Langley Automated Sensor Inter-calibration System (LASICS): Open Access Tools for Satellite Imager Inter- Calibration

Abstract:  Satellite imager calibration teams are tasked with maintaining stable measurement records to facilitate reliable monitoring of geophysical parameters and ensure dependable input for forecast models. Satellite imagers are neither uniformly calibrated nor radiometrically scaled to a common reference standard. Consistent inter-calibration between various earth-orbiting satellite imager pairs is a critical step in the creation of seamless earth-scene reflectance data records over time for input to higher level algorithms that retrieve earth system climate-sensitive properties. Each imager inherently by virtue of its optics (and associated properties like spectral response etc.) and orbit will have a unique measurement of the same earth-scene reflected signal. A key part of this is the computationally efficient and optimal identification and prediction of science opportunities where the imager pairs from the irrespective earth-orbits near-simultaneously view the same stable terrestrial targets with nearly identical viewing and solar geometry.

 

Can open access publishing be made ‘JUST’ for authors from low-middle income countries? – The American Journal of Emergency Medicine

“OA applies the principles of ‘FAIR’ in its publishing model. Proposed in March 2016 and endorsed by the European commission and the G20, ‘FAIR’ is an acronym for ‘findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable’, intended to more clearly define what is meant by the term ‘open access’ and make the concept easier to discuss [5]. We wondered if the ‘FAIR’ concept can be supported by the philosophy of ‘JUST’ as well, to empower authors especially from the low and middle-income countries (LMICs).

J- Jargon friendly, U- Universal, S- Sharing, T- Transparent….”

ESA Data Policy – Ensuring an Openness to Science – Ecotone | News and Views on Ecological Science

“ESA has adopted a society-wide open research policy for its publications to further support scientific exploration and preservation, allow a full assessment of published research, and streamline policies across our family of journals. An open research policy provides full transparency for scientific data and code, facilitates replication and synthesis, and aligns ESA journals with current standards. As of Feb. 1, 2021, all new manuscript submissions to ESA journals must abide by the following policy: 

As a condition for publication in ESA journals, all underlying data and statistical code pertinent to the results presented in the publication must be made available in a permanent, publicly accessible data archive or repository, with rare exceptions (see “Details” for more information). Archived data and statistical code should be sufficiently complete to allow replication of tables, graphs, and statistical analyses reported in the original publication, and perform new or meta-analyses. As such, the desire of authors to control additional research with these data and/or code shall not be grounds for withholding material. …”

BSPS Open: All You Need To Know – YouTube

“BSPS Open is an Open Access book series for cutting edge philosophy of science monographs, which are published Open Access and freely downloadable online at no cost to readers or authors. Here, four philosophers of science discuss BSPS Open: What it is, why publish open access, what are Creative Commons licenses are, and how to submit.”

The Evolving Scholar

“The Evolving Scholar is an open access megajournal for multidisciplinary, community-driven and open peer-reviewed publications. The Evolving Scholar (ThES) is the result of the collaboration between TU Delft OPEN publishing and ORVIUM – a CERN spin-off in accelerating scientific publishing.  ThES is managed by members of the team of TU Delft OPEN, staff of the TU Delft Library and Orvium. The Project Team  does not make editorial decisions but can intervene in case of misconduct and conflict….”

Open-source Community Call: The latest developments in open publishing and research communication | Events | eLife

“Please join us for the next Open-source Community Call, hosted in partnership by FORCE11, Dryad and eLife. These calls are an informal way to share and discuss efforts that promote open approaches to research communication, from dissemination of new results (as datasets, code or text) to discovery and evaluation. The focus is on emerging projects and significant updates for ongoing ones. Sign up and get the latest developments….”

A Review of Open Research Data Policies and Practices in China

Abstract:  This paper initially conducts a literature review and content analysis of the open research data policies in China. Next, a series of exemplars describe data practices to promote and enable the use of open research data, including open data practices in research programs, data repositories, data journals, and citizen science. Moreover, the top four driving forces are identified and analyzed along with their responsible guiding work. In addition, the “landscape of open research data ecology in China” is derived from the literature review and from observations of actual cases, where the interaction and mutual development of data policies, data programs, and data practices are recognized. Finally, future trends of research data practices within China and internationally are discussed. We hope the analysis provides perspective on current open data practices in China along with insight into the need for additional research on scientific data sharing and management.

