Why This Audio Map for the Blind Offers an Open-Data Roadmap for the Country — Backchannel — Medium

“Imagine you’re blind. You have a smartphone, and you’re trying to find your own way to a spot downtown. To get there you’ll need precise voice directions to specific building numbers, but you can’t find an app that meets the challenge.

Next, imagine you’re an app-maker who wants to provide the most accurate navigation at the lowest cost ?to seeing-impaired customers. To do that you’ll need access to an accurate database of street addresses. While cities routinely collect this information, it isn’t necessarily publicly available.

Now a pioneering open data project in Louisville, Kentucky is lighting a torch to show cities, civic tech enthusiasts, and local businesses how to make sure assistive technology like this is easily and cheaply available. And its methods are so simple that they can applied to many more problems where open public data can make a difference….”

» A Clean House at the Directory of Open Access Journals ACRL TechConnect Blog

“The process of cleaning up the DOAJ has been going on for some time and is getting close to an important milestone. All the 10,000+ journals listed in DOAJ were required to reapply for inclusion, and the deadline for that is December 30, 2015. After that time, any journals that haven’t reapplied will be removed from the DOAJ….One of the remarkable things about the revitalization of the DOAJ is the transparency of the process. The DOAJ News Service blog has been detailing the behind the scenes processes in detail since May 2014. One of the most useful things is a list of journals who have claimed to be listed in DOAJ but are not. Another important piece of information is the 2015-2016 development roadmap….For too long we have been forced to use the concept of a list of “questionable” or even “predatory” journals. A directory of journals with robust standards and easy to understand interface will be a fresh start for the rhetoric of open access journals….”

How ContentMine at Cambridge will use CrossRef’s API to mine Science | ContentMine

“I’ve described how CrossRef works – now I’ll show how ContentMine will use it for daily mining. ContentMine sets out to mine the whole scientific literature “100 million facts”. Up till now we’ve been building the technical infrastructure, challenging for our rights, understanding the law, and ordering the kit. We’ve built and deployed a number of prototypes. But we are now ready to start indexing science in earnest. Since ContentMining has been vastly underused, and because publisher actions have often chilled researchers and libraries, we don’t know in detail what people want and how they would tackle it. We think there are many approaches – here are a few …”

New Research Hub Launches to Focus on Digital Asia | Berkman Center

“A diverse, international group of academic, civil society and private sector partners, including the Global Network of Internet and Society Research Centers (NoC), is excited to announce the formation of the Digital Asia Hub, an independent non-profit Internet and society research think tank based in Hong Kong.

Incubated by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and this broader collective, the Digital Asia Hub will provide a nonpartisan, open, and collaborative platform for research, knowledge sharing, and capacity building related to Internet and society issues with a focus on digital Asia….”

From ‘as soon as possible’ to ‘immediate’ Open Access

“NWO will tighten its granting conditions in the area of Open Access with effect from 1 December. In concrete terms this means that all publications emerging from a ‘call for proposals’ published by NWO after this date must be immediately accessible to everybody from the moment of publication …”

Anthropology group votes to boycott Israel despite major donors’ – including Intel and Yahoo – thick Israeli ties – The Washington Post

“The annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association has approved a resolution to boycott Israel, which must now be voted on by the group’s membership….The resolution seeks to enlist a major academic publisher in excluding Israeli institutions from access to scholarly publications….”

Scheduled maintenance on Wednesday, 02 December 2015 AM – Services at Risk

Please be advised that transfer of Sherpa services to the Jisc Cloud Platform has been scheduled for the morning of Wednesday 2nd December.

Services affected: RoMEO, Juliet, FACT and OpenDOAR

It is expected that the disruption will only be for several minutes, however the service should be regarded as at risk all morning.

Please contact Sherpa Support at: sherpa@jisc.ac.uk if you require further information or require support at any time.

Scheduled maintenance on Wednesday, 02 December 2015 AM – Services at Risk

Please be advised that transfer of Sherpa services to the Jisc Cloud Platform has been scheduled for the morning of Wednesday 2nd December.

Services affected: RoMEO, Juliet, FACT and OpenDOAR

It is expected that the disruption will only be for several minutes, however the service should be regarded as at risk all morning.

Please contact Sherpa Support at: sherpa@jisc.ac.uk if you require further information or require support at any time.

Scheduled maintenance on Wednesday, 02 December 2015 AM – Services at Risk

Please be advised that transfer of Sherpa services to the Jisc Cloud Platform has been scheduled for the morning of Wednesday 2nd December.

Services affected: RoMEO, Juliet, FACT and OpenDOAR

It is expected that the disruption will only be for several minutes, however the service should be regarded as at risk all morning.

Please contact Sherpa Support at: sherpa@jisc.ac.uk if you require further information or require support at any time.

Portico now providing access to two Sage Publications’ titles – Portico

“Portico has made the content from two Open Access journals previously published by Sage Publications available through the Portico archive. The titles that have triggered are: Human Genomics and Proteomics and Journal of Dental Biomechanics.

The content for the volumes and issues listed below is no longer available through any online platform; therefore, it has “triggered” and is available via the Portico archive. These titles were published Open Access by Sage and will remain Open Access through Portico….”

Panel: Broadband crucial to public education | The Recorder

“Before coming to Charlemont, Bernard was a research assistant with the Harvard Open Access Project and Berkman Center for Internet and Society. She also worked for at least 25 years as a child development specialist, working with young children and their families, teaching at colleges, and writing and presenting talks at conferences and workshops. Bernard said that the United Nations, through its UNESCO program, has a goal to focus on open-education resources that can be made available to everybody. Also, the U.S. Department of Education has started a “Go Open” campaign, urging states and school districts to save money by using openly licensed educational materials….”

Assistant Professor – Tenure Track; Scholarly Communication Librarian

“The primary responsibility of this position is to take the lead in building a scholarly communications program at GCSU by educating and informing the community about issues related to scholarly communication. Reporting to the Associate Director for Instruction & Research Services, this position develops services and programs designed to provide outreach to administrators, faculty, staff, and students on issues related to intellectual property and advocates for the broad sharing and preservation of the scholarly record created at Georgia College….”

Open Positions | Privacy Tools for Sharing Research Data

“The Privacy Tools project regularly seeks students, interns, postdocs, and visitors in Computer Science, Statistics, Government, Mathematics,  Law, and Social Sciences with Quantitative Experience, particularly those with an interest in learning about or working on Data Privacy. Below are some of the positions available, with instructions on how to apply….”

Open Position in the EC-funded project OpenAIRE2020

“The Bielefeld University Library has an open position to work within the EC-funded project “OpenAIRE2020 – Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe towards 2020″, which involves 50 partners from across the European Union and beyond. OpenAIRE2020 aims to promote open scholarship and to support the mandate on Open Access within Horizon 2020 – the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020). To this end, OpenAIRE2020 will improve the discoverability and re-use of scientific publications and research data….”

Reinventing science’s social contract in the 21st century

“At the dawn of the open science era, the internet revolution and the explosion of social media have already helped in leveling the playing field. More than ever, these technologies make it possible for everybody to access, understand and share the data generated by scientists. This, in turn, can help restore the trust between citizens and science. In parallel, greater expectations from citizens concerning the level of communication and accountability from scientists, will affect aspects of research such as ethics, integrity and transparency. But we need to go further than that….”