A slide presentation by Cable Green.
Monthly Archives: September 2019
Born-digital, open source, media-rich scholarly publishing that’s as easy as blogging.
“Scalar is a free, open source authoring and publishing platform that’s designed to make it easy for authors to write long-form, born-digital scholarship online. Scalar enables users to assemble media from multiple sources and juxtapose them with their own writing in a variety of ways, with minimal technical expertise required.
More fundamentally, Scalar is a semantic web authoring tool that brings a considered balance between standardization and structural flexibility to all kinds of material. It includes a built-in reading interface as well as an API that enables Scalar content to be used to drive custom-designed applications. If you’re dealing with small to moderate amounts of structured content and need a lightweight platform that encourages improvisation with your data model, Scalar may be the right solution for you.
Scalar also gives authors tools to structure essay- and book-length works in ways that take advantage of the unique capabilities of digital writing, including nested, recursive, and non-linear formats. The platform also supports collaborative authoring and reader commentary. The ANVC’s partner presses and archives are now beginning to implement Scalar into their research and publishing workflows, and several projects leveraging the platform have been published already.
Scalar is a project of the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture (ANVC) in association with Vectors and IML, and with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities….”
Equal access to orthopaedic research funding, databases and scientific publications | SpringerLink
“Research and Publications go together like horse and carriage. Research fuels publications and vice versa. Academic surgeons became knowledgeable in grants processing, projects writing and some parallel expertise that is closer to finance projects than to art of surgery. Orthopaedic departments’ chairmen commonly act as fund raisers and resource providers in order to keep the facilities running and the surgical teams active and happy. Modern hospitals require expensive facilities and the research laboratories connected to the clinical services are in continuous need of costly equipment or materials. Funding is essential for developing both. Orthopaedic surgery developed ceaselessly in the last decades with the basis for progress and aim of research and publication oriented towards improving patients care. Better materials and implants, impeccable techniques, sophisticated anatomical knowledge are essential as well as clinical and experimental studies on the outcomes of patients with different procedures.
Funding is linked to grants in many cases and access to grants should be even. However, some institutions receive more funding than others, thanks to the quality of their projects and to variables that are linked to the notoriety and credibility of the Services requesting involved. In most countries, basic research is supported by institutions, sponsors and governments that select the individuals to receive funding. In most cases, the number of grants these research councils can allocate is limited, therefore, a minority of the researchers receive the majority of the funds, and the large proportion of grant proposals—as well as scholars—remain unfunded [1]….”
The prehistory of biology preprints: A forgotten experiment from the 1960s
Abstract: In 1961, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began to circulate biological preprints in a forgotten experiment called the Information Exchange Groups (IEGs). This system eventually attracted over 3,600 participants and saw the production of over 2,500 different documents, but by 1967, it was effectively shut down following the refusal of journals to accept articles that had been circulated as preprints. This article charts the rise and fall of the IEGs and explores the parallels with the 1990s and the biomedical preprint movement of today.
Rebels with a Cause? Supporting Library and Academic-led Open Access Publishing
Abstract: The authors, who all have experience with academic publishing, outline the landscape of new university and academic-led open access publishing, before discussing four interrelated sets of challenges which are often referred when questioning the viability of such publishing ventures. They are: (1) professionalism, (2) scale, (3) quality, and (4) discoverability & dissemination. The authors provide examples of how, albeit differing in size, form and ambition, these new presses are not just adhering to conventional publishing norms but often innovating in order to surpass them.
An Analysis of Search Results from Institutional Repository: Econpapers – Munich Personal RePEc Archive
Abstract: The goal of this research is to examine and explore information retrieval process of patrons who access institutional repositories. Repositories are generally hosted by public universities and run by volunteers which allow researchers to submit their draft versions of their manuscripts in pre-print forms. In this study, we analyze using search methods to sort out research papers classified according to their levels of relevance that are available from a repository, and report the pattern of search results as our findings. Our model employs search methods for searching Econpapers which utilize RePEc bibliographic data. Our analysis attempts to highlight how information seekers, scholars and researchers search relevant topics of their interest and how relevant such information is which is retrieved from an institutional repository. This could aid researchers to modify their search processes to obtain better search results from their queries. The goal is to obtain the most relevant documents from online search. We discuss about the methods employed to retrieve information which is most pertinent to the requirements of researchers. A broad implication could be better utilization of time and resources for efficient retrieval of the most relevant documents of interest that could be expected from searching institutional repositories.
Sustainability | SUNY OER Services
“Higher education is enamored with innovation. Colleges and universities are regularly on the lookout for new ideas, products, and processes that can have a transformative impact on their campuses. Colleges and universities are particularly interested in various student success initiatives that have emerged in recent years, including: technology-assisted advising, competency-based education, guided pathways, redesigned first-year experiences, and of course open education resources (OER). But higher education rarely thinks about sustainable innovation. SUNY recognized that sustainability planning should occur at the beginning of the OER initiative, not as a final consideration. As a result, all participating SUNY institutions are required to develop OER sustainability plans. rpk GROUP has worked with the SUNY System Office and OER implementation teams at four institutions to develop a set of resources to assist campuses with OER sustainability planning. In addition to this overview, an OER sustainability Self-Assessment tool, instructive Field Guide, and template-based Planning Guide are also available….”
