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Posts from the ‘open access’ Category

Jan 5

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Behind the Research Works Act: Which U.S. Representatives are Receiving Cash from Reed Elsevier?

A bill (H.R. 3699) recently introduced in the U.S. Congress by  Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) aims to undo open access policies at NIH and to prevent the establishment of open access policies in other federal agencies. The large publishers, as represented by The Association of American Publishers, has expressed its love for this innocuously named “Research Works Act.” Open access advocates understand it as another terrible assault on the public interest and as instrument designed to not only mislead those who do not understand how scholarly research and its communication work but to more intensively transfer public resources into private, corporate hands. I am not going to offer an analysis of the bill and its contexts here.

In this note, I just want to highlight University of California Biologist Michael Eisen’s posting about the Research Works Act. After contextualizing and characterizing H.R. 3699, he points his readers to political contribution data available via MapLight. Looking into which members of Congress have received contributions from the large, multinational scholarly publisher Read Elsevier, Eisen notes that the largest recipient of Elsevier cash is Rep. Maloney (co-sponsor of H.R. 3699). He notes:

Dutch publisher Elsevier and its senior executives made 31 contributions to members of the House in 2011, of which 12 went to Representative Maloney. This includes contributions from 11 senior executives or partners, only one of whom is a resident of her district.

Who else is on the Elsevier donation list? Any guesses? Yes, of course, Rep. Issa. (For the full list of Elsevier recipients, see here.)

Thank you to Professor Eisen for his work digging into this question.

Jan 4

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Association of American Publishers Issues Horrible New Press Release in Support of a Horrible Bill: Where Do You Stand?

The Association of American Publishers has issued a awful new press release expressing enthusiasm for the Research Works Act, H.R. 3699 describing it as “significant legislation that will help reinforce America’s leadership in scholarly and scientific publishing in the public interest and in the critical peer-review system that safeguards the quality of such research.”

This is just the latest in an endless, dispiriting series of commercial publisher FUD campaigns and efforts at the further corporate enclosure of public resources. Advocates for the public interest in scholarship will resist H.R. 3699 and those with vested profits in the terrible status quo will support it. As with FRPAA, as always, a key question is where will the scholarly societies stand? Another is whether any more academic authors and editors will wake up and consider their role in the perpetuation of a system that is not only dysfunctional but also increasingly corrupt and immoral.

Money in politics? Corporate personhood? Policies that harm the poorest and help the most affluent? Academic authors–many of you are not connecting the dots that lead to your own practices.

Another question is where do those AAP members that are not-for-profit university presses (Chicago, California, Hawaii, North Carolina, Illinois (sigh), Texas, Tennessee) stand? Is the AAP speaking for you on this one? Don’t forget PRISM, y’all.

Dec 22

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Stuff to Check Out: Digital Return, Open Access, Annotum, Anthropology Report

There is a lot going on these days. Here are a few things I am taking note of. I hope to check these projects and tools out more carefully soon.

The upcoming Digital Return workshop being organized by Kim Christen, Josh Bell and Mark Turin.

Peter Suber’s forthcoming book Open Access to be published in March by MIT Press.

The Annotum theme for WordPress–a means for building more journal functionality into WordPress and WordPress.com sites.

Anthropology Report, recently launched by Jason Antrosio

Nov 29

Speaking of Society-University Partnerships, Check out what the Linguistic Society of America is Doing

Speaking (in my previous post) of scholarly society-university partnerships to advance non-toll access scholarly communications, check out what the Linguistic Society of America is doing in its eLanguage program. With partners, the LSA is “co-publishing” six gold OA journals and facilitating access to the archives for two more (IPrA Papers in Pragmatics, which became Pragmatics. Note that IPrA Papers in Pragmatics was founded and edited (1987-1990) by linguistic anthropologists Alessandro Duranti and Bambi Schieffelin.).  The other journals are Constructions, Dialogue & Discourse, Journal of Experimental Linguistics, Journal of Mesoamerican Languages and Linguistics, Linguistic Issues in Language Technology, and Semantics and Pragmatics.

