Archives

Data Sharing Goes Linux

The Linux Foundation, champion of all things open-source, has just announced a new collaboration with OpenBEL, an open-source platform for sharing scientific data.
The marriage should provide a boost to OpenBEL, which is already used by many in industry and academia to enable better collaboration on big data projects, such as drug development. The hope is that the nonprofit can do for OpenBEL what it is doing for Linux, which has become lingua franca among collaborative software developers and hackers alike.

Open access gains ground

The global shift towards making research findings available free of charge for readers was confirmed yesterday in a study funded by the European Commission. It suggests that open access is reaching the tipping point:
Brazil, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the US have the highest rates of open access publishing. In Europe, 20 out of 27 countries, including the UK, are likely to have tipped towards a majority of papers published in 2008-2011 being made available for free.

Half of 2011 papers now free to read

Search the Internet for any research article published in 2011, and you have a 50–50 chance of downloading it for free. This claim — made in a report1 produced for the European Commission — suggests that many more research papers are openly available online than was previously thought. The finding, released on 21 August, is heartening news for advocates of open access. But some experts are raising their eyebrows at the high numbers.


Nature News.

If someone hits a paywall in the forest, does it make a sound?: The Open Access Button

This idea was a browser-based tool which tracks how often readers are denied access to academic research, where in the world they were or their profession and why they were looking for that research. The tool would aggregate this information into one place and would create a real time, worldwide, interactive picture of the problem.


PLOS Blogs.

‘Open’ as the default modus operandi for research and higher education

is a policy paper by SURF (a collaborative organisation for ICT in Dutch higher education and research) commissioned by the European Commission about open access to content and infrastructure. This was done within the e-InfraNet project. (...) European opinion leaders and experts examined the context, motivations, developments and results of each of the ‘Opens’, revealing a collection of joint benefits and issues. Their study resulted in the recommendation for a coordinated policy approach, able to benefit all forms of ‘Open’.
Download Summary here.  

OPEN ACCESS TO CODE: EGU journal implements new requirement for authors to provide computer code of their models

The new policies include the requirement that, from now on, authors must provide the actual computer code of their models to the reviewers or editor as part of the review process. Furthermore, authors are required to include a section in the paper itself discussing the availability of their code to the wider community. If the authors choose not to make their code available to the community, then they must describe the reasons for this.

Library and repository communities join together to identify new competencies for academic librarians

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), and the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) are pleased to announce the launch of a Joint Task Force on Librarians’ Competencies in Support of E-Research and Scholarly Communication.

THE FUTURE OF OPEN KNOWLEDGE: WHAT IMPACT WILL OPEN KNOWLEDGE HAVE ON RESEARCH, THE ECONOMY AND THE PUBLIC?

To mark the launch of the Open Knowledge Foundation in Australia, founder Dr Rufus Pollock is touring Australia. His "Open Knowledge Down Under" tour will take in several capital cities and includes a series of public lectures. The focus of the Sydney lecture will be to talk about the impact of open knowledge on research, the economy and the public. Whilst this is a global initiative, it will include specific focus on the impact in Australia.
Registration is free and open: Monday, 26 August 2013 from 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM (EST), Camperdown, NSW, Auditorium, Eastern Avenue,The University of Sydney.

Beyond Property Rights: Thinking About Moral Definitions of Openness

Referring to the idea of Sunil Abraham, founder and executive director of the Center for Internet and Society (CIS) in India, David Eaves points out that the spectrum of openness actually extends well beyond the variants typically encountered in the West.
Conversations about open knowledge outside the supposedly settled lands of the 'rich' often stretch beyond permission-based 'fair use' and 'creative commons' approaches. There is a desire to explore potential moral rights to use 'content' in addition to just property rights that may be granted under statutes.

Gateways for Open Science

“Science is really ripe for disruption. A lot of the practices are still very much rooted in their analog beginnings.” That is how Kaitlin Thaney, Director of the Mozilla Science Lab—a new open science initiative focused on innovation, best practice, and skills training for research—began her plenary talk at XSEDE13 in San Diego last month.

Fixing the Flaw in OA Mandates That Have Opt-Outs

Stevan Harnard, Professor in the Department of Psychology at Université du Québec à Montréal, holding the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Sciences and is also Affiliate Professor in Electronics and Computer Science at University of Southampton, UK on the Open Access Mandate by the University of California:
Yes, there's a flaw in the University of California Open Access (OA) mandate ["Open Contradictions," Editorial, The Daily Californian, 12 Aug 2013], and, yes, it has to do with the fact that U of C authors can opt out of compliance with the mandate.
See also Michael Eisen's comment on the OA policies of the University of California.