Monthly Archives: October 2019

Plan S: How Open Access Publishing Could Be Changing Academia | Biomedical Odyssey

Posted on by

“In our current system, journals need to charge researchers more to publish open access in order to offset the loss of income they would have acquired by having that article behind a paywall. Yet, some laboratories are not in the position to pay twice as much money to publish an article open access. Another factor slowing the progress of the open access movement is that scientists have a strong incentive to submit their papers to high-prestige subscription journals. In academia’s highly competitive job market, publishing a high impact paper can give you that crucial boost necessary to get a faculty position.

Supporters of Plan S often present the initiative in a moral light: As scientists, we have a duty to share our findings publicly for the benefit of all. However, if your career relies on that Nature paper, would you choose a moral high ground over the practical reality of ensuring your future career? The debate over open access publishing rages on, but the Plan S initiative shows that major changes could be coming soon to academic publishing….”

Social Sciences & Scholarly Communication Librarian

Posted on by

“[The purpose of the position is] to serve as an authority on emerging and evolving trends in scholarly communications and on social sciences methodologies and research, and to recommend initiatives that could be undertaken to support evolving needs. To serve as a member of a dynamic team providing direct assistance and guidance to library users through reference and instructional services. To serve as a bibliographer for specific academic departments, assisting in collection development….”

“Can Accessibility Liberate The “Lost Ark” of Scholarly Work?: Universi” by Raizel Liebler and Gregory Cunningham

Posted on by

Abstract:  For any body of knowledge – an ark of power or a corpus of scholarship – to be studied and used by people, it needs to be accessible to those seeking information. Universities, through their libraries, now aim to make more of the scholarship produced available for free to all through institutional repositories. However, the goal of being truly open for an institutional repository is more than the traditional definition of open access. It also means openness in a more general sense. Creating a scholarship-based online space also needs to take into consideration potential barriers for people with disabilities. This article addresses the interaction between the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and university academic library based institutional repositories. This article concludes that institutional repositories have an obligation to comply with the ADA to make scholarly works available to potential users with disabilities. For managers of institutional repositories, following the law is an opportunity to make scholarship even more widely available. University open access institutional repositories need to be accessible to existing and potential disabled users. However, there are no specific rules that university institutional repositories must follow to be compliant with the ADA’s “public accommodation” standard. Accessibility is a changeable, moveable wall, consistently and constantly needing to be additionally inclusive of more – more technology and more users, regardless of disability or limitations. Institutional repositories should not become the crated Ark of the Covenant with their secrets locked inside; instead, they should be as open as possible to all, sharing the scholarship inside.

 

 

 

MIT Press and Harvard Data Science Initiative launch the Harvard Data Science Review | MIT News

Posted on by

“The MIT Press and the Harvard Data Science Initiative (HDSI) have announced the launch of the Harvard Data Science Review (HDSR). The open-access journal, published by MIT Press and hosted online via the multimedia platform PubPub, an initiative of the MIT Knowledge Futures group, will feature leading global thinkers in the burgeoning field of data science, making research, educational resources, and commentary accessible to academics, professionals, and the interested public. With demand for data scientists booming, HDSR will provide a centralized, authoritative, and peer-reviewed publishing community to service the growing profession….”

Harvard and MIT team up to launch peer-reviewed data science journal | News | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Posted on by

“The Harvard Data Science Initiative and MIT Press have launched the Harvard Data Science Review (HDSR), an open-access peer-reviewed journal that serves as a centralized and authoritative outlet for the burgeoning field of data science.

The journal will feature expert overviews of complex ideas and topics from leading thinkers with direct applications for teaching, research, business, government, and more, according to a July 15, 2019 MIT Press article….”

#NoFeeScience #MarchForBetterScience

Posted on by

From Google’s English: “Objective: This “manifesto” is intended, initially, to a public of scientists. Some recent moves, such as #MarchForScience or #NoFakeScience [1, 2], that have made a lot of noise in the media and social networks, have had the merit of highlighting how much we need not only trust, but also the cooperation of the general public in order to face the global crises that mark our time. However, if there is a scientific consensus that is lacking today, it is precisely the one that can affirm, without bad faith, that “knowledge is the heritage of humanity”. For that, it would first be necessary for this heritage to be entirely and freely accessible by everyone.

If you agree with this principle and are ready to support it, you are welcome to add your signature at the bottom of this manifesto. At this very moment when climate strike movements around the world insist that we do not have time to wait for the recalcitrant, we must act now, it is not the case for the open science: the moment to act to give citizens the confidence that we, scientists, need on their part, the moment finally to open science, it is also now! Let’s talk about this also in the media …”

Looking back at 20 years of EIFL | EIFL

Posted on by

” “In an unprecedented initiative called ‘Electronic Information for Libraries’ (EIFL Direct), libraries in 39 countries will have access to a wealth of electronic full-text scholarly journals.” This announcement, by press release, marked the birth of EIFL 20 years ago, on 5 October 1999. 