In addition to a range of LSA and non-LSA affiliated groups, university/government partners behind these journals include:  the Ministry of Science and Research of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, Stanford University, MIT, and University of Texas-Austin.

I feel foolish that I am only learning about this amazing effort now. (I have been away from my own linguistic anthropology work for some time…) A full prospectus (dated Septemebr 15, 2006!!!) is accessible here on the LSA website. The journal portal itself is here at http://www.elanguage.net/.

The effort appears to be thriving.  Congratulations to the LSA and its partners!  (I am going to have to weave this effort into my revision of my AAA paper on society partnerships.)

Nov 18

On “The Future of AAA Publishing: A Forum for Discussion” #aaa2011

Dear Anthropologists,

How we publish our scholarship impacts how we teach and do research. It affects how we are evaluated. It has direct consequences on life in contemporary communities, including those that ethnographers, linguists, and biological anthropologists study (with) and those who live next to, or possess a connection to, the archaeological sites that we investigate. It also directly affects those whose cash makes the publishing enterprise happen, including very significantly the students whom many of us teach and the would-be students who cannot afford to be taught.

Please consider attending today’s discussion on The Future of AAA Publishing and share your views. The session is 4-0960 and is happening in Convention Center 516D at 1:45 p.m.

I will be trying to explain “green open access” in laypersons terms in five minutes.

See you there.

Jason

Nov 15

Open Access Discussions at #AAA2011 and @savageminds

One last thanks to Ryan Anderson for his interview with me on open access issues. The final third was published today on Savage Minds. I hope that it proves useful to someone. The timing of the interview is great because I will be party to a couple discussions of scholarly communications issues at the American Anthropological Association meetings, which have already begun in Montreal.

In the session Digital Anthropology: Projects and Projections, I will be discussing library-scholarly society partnerships on the basis of my work with colleagues on the Open Folklore project. This panel is packed with wonderful colleagues and great projects. Thanks go to Mike Fortun for organizing it. It happens Sunday morning.

On Friday I will be part of a forum on The Future of AAA Publishing. I thank the AAA leadership for the invitation to participate in this gathering.

For everyone going to #AAA2011, have a great meeting.

Nov 11

Open Access Interview Part Two @savageminds

Thanks again to Ryan Anderson for working with me on an interview exploring the basic issues relating to open access in anthropology and folklore. The second part of three has now been published on Savage Minds. As always I appreciate Savage Minds for hosting such considerations of these issues.

Nov 9

Leading North American Institutions Endorse the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge

From a SPARC press release circulated today:

Washington, DC – Thirty-three research institutions, associations, and foundations in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico have made a commitment to Open Access to research by signing the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. These top private, public, and non-profit organizations join nearly 300 more from around the world in another clear sign of the growing demand for change in the way scientific and scholarly research results are communicated and maximized. The announcement is made in conjunction with the ninth Berlin conference, at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which opened today.

The Berlin Declaration promotes the Internet as a medium for disseminating global knowledge. Its goal is to make scientific and scholarly research more accessible to the broader public by taking full advantage of the possibilities offered by digital electronic communication. Signatories support actions that ensure the future Web is sustainable, interactive, and transparent – and that content is openly accessible – in order to realize the vision of a global and accessible representation of knowledge. The leaders of research institutions, libraries, archives, museums, funding agencies, and governments from around the world have signed the Declaration – including CERN, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academia Europaea, and the German Max Planck Society (co-initiator and custodian).

North American signatories now include leading private research institutions (such as Harvard University and Duke University), public research institutions (University of Kansas, University of California-Los Angeles), Canadian research campuses (Concordia University, University of Quebec in Montreal), smaller academic institutions (Oberlin College, Grand Valley State University), non-profit organizations (Alliance for Information Science and Technology Innovation, Science Commons), major library coalitions (SPARC, the Association of Research Libraries, Canadian Library Association), and the Open Society Foundations (architect of the Budapest Open Access Initiative).