 

OER in the Humanities – YouTube

“As part of the author series from Open Pedagogy Approaches: Faculty, Library, and Student Collaborations, you are invited to discover different ways in which faculty, library staff, and students work together to engage and enrich the learning process.

In this workshop, Bryan McGeary (Pennsylvania State University) and Christopher Guder (Ohio University) will discuss the ideas in their chapter, Harnessing the Power of Student-Created Content: Faculty and Librarians Collaborating in the Open Educational Environment.  Following, authors Christian Beck, Lily Dubach, Sarah Norris and John Vanecek (University of Central Florida) will share their work from the chapter, Humanities in the Open: The Challenges of Creating an Open Literature Anthology….”

ODRL Information Model 2.2

“The Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) is a policy expression language that provides a flexible and interoperable information model, vocabulary, and encoding mechanisms for representing statements about the usage of content and services. The ODRL Information Model describes the underlying concepts, entities, and relationships that form the foundational basis for the semantics of the ODRL policies.

Policies are used to represent permitted and prohibited actions over a certain asset, as well as the obligations required to be meet by stakeholders. In addition, policies may be limited by constraints (e.g., temporal or spatial constraints) and duties (e.g. payments) may be imposed on permissions….”

‘Price gouging from Covid’: student ebooks costing up to 500% more than in print | Higher education | The Guardian

“Librarians at UK universities say students’ reading lists for this term are being torn up because of publishers’ “eye-watering” increases to ebook prices, and some students are now reading what is available or affordable, rather than what their tutors think is best for their course.

With thousands of students studying in their bedrooms at home because of the pandemic, providing access to textbooks and research books online has become crucial. However, librarians say academic publishers are failing to offer electronic versions of many books, seen as critical to degree courses during the pandemic. And, they say, universities frequently cannot afford to buy the ebooks available, for which they can be charged more than five times as much as the printed version, often running into hundreds of pounds a copy, sometimes for one user at a time.

 

Nearly 3,000 librarians, academics and students have now signed an open letter calling for a public investigation into the “unaffordable, unsustainable and inaccessible” academic ebook market….”

The OA Switchboard Initiative

“The OA Switchboard moved to the operational stage on 1 January 2021 and we’re happy to be well underway. We’ll continue to keep you informed this year via regular updates and in this first blog of the year, I’ll tell you about our plans and priorities and how we continue to shape the collaborative nature of the initiative.

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The OA Switchboard is now run from the new Stichting OA Switchboard, founded by OASPA in October 2020. The new set-up ensures a not-for-profit, collectively controlled collaboration between funders, institutions and publishers, where neutrality and independence are preserved by legal structure, governance and articles of incorporation. The OA Switchboard will be financed via a self-sustaining business model and participation and involvement is open to all who meet the OA Switchboard’s purpose and criteria. The OA Switchboard aims to support all OA business models, all policies and all types of scholarly output. OASPA is supportive and actively involved through a strategic partnership with the OA Switchboard….

In addition, we’ve defined a shared use case with launch customers to work on together as a priority: uniform reporting from publishers to institutions/consortia and funders. This use case is based on existing, operational functionality in the OA Switchboard (described in more detail in Q18 in our FAQ’s). This shared priority covers all scenarios: no-prior-agreement, prior-agreement (with and without article-level financials), and also specifically the scenario whereby a funder is not directly involved in settling APCs. Participants engage by manual interaction with the OA Switchboard through the user interface, by integrating from their own (or their third party’s) systems with our API in the standard message structure, or by (intermediate) solutions using ‘connectors’. More about this shared priority use case and technical details in our next blog and webinar.

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A second priority use case we’re working on with our early adopters is: locating central OA funds, and getting publication charges paid in an efficient and cost-effective manner….”

COPIM releases free code for Open Access project sign up system

“The Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs project (COPIM) has today released the code originally written for their Opening the Future initiative, which collects and processes library signups. This release makes the software freely available for any publisher to adapt and use themselves – it is a generic signup system for open-access projects that have consortial membership models….”

Bay State College ‘Flips to Digital’ by Donating Entire College Library to the Internet Archive – Internet Archive Blogs

“Bay State College’s Boston Campus has donated its entire undergraduate library to the Internet Archive so that the digital library can preserve and scan the books, while allowing Bay State to gain much needed open space for student collaboration. By donating and scanning its 11,000-volume collection centered on fashion, criminal justice, allied health, and business books, Bay State’s Boston campus decided to “flip entirely to digital.”…”