot more open in the process: educational publishing giant Elsevieris in advanced talks to buy Mendeley, a London/New York-based provider of a platform for academics to share research and collaborate with each other via a social network. TechCrunch understands from sources close to the companies that the deal is underway and should close this quarter, possibly by the end of February — all things being equal — and will be in the region of $100 million.
techcrunch.

KNAW open access dialog ‚Publish open access or perish?‘

February, 6th 2013. KNAW, Kloveniersburgwal 29, 1011 JV Amsterdam. 1pm-5pm.
After an introduction by Cameron Neylon (PLoS) and Martin Rasmussen (Copernicus Publications), participants will discuss several statements relating to open access of publications, in both small groups and in a plenary session. The aim of this KNAW open access dialog is to raise awareness of open access by discussing controversial statements. In this way, advantages and disadvantages of the various publication models as well as do’s and don’ts will be considered.
Register here.

Hot off the press: Cost-effectiveness of open access publications

Open access publishing has been proposed as one possible solution to the serials crisis | the rapidly growing subscription prices in scholarly journal publishing. However, open access publishing can present economic pitfalls as well, such as excessive publication charges. We discuss the decision that an author faces when choosing to submit to an open access journal. We develop an interactive tool to help authors compare among alternative open access venues and thereby get the most for their publication fees.

Journal archive JSTOR opens up (some)

The Register & Read program was designed to make access to JSTOR’s treasure trove of journal articles at least a little more open. While access to JSTOR’s full content is reserved for those with ties to libraries that purchase subscriptions, the Register & Read program lets anyone, university-affiliated or not, read — but not download or copy — up to three articles every two weeks, for free.
(…) True open-access material (…) is research that is licensed for fair use. Though Register & Read users can view an article for free, that doesn’t necessarily mean they can use it.

Journals4free.com

More than 10000 free journals available. Journals for Free has a broad definition for what open access journals are:  
  • journals that provide free documents immediately upon publication, with no delay;
  • journals with free information after a delay (embargo period);
  • journals with free information for a certain period in the past.

Free for all: Australian Research Council (ARC)-funded research now open to the public

The ARC’s new policy will free up a lot of basic research. But far from all of it. There are loopholes, there is wiggle room, and there are ways for researchers and universities to drag their feet.
See ARC’s policy here.  See also the blog by Alex Holcombe, Associate Professor, University of Sidney, which gives room to discussion here.

Open access and editorial quality – National Union of Journalists (NUJ) event

An invitation to an open panel discussion organised by the National Union of Journalists and hosted by The Wellcome Trust.
The event will take place on Wednesday 6 February at 7pm in London.
The venue is The Wellcome Trust, 215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE
Announced speakers are amongst others Philip Campbell, Editor-in-Chief, Nature and Professor Stephen Curry, Imperial College and open access blogger.

Mendeley, Open Access, and the Altmetrics Revolution: Implications for Japanese Research

Keita Bando, Mendeley Advisor, Digital Repository Librarian Coordinator for Scholarly Communication, My Open Archive on open access, Mendeley and Altmetrics.
“With Japanese researchers, there’s a kind of resistance or barrier to using a creative commons license; particularly, people tend to have the attitude that the rights to a paper are the publisher’s concern, so they don’t think to actively go for a creative commons license themselves,” Mr. Bando states.