The full list is available at http://oa.mpg.de/lang/en-uk/berlin-prozess/signatoren/.

New signatory and Kansas University Provost Jeffrey S. Vitter emphasizes the university has been a leader in the Open Access movement as the first public institution in the United States to adopt a faculty-wide open-access policy. “Signing the Berlin Declaration is another step forward in this effort, and we are pleased to join the many fine institutions that are also committed to Open Access to scholarly research,” said Vitter, who is also speaking as part of this week’s conference.

Duke University’s Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian & Vice Provost for Library Affairs, affirmed that institution’s involvement. “At Duke our interest in Open Access initiatives stems from our long-standing willingness to experiment to find the best models for scholarly communication and from our institutional commitment to putting knowledge in the service of society,” she said. “Signing the Berlin Declaration was a logical extension of commitments and values that we have held for a long time.”

Sean Decatur, Dean of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences at Oberlin College, adds:

“The faculty of Oberlin College have made a commitment to disseminating the results of their research as widely as possible.  That principled commitment is an expression of the view that Open Access to scholarship is an important step for the advancement of knowledge, helping to overcome barriers that restrict, rather than encourage, the sharing of ideas and engagement in discourse.  I am pleased that our faculty is so strongly supportive of Open Access and I am honored to sign the Berlin Declaration on their behalf.”

The cohort of North American signatories to the Berlin Declaration will be saluted at the conference-wide dinner this evening. Registration is full, but interested representatives of the media are invited to contact Jennifer McLennan, Conference Director, with inquiries.

The Berlin 9 Conference is organized by representatives from the science, humanities, research, funding and policy communities, including the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Marine Biological Laboratory, the Max Planck Society, Association of Research Libraries, and SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition). It takes place today and tomorrow, November 10.

For more information about the Declaration and how to sign, visit http://www.berlin9.org/about/sign.

For details about the Berlin 9 Conference, visit http://www.berlin9.org.

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Nov 7

Interview on Open Access @savageminds

Thank you very much to anthropologist Ryan Anderson for inviting me to do an interview on open access issues in anthropology. He has begun publishing it on Savage Minds and re-broadcasting it on his weblog ethnografix. Ryan is also one of the organizers of the online anthropology magazine anthropologies. The current issue focuses on Appalachia and includes essays by Britteny M. Howell, Ann Kingsolver, Tammy L. Clemons, Shaunna L. Scott, Amanda Fickey and Lynne Rieske-Kinney, and Sarah Raskin. Check it out.

Follow Ryan on Twitter at @ethnografix

Nov 4

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Genres Leak, Being a Reflection on Michael E. Smith’s Essay on Semi-, Quasi- and Pseudo- Journals

On his weblog Publishing Archaeology, Michael E. Smith raises key questions about the status of a mode of scholarly communication for which he is in search of a name. To guide his thinking, he considers two actual web publishing projects in anthropology: (1) Anthropologies and (2) Anthropology of This Century. Committed to the centrality of the established peer-reviewed journal form (but eager to advance open access and also a blogger himself) he wonders what to call these journal-like publishing efforts. Noting that these publishing efforts have some clear similarities to conventional journal but that they are also, in some ways, different, the possibilities that occur to him include semi-, quasi-, and pseudo- journal.

I do not have answers for Michael’s questions all nailed down perfectly myself, but I doubt that semi-journal or quasi-journal or pseudo-journal will, in practice, stick. There are a great many experiments going on in scholarly communication and I think that we will eventually discover the right names for specific kinds of projects. I think that the label “journal” is likely going to continue to spread to refer to a greater diversity of communicative forms. For me, the key thing that we know now is that it is important not to conflate platforms with genres (or with quality). Read more

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