Category Archives: oa.ecosystem

Sloan Foundation Funds New Office to Support Open Source Activities

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Carnegie Mellon University’s Helen and Henry Posner, Jr. Dean of the University Libraries Keith Webster has received a grant of $650,000 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to establish the Carnegie Mellon University Open Source Program Office (OSPO). In addition to establishing a central resource for open-source activity across campus, the OSPO will explore the ecosystem of software around a new core facility and government R&D.

The newly created office will be led by G. Sayeed Choudhury, currently the associate dean for Digital Infrastructure, Applications, and Services and Hodson Director of the Digital Research and Curation Center at the Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University, home to the first university-based OSPO in the United States.

 

Supporting open access, integrating distributed research platforms, and building a research information management platform | Coughlin + Vitale | 2022-05 Code4Lib Journal

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Academic libraries are often called upon by their university communities to collect, manage, and curate information about the research activity produced at their campuses. Proper research information management (RIM) can be leveraged for multiple institutional contexts, including networking, reporting activities, building faculty profiles, and supporting the reputation management of the institution. In the last ten to fifteen years the adoption and implementation of RIM infrastructure has become widespread throughout the academic world. Approaches to developing and implementing this infrastructure have varied, from commercial and open-source options to locally developed instances. Each piece of infrastructure has its own functionality, features, and metadata sources. There is no single application or data source to meet all the needs of these varying pieces of research information, many of these systems together create an ecosystem to provide for the diverse set of needs and contexts. This paper examines the systems at Pennsylvania State University that contribute to our RIM ecosystem; how and why we developed another piece of supporting infrastructure for our Open Access policy and the successes and challenges of this work.

Preliminary investigation: Defining Open Scholarly Infrastructure

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Today, we share the preliminary findings from our investigation into defining open scholarly infrastructure. This investigation is a step towards building a shared vision for what an ecosystem of open systems and services looks like that supports research and scholarly communication. We invite you to comment on the report, by 3 May 2022.

Creative Commons Receives $1M Grant From Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to Advance Better Sharing

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MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently allocated $1M to Creative Commons (CC) in honor of CC’s 20th Anniversary. This three-year, general operating support will help foster CC’s commitment to Better Sharing by addressing equity gaps and unequal balances of power in the open ecosystem.

The internet has global ownership with people sharing more information and ideas than ever before; but not all sharing supports equity and the public’s best interests. Better Sharing involves a concerted effort and dedication to building a globally produced, open commons of knowledge, data, culture, and innovation that is universally applicable and accessible.

“We are committed to building a world where everyone, everywhere, has access to free and open knowledge,” says Catherine Stihler, CC chief executive officer. “For us, this means doubling down on our efforts to ensure open access and better sharing for all – not only those with privilege. It also means launching new ventures in Open Science to remove unnecessary barriers to addressing public health crises and the climate emergency, driving comprehensive equitable solutions.”

For the last 20 years, CC has been at the forefront of the digital commons, prioritizing equity in our foundational projects, spanning license stewardship and infrastructure, cultural heritage, education, science, policy, and expanding the global open community. Through CC’s signature licenses, creators have shared over 2 billion works of art, images, texts, research, textbooks, and 3-D models. This global copyright standard empowers people, institutions, and systems to share information openly to advance education, equity, and creativity worldwide. 

To ensure inclusively, sustained progress of Better Sharing, CC will strengthen the CC licenses with a focus on technical infrastructure, legal robustness, accessibility features, and supporting materials. This includes refining open tools and learning materials to strengthen collaborations and community-led solutions, improve knowledge, provide benefits, solve global challenges, promote the public good, and address systemic disparities and biases. 

 

About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation:
Support for Better Sharing is provided, in part, by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is committed to improving health and health equity in the United States. In partnership with others, we are working to develop a Culture of Health rooted in equity that provides every individual with a fair and just opportunity to thrive, no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they have. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org.

