Open Access News

News from the open access movement

Jump to navigation

Friday, July 01, 2005

Playing catch-up: June 30 blog postings

Here are the major blog postings I made by email to SOAF while OAN was down last week. June 30, 2005:

New issue of Theke aktuell. The new issue of Theke aktuell (vol. 12, no. 2, 2005) is now online. Here are the OA-related articles. (Sorry there are no deep links.)
- Rike Balzuweit, Open Access - Offener Zugang zu wissenschaftlichem Wissen.
- Ulrike Specht, Rechtliche Aspekte der Werkverwertung im Rahmen von Open Access.
(Thanks to Klaus Graf.)
More on open science and national security. Brian J. Gorman, Balancing National Security and Open Science: A Proposal for Due Process Vetting, Yale Journal of Law and Technology, Spring 2005. Abstract: 'Since 9/11 and the anthrax attacks of the same year, the national security and scientific communities have been grappling with a dilemma over the danger posed by the publication of "dual use" science that may advance basic science and aid bioterrorists at the same time. A spate of life science articles recognized as having the ability to aid bioterrorists or enemy combatants have been published amid much consternation. The national security community turned to experts in the life sciences to develop options to address this dilemma, but the scientific community has responded defiantly at times with surprising recommendations to expose and distribute sensitive articles even more widely despite the obvious risks to national security. After succumbing to pressure from the government, the scientific community ultimately adopted a censorship policy for sensitive research. Thus the censorship policy begs questions as to whether it is sincere and whether it will dissuade researchers from pursuing biodefense research. This paper attempts to move the debate away from emotions and politics to specific methodologies to address this dilemma. A Due Process Vetting System is presented along with a Risk Assessment Scale and a Least Restrictive Classification System for the communication, assessment and disposition of sensitive life science research in a manner consistent with national security interests.'
Overpriced and out of date. ResearchAndMarkets issued a press release today to advertise a report on Open Access Publishing Models. But before you buy: the 28-page report costs 425 Euros and was first published 18 months ago. The R&M ad page doesn't even give credit to Christine Lamb, who originally wrote the report for Shore Communications. Tip: Read Christine Lamb's article version of the same report in the April 2004 issue of Learned Publishing. It's OA.
Digital literature and OA at the British Library. British Library predicts 'switch to digital by 2020', a press release from the British Library, June 29, 2005. Excerpt: 'Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library, today predicted a switch from print to digital publishing by the year 2020. Speaking at the launch of the Library�s new three-year strategy, Lynne Brindley said: "Most people are aware that a national switch to digital broadcasting is expected by the end of this decade. Less well known is the fact that a similar trend is underway in the world of publishing: by the year 2020, 40% of UK research monographs will be available in electronic format only, while a further 50% will be produced in both print and digital. A mere 10% of new titles will be available in print alone by 2020.'
The press release doesn't mention OA. But the BL three-year strategy does. Excerpt: 'Changes taking place in the ways in which researchers are disseminating their work include Open Access publishing and subject-based or institutional repositories....The Library's role is to support varied forms of research output, working with publishers and other information providers. We're participating in a number of collaborative projects with higher education to establish digital repositories and create the tools that will underpin them. An example is our involvement in the development of a national e-thesis service....There is growing awareness in government that the fruits of publicly-funded research should be available for public consultation quickly and easily.'
Note that the new RCUK draft OA policy was issued in "partnership" with the British Library (paragraph 4), and counts on the British Library to play a role in the long-term preservation of OA research literature (paragraph 31).
