Multimedia Dissertations and Copyright
This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education reports the difficulty faced by a PhD candidate whose dissertation is a multimedia object with film clips, hyperlinks to different parts of the work, and other uses of electronic media. The fact that multimedia is being incorporated into teaching and scholarly communication has raised concerns over copyright, fair use, and access issues. In response to copyright holders’ restrictions, Peter Jaszi, a professor of law at American University, suggests that academia "formulate a document of best practices relating to fair use, and stake a claim to it."
Indeed, higher education institutions should band together and take the initiative to voice their scholarly communication needs to the government and copyright holders. Otherwise, fair use might eventually become anything but fair play.
Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 62
The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography is now available as Version 62. It covers over 2,680 articles, books, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet.
Interviews on EDUCAUSE
EDUCAUSE has made available two podcast interviews of significant figures in scholarly communication. The first interview is about Heather Joseph, the Executive Director of SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). Among the topics discussed are SPARC’s activities and open access. The second interview is with Merrilee Proffitt, a program officer in RLG. She talks about digital preservation and Web archival.
Nature Proliferation
Originally posted by Sara Ranger:
There has been a lot of discussion lately on one of my listservs about the new Nature titles, e.g. Nature Physics. Apparently, more journals are in the works: Nature Protocols and Nature Chemistry are both rumored to be under development.
Journal proliferation and titles splitting is nothing new in the world of scholarly communication, but the cost of these practices continues to rise. Researchers see the benefits of publishing in prestigious journals, especially those that offer the kinds of bells and whistles that Nature Chemistry promises, but it’s often left to the library to figure out how to pay for these costly new titles ($1500 for Nature Nanotechnology, same price for Nature Physics). Our choices are usually to ignore the requests for the journal or to cancel others.
Which would researchers prefer? Are there other options?
Case Study of Open Access Publishing
In this case study published in Information Research, the authors discuss the operations and business model of an open access journal, Electronic Journal of Information Technology in Construction. Based on their analysis, they conclude:
Open access journals that operate using an open-source-like business model (where the costs are absorbed by the universities of the editors and other staff) can be successful, but only under quite restrictive border conditions. The situation is thus partly the same as in the case of open source software projects, which seem to work well in areas which catch the interest of very skilled programmers and not at all in other areas.
This case study is definitely encouraging news to open access advocates and supporters. The financial sustainability of the no-fee business model will help maintain the current diversity of scholarly communication avenues. Academics and researchers who want to launch an open access journal can check out this list of open source software for publishing e-journals.
Unintended Consequences of DMCA
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a report, Unintended Consequences: Seven Years under the DMCA, to discuss how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has been manipulated to stifle legitimate activities. It states that certain uses of the DMCA have led to these threats:
- The DMCA chills free expression and scientific research
- The DMCA jeopardizes fair use
- The DMCA impedes competition and innovation
- The DMCA interferes with computer intrusion laws
As digital materials are widely used in instruction and scholarly communication, academics and researchers may want to tune in and stay informed of the use (and abuse) of the DMCA.
Open Access Archiving Mail List
A new mail list for open access archiving has been set up. See this post on the OA Librarian Blog for detail.
SPARC Innovator Program
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) has announced that Herbert Van de Sompel was named the first SPARC Innovator for his contribution to scholarly communication. From the announcement:
[Van de Sompel is] the initiator of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) and the open reference linking framework (OpenURL). The Open Archives Initiative develops and promotes interoperability standards that aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content, and it has had wide-ranging influence on a variety of other initiatives within the open access and institutional repository movements.
More about Access Principle
Dr. John Willinsky’s book, The access principle: The case for open access to research and scholarship, continues to generate discussions of the open access movement. In this article published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Martin Frank charges that Willinsky fails to weigh the benefits of open access against its costs in terms of research funding. He opines:
Willinsky makes the case for access to research literature as a public good, but the advancement of medical knowledge through research is also a public good. When there is not enough money to go around, the question facing us is this: How should we decide which public good is preferable?
On the other hand, Dr. John E. Enderby applauds in his book review published in Science that Willinsky has busted many of the myths about open access. He also argues:
I actually think that the growth of the open-access movement and the publishers’ response to it reflect the fact that market forces will, in the end, lead to a variety of models, each well suited to particular disciplines. … Self, institutional, or topical repositories have not, it seems, significantly affected the subscription base of non-open-access journals, but this might well change if there were less diversity in the market.
Given that the open access movement may lead to many possible and complex ramifications, it is beneficial (and essential) that not only librarians but also academics actively take note of what is happening in the landscape of scholarly publishing. The discussions generated are valuable to publishers and professional associations when they consider what they should do to contribute to scholarly communication.
P.S.: The MIT Press now provides access to the full text of The access principle: The case for open access to research and scholarship. However, registration is required.
Institutional Repositories and Need for “Value-added” Services
Tyler Walters’ PowerPoint presentation at the Coalition for Networked Information Spring 2006 Task Force Meeting is now available. It introduces viewers to Georgia Tech’s institutional repository, SMARTech, and concludes with these thoughts:
- We need to integrate IRs into the "information fabric" of our campuses’ academic and business processes
- "Growth industry" for IRs may be around identifying and implementing constructive ways to use the scholarly information they contain