Kindness, Culture, and Caring: The Open Science Way | HASTAC
“There are lots of ways that the rational, logical, hyper-competitive, winner-take-all, zero-sum, prisoner’s dilemma, nice-guys-finish-last, single-bottom-line, annual-productivity ratchet?—?or add your adjective here?—?mindset is just wrong for sustaining the academy and bad for science. For decades now, the same neo-liberal economic schemes that have been used to reshape how governments budget their funds have also made dramatic and disturbing inroads into university budgets and governance. Open science can show how that trend is a race to the bottom for universities. What do you say, we turn around and go another way?…”
The case for openness in engineering research | F1000Research
Abstract: In this article, we describe our views on the benefits, and possible downsides, of openness in engineering research. We attempt to examine the issue from multiple perspectives, including reasons and motivations for introducing open practices into an engineering researcher’s workflow and the challenges faced by scholars looking to do so. Further, we present our thoughts and reflections on the role that open engineering research can play in defining the purpose and activities of the university. We have made some specific recommendations on how the public university can recommit to and push the boundaries of its role as the creator and promoter of public knowledge. In doing so, the university will further demonstrate its vital role in the continued economic, social, and technological development of society. We have also included some thoughts on how this applies specifically to the field of engineering and how a culture of openness and sharing within the engineering community can help drive societal development.
OA price and service transparency Survey
“The views of researchers, librarians, publishers, and funders about ways to increase the transparency of communications about the price of Open Access publishing services are sought in a new industry survey. The results of this survey will help to inform a collaborative project with publishers, funders, and universities to develop a framework for communications. The project is sponsored by the Wellcome Trust in partnership with UKRI on behalf of cOAlition S. You can visit the survey here ….”
Free the Law – Amicus Brief in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org
“In 2013, Public.Resource.Org (PRO), a non-profit corporation based in California, purchased, scanned, and posted the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (OCGA). The OCGA is the one and only official law of the State of Georgia, but the state objected strongly, maintaining that the only party who could make the OCGA available was their single, designated commercial vendor. According to the State of Georgia, any other use–including PRO’s public dissemination of the law–is a copyright violation.
The State of Georgia sued Public Resource in the U.S. District Court and received judgement in their favor including a federal injunction prohibiting any and all dissemination of the code. PRO appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and won a 3-0 victory, reversing the decision of the court below.
The State of Georgia appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Public Resource responded, maintaining that the State of Georgia has the law and the facts wrong, but nevertheless, the matter should be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
We prepared a amicus brief on behalf of 119 law students, 54 solo and small-firm practitioners of aw, and 21 legal educators in support of Public.Resource.Org, arguing that the Supreme Court should take the case to ensure that we have free access to all of the law nationwide, and not just to Georgia’s law.
The Supreme Court has since agreed to take the case….”
Discover how European funders are approaching Open policy and practices in new report – SPARC Europe
“A report that reveals the Open Access and Open Science policies, incentives and practices of European funders is being released today. Based on a survey conducted in late spring, the report is a first of its kind to examine what key international funding bodies (international and national funding bodies, major charities and foundations, national academics and key research performing organisations) are doing to incentivise openness to the work they help fund.
The intention behind the survey, which was led by SPARC Europe in consultation with ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, The European Foundation Centre (EFC) and Science Europe, is to spur even greater – more widespread – support for Open research; to advance Open Access to research results in Europe….”
Research on Research Institute Launches to Enable More Strategic, Open, Diverse, And Inclusive Research
“We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the Research on Research Institute (RoRI) – an international consortium of research funders, academic institutions, and technologists working to champion the latest approaches to research on research.
Co-founded by the Wellcome Trust, the universities of Sheffield and Leiden, and Digital Science, the RoRI consortium will undertake transformative and translational research on research (also known as meta-research, science of science or meta-science). By analysing research systems and experimenting with decision and evaluation data, tools and frameworks, we aim to advance more strategic, open, diverse and inclusive research….”
How academic libraries can support humanities monographs
“These differences make the publishing process for monographs distinctly different. They impose greater responsibilities on the author and the press and don’t support some of the cooperative benefit of a large-scale operation that processes thousands of articles.
What I’d like you to consider, though, is that these differences also provide some amazing opportunities for libraries to be leaders and innovators in supporting the value of the humanities and OA monograph publishing….”
A Sustainable and Open Access Knowledge Organization Model to Preserve Cultural Heritage and Language Diversity
Abstract: This paper proposes a new collaborative and inclusive model for Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) for sustaining cultural heritage and language diversity. It is based on contributions of end-users as well as scientific and scholarly communities from across borders, languages, nations, continents, and disciplines. It consists in collecting knowledge about all worldwide translations of one original work and sharing that data through a digital and interactive global knowledge map. Collected translations are processed in order to build multilingual parallel corpora for a large number of under-resourced languages as well as to highlight the transnational circulation of knowledge. Building such corpora is vital in preserving and expanding linguistic and traditional diversity. Our first experiment was conducted on the world-famous and well-traveled American novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by the American author Mark Twain. This paper reports on 10 parallel corpora that are now sentence-aligned pairs of English with Basque (an European under-resourced language), Bulgarian, Dutch, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Ukrainian, processed out of 30 collected translations.