Sun pushes OA to books, teaching materials. Stephen Shankland, Sun makes case for open-source schooling, ZDNet, June 28, 2005. Excerpt: 'Sun Chief Executive Scott McNealy on Tuesday urged participation in a shared effort to create freely available online educational materials for schools. The effort, called the Global Education and Learning Community (GELC), produces curriculum materials such as online books for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. McNealy envisions the replacement of expensive and quickly out-of-date textbooks by shared online instructional materials, testing, grading and assessment tools, all created by experts. "This is all about open-sourcing K-12 educational materials. Imagine you have a...community-led process where we can get the best educators to create the world's best third-grade math textbook and make it free," McNealy said at the JavaOne trade show here. "Help contribute your time, your energy, your focus and maybe even your money."...[I]t's not just feel-good work, but directly tied to the Sun's bottom line, Sun President Jonathan Schwartz argued in an interview on Tuesday. "The more people are on the network," he said, "the more demand there is for network infrastructure," which is Sun's primary business. "What's good for the world is good for our business." ' (Thanks to LIS News.)
Comment. Does this mean that Sun has an interest in promoting OA to research literature? That every company in the network infrastructure business has an interest in promoting OA?
One of America's oldest journals moves toward OA. Psyche: A Journal of Entomology, published since 1874, is moving toward OA. From the web site: 'As of spring 2005, editorial strategy meetings are ongoing and focus on sponsorship and on how to establish a sustainable publication process. It is hoped that regular publication will resume in an on line, open access format by early 2006. We will be scanning most back issues, from volume 17 (1910) through the present, in June 2005. Look for about 2500 .pdf files on this web site in July or August.' (Thanks to John Wilbanks.)
"Making money out of restricting access to research is immoral". A question of ethics, The Guardian, June 30, 2005. An interview with Richard Smith, former editor of BMJ. Excerpt: 'Before the internet came along, scientific papers had to be published in journals. But now, he says, journals should give up what are effectively immoral earnings. They add no value to the scientific research, and yet it may take a year or more before they publish and they then charge people to read it. "Making money out of restricting access to research is immoral," he says. Instead, he says, all research should be published in one large free database, with access for all. Smith has joined the board of directors of the free access online Public Library of Science (PLoS). The biggest problem with this scenario is financial. Journals make more money from reprints of scientific papers than they do from advertising. Pharmaceutical companies strive to get their drug trials in the best-known journals, because the cachet helps sales. They will order hundreds of thousands of reprints for their reps to distribute in hospitals and GP surgeries. It is a huge earner, and the journals have become reliant on the money. Some journals would go bust, but Smith does not think they would be mourned. "All this would mean is that instead of 30,000 journals or whatever, you might have 50 to 100 good ones," says Smith with equanimity. He does not accept the arguments of medical societies, which publish some of the journals, that they need the income to support other activities. "If these are genuine value-added things, you should find a way for them to pay for themselves," he says.' (Thanks to Ben Toth.)
PS: Also see Smith's article, Medical Journals Are an Extension of the Marketing Arm of Pharmaceutical Companies, PLoS Medicine, May 2005.
Record of an electronic publishing veteran. Charles W. Bailey, Jr., A Look Back at Sixteen Years as an Internet Electronic Publisher, June 29, 2005. A timeline of Charles' 16 years as an internet electronic publisher, from his launch of the PACS-L mailing list in 1989 to his Open Access Bibliography and DigitalKoans blog this spring.
The importance of preprint exchange. R. Ramachandran, Should the IMD monopolise monsoon forecasts? The Hindu, June 29, 2005. Excerpt: 'Early this month, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) took an unacceptable step. It stated that only the India Meteorological Department (IMD), an agency under the DST, had the mandate to make public the annual long-range monsoon forecast and no other agency or institution could do so, even in the research mode....[I]n physical sciences, it has been a long-standing tradition of disseminating research findings much before they are published in the form of 'preprints'. The preprint tradition is very healthy. Circulation of preprints serves to validate research findings by a scrutiny within the scientific community, a sort of informal peer review. The DST has argued that since the forecasts are not published in any peer-reviewed journal, they should not be publicised. This goes against the spirit of the preprint and e-preprint tradition. The implication of the DST move, therefore, is that any research that may serve public interest should not be disseminated in advance of publication. If today the directive is against monsoon research findings, tomorrow it could be against, say, earthquake predictions. Therefore, irrespective of the merits of the CMMACS model, which uses neural networks as against the statistical approach of IMD, and the predictions based on it, the DST move sets a dangerous precedent.' (Thanks to Subbiah Arunachalam.)

Posted by Peter Suber at 7/01/2005 01:15:00 PM.