At that time I was working at the Open Society Institute, part of the Soros foundations network. We were receiving applications from ex-Soviet Union university libraries requesting grants to subscribe to print journals. There was a dilemma: the subscriptions were not cheap, and they only lasted for one year. So these grants were not sustainable in the long term, and we knew that there were thousands of libraries in other developing countries that also needed, and wanted, to have access to the latest scholarly information. A few years later, the shift from print to digital in the publishing industry began and we saw an opportunity to solve the problem. The Open Society Institute negotiated with EBSCO, a large content aggregator, for a 99% discount to online journals for all libraries in countries where Soros foundations existed, as well as free delivery of the content on DVD-ROM to those libraries with poor internet connectivity. At last we were able to provide access to more than 3,500 full-text journals. …”

EIFL celebrates 20th anniversary | EIFL

Posted on by

“We celebrated our 20th anniversary in October by sharing our achievements, memories and the many messages of support we received from friends, partners and colleagues from across the world.

In a blog marking EIFL’s anniversary, Rima Kupryte, EIFL Director, looked back at two decades of working towards a world in which all people have the knowledge they need to achieve their full potential. 

We highlighted some of the main EIFL achievements over the past 20 years and birthday messages from our partners. …”

The NIH public access policy did not harm biomedical journals

Posted on by

Abstract:  The United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) imposed a public access policy on all publications for which the research was supported by their grants; the policy was drafted in 2004 and took effect in 2008. The policy is now 11 years old, yet no analysis has been presented to assess whether in fact this largest-scale US-based public access policy affected the vitality of the scholarly publishing enterprise, as manifested in changed mortality or natality rates of biomedical journals. We show here that implementation of the NIH policy was associated with slightly elevated mortality rates and mildly depressed natality rates of biomedical journals, but that birth rates so exceeded death rates that numbers of biomedical journals continued to rise, even in the face of the implementation of such a sweeping public access policy.

 

The spirit of openness in Belgrade during the Open Access Week: Conference The Application of Free Software and Open Hardware – OpenAIRE Blog

Posted on by

“The second conference The Application of Free Software and Open Hardware (Primena slobodnog softvera i otvorenog hardvera – PSSOH) was certainly the most vibrant event organized in Serbia on the occasion of the 2019 Open Access Week.”

How To Introduce and Implement Policy in Your Institution and Still Have Friends Afterwards

Posted on by

“We face multiple challenges as we develop and implement institution-wide policies to help support an open and information-rich future within our universities. Our ability to work across multiple complex units within the university, to align our priorities and interests, and to understand how decisions are made within our institutions is critical to the success and sustainability of policies and the infrastructure needed to support them.

This course offers an opportunity to engage deeply in how policies and supporting implementing structures are developed, agreed upon, and sustained. Participants will share practice and experiences to broaden the discussion and help find commonalities. Throughout the course, we will be using a range of teaching and workshop tools that in themselves can be repurposed by participants for sessions they might wish to run subsequent to the course….”

Open Preservation Foundation Joins The Open Source Initiative – Open Preservation Foundation

Posted on by

“The Open Preservation Foundation (OPF) is delighted to announce that we have become an affiliate member of the Open Source Initiative® (OSI). The OSI is the global non-profit formed to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source software, development, and communities.

OSI affiliate members participate directly in the direction and development of the OSI through the Board of Directors elections as well as incubator projects and working groups that support software freedom. OSI membership provides a forum where some of the world’s most successful open source software leaders, projects, businesses, and communities engage through member-driven initiatives to promote and protect open source software, while also extending and improving their open source efforts through co-creation, collaboration, and community….”

How journals are using overlay publishing models to facilitate equitable OA

Posted on by

“Preprint repositories have traditionally served as platforms to share copies of working papers prior to publication. But today they are being used for so much more, like posting datasets, archiving final versions of articles to make them Green Open Access, and another major development — publishing academic journals. Over the past 20 years, the concept of overlay publishing, or layering journals on top of existing repository platforms, has developed from a pilot project idea to a recognized and growing publishing model.

In the overlay publishing model, a journal performs refereeing services, but it doesn’t publish articles on its website. Rather, the journal’s website links to final article versions hosted on an online repository….”

Canada Opens the Door to Public Scrutiny of Clinical Drug Trials

Posted on by

“This past March, Canada’s department of health changed the way it handles the huge amount of data that companies submit when seeking approval for a new drug, biological treatment, or medical device — or a new use for an existing one. For the first time, Health Canada is making large chunks of this information publicly available after it approves or rejects applications.

Within 120 days of a decision, Health Canada will post clinical study reports on a new government online portal, starting with drugs that contain novel active ingredients and adding devices and other drugs over a four-year phase-in period. These company-generated documents, often running more than 1,000 pages, summarize the methods, goals, and results of clinical trials, which test the safety and efficacy of promising medical interventions. The reports play an important role in helping regulators make their decisions, along with other information, such as raw data about individual patients in clinical trials.

So far, Health Canada has posted reports for four newly approved drugs — one to treat plaque psoriasis in adults, two to treat two different types of skin cancer, and the fourth for advanced hormone-related breast cancer — and is preparing to release reports for another 13 drugs and three medical devices approved or rejected since March.

Canada’s move follows a similar policy enacted four years ago by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) of the European Union. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), on the other hand, continues to treat this information as confidential to companies and rarely makes it public….”