About Creative Commons:
Creative Commons is a global nonprofit organization that enables sharing and reuse of creativity and knowledge through the provision of free legal tools. Our legal tools help those who want to encourage reuse of their works by offering them for use under generous, standardized terms; those who want to make creative uses of works; and those who want to benefit from this symbiosis. Our vision is to help others realize the full potential of the internet. CC has affiliates all over the world who help ensure our licenses work internationally, and who raise awareness of our work. Learn more at www.creativecommons.org.

 

The post Creative Commons Receives $1M Grant from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to Advance Better Sharing appeared first on Creative Commons.

Promoting Open Science: A Holistic Approach to Changing Behaviour

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In this article, we provide a toolbox of recommendations and resources for those aspiring to promote the uptake of open scientific practices. Open Science encompasses a range of behaviours that aim to improve the transparency of scientific research. This paper is divided into seven sections, each devoted to different groups or institutions in the research ecosystem: colleagues, students, departments and faculties, universities, academic libraries, journals, and funders. We describe the behavioural influences and incentives for each of these stakeholders as well as changes they can make to foster Open Science. Our primary goal, however, is to suggest actions that researchers can take to promote these behaviours, inspired by simple principles of behaviour change: make it easy, social, and attractive. In isolation, a small shift in one person’s behaviour may appear to make little difference, but when combined, many shifts can radically alter shared norms and culture. We offer this toolbox to assist individuals and institutions in cultivating a more open research culture.

The MIT Press receives a generous grant from the Arcadia Fund to develop and pilot a sustainable framework for open access monographs | The MIT Press

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“The MIT Press has received a three-year $850,000 grant from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, to perform a broad-based monograph publishing cost analysis and to develop and openly disseminate a durable financial framework and business plan for open access (OA) monographs. The Press, a leader in OA publishing for almost 25 years, will also undertake a pilot program to implement the resulting framework for scholarly front and backlist titles.

Amy Brand, director of the MIT Press and principal investigator for the grant, sees it as an opportunity to explore alternatives to the traditional market-based business model for professional and scholarly monographs. “Until the mid-1990s, most U.S. university presses could count on sales of 1,300–1,700 units, but today monograph sales are typically in the range of 300–500 units,” says Brand “Many presses make up this difference with internal subsidies or subventions from institutional or philanthropic sources, but this is not sustainable and often unpredictable. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, this generous award from Arcadia will allow us to develop and test a flexible OA sustainability model that can then be adapted to the needs of our peers.”

There is growing consensus within the university press community that publishing academic monographs through a durable OA model may be the best way to advance scholarship and fulfill our mission. The U.S.-based Association of University Presses comprises 148 member presses that collectively publish approximately 15,000 monographs per year. Crafting and promoting a viable OA model for this community—and leading the way as the MIT Press intends to do—would represent a major breakthrough….”

Sustaining Values and Scholarship A Statement by the Provosts of the Big Ten Academic Alliance

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“We, the provosts of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, are committed to sustaining and advancing equitable modes of sharing knowledge. Our 14 institutions embrace individual mission statements that support the common good, equity of access, and the global impact and reach of our research and scholarship. Collectively, our institutions’ more than 50,000 faculty are supported by over $10 billion (2017) in research funding, and our institutions have similarly invested significantly in our capacity to further our missions to advance knowledge. Together, we produce roughly 15% of the research publications in the United States….

In 2006, we shared an open letter in support of taxpayer access to federally-funded research. In 2012, we repeated our advocacy for open access in the face of potentially restrictive legislation to curtail that openness. Since then, our institutions have further invested in systems, repositories, and local policies to support open access to the works of our faculty. And we have encouraged our libraries and faculty to work together to assess the value of purchased or licensed content and the appropriate terms governing its use. With Big Ten libraries’ expenditures on journals exceeding $190 million, we recognize that our institutions are privileged in the level of access we provide our campuses, yet the status quo is not sustainable….”