Group items tagged

To guarantee access to and uptake of knowledge by all. Research and innovation benefit from scientists, research institutions, businesses and citizens accessing, sharing and using existing scientific knowledge and the possibility to express timely expectations or concerns on such activities. A major challenge is to broadly implement Open Access - i.e.

Nature Communications has announced it will go open access only from 20 October in a bid to show the world that quality papers do not have to be paid for.

I've chosen to link to the article on Wired which discusses the move as the explanation is easier for those who (like me!) have little experience of academic journals to understand. One of the most important points I've taken from reading this article (and the PDF study explaining the reasons for the move to Open Access, which is linked from the article) is that to date, articles which have previously been published to Nature Communications using the OA model have earned more citations than those published under a subscription model. I'm interested to learn more about the mentioned Creative Commons 4.0 license, which I'm not yet familiar with. If anyone with experience using (or publishing to) academic journals would like to add any relevant points to the potential impact of the magazine's choice to go OA, I would really appreciate the insight!

"So why do we have an emerging digital divide in society where one group has easy and instant access to new research often funded out of the public purse yet others face significant costs, delays or barriers to accessing knowledge?" "In the past, one might have expected society's 'critics and consciences' to be located in universities. Now many of these voices, including some who have retired, are outside these institutions."

from website: "Bioline International is a not-for-profit scholarly publishing cooperative committed to providing open access to quality research journals published in developing countries. BI's goal of reducing the South to North knowledge gap is crucial to a global understanding of health (tropical medicine, infectious diseases, epidemiology, emerging new diseases), biodiversity, the environment, conservation and international development. By providing a platform for the distribution of peer-reviewed journals (currently from Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, India, Iran, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda and Venezuela), BI helps to reduce the global knowledge divide by making bioscience information generated in these countries available to the international research community world-wide." The site offers a range of journals, with full text access. Areas include zoology, health, agriculture, and nutrition. There aren't a lot of journals so the site is manageable. Good source if you are a scientist seeking data/information from areas other than the west.

Open Library is an open project: the software is open, the data are open, the documentation is open. Whether you fix a typo, add a book, or write a widget--it's all welcome. Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive, and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation.

Very good and will be helpful to all

Welcome to Open Library! Looking for accessible books in the DAISY format? View our accessible book subject page, or search for accessible books.

I liked this article on the tension between indigenous knowledge, which wants to be closed and contained, and open knowledge which wants to be freely accessible to all. It highlights the need to find a balancing middle path between the two trajectories. This issue speaks to the sources found in Additional resources in Module 1.

Free internet for Africa

The sooner Africa gets the internet the better. The cost of internet is too high and out of reach for many people. Free internet will facilitate access to information. I hope this will reach rural areas and maginalised communities.

yes, it is very good to get free internet for Africa so that knowledge dissipation happens and open knowledge can will be useful to all of them and also benefit from that OK. IT infrastructure and internet is required to benefit from open accessible open knowledge.

This report addresses four main questions: * How can sustainable cost/benefit models for OER initiatives be developed? * What are the intellectual property rights issues linked to OER initiatives? * What are the incentives and barriers for universities and faculty staff to deliver their materials to OER initiatives? * How can access and usefulness for the users of OER initiatives be improved? This is part of an OECD series of reports looking at the impact of Open Knowledge on education systems and learning

Hi Matt, Thanks for sharing this OECD report from the year 2007. The OECD is really forward looking. One sentence strikes me: "Wikipedia has two employees and well over a million articles in multiple languages." Yes, that was true, back in the year 2007.

A very interesting paper that discusses issues around OER, as well as some topics already covered in the course is, "Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resources" (Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The paper highlights some of the barriers, sustainability issues, and how to improve access and usefulness of open educational resources. I found the paper very comprehensive, with many additional resources. While published in 2007, when conversations around OER were fairly new, many of the points they raise are still in discussion and relevant.

Just thought I'd share a Frequently Asked Question from the Library of Congress site. The answer highlights the antithesis of open access. One would think that the LOC would lead open access given that our tax dollars fund it and democracy requires an informed citizenry. What online databases and indexes does the Library make available to researchers on site? The Library subscribes to a large number of online subscription databases which offer indexes to journals, information on library holdings, and other resources in a wide range of subject areas. Workstations for searching these services are available in all of the Library's reading rooms. The Library also subscribes to a number of Internet-based databases and full-text journal services, which are searchable on any of the public Internet workstations in the Library's reading rooms. Patrons onsite using their personal laptops or other wireless-enabled devices to connect to the Library's wireless network are also able to access these services. The Library does not offer access to these services off-site, but they are widely available at public and academic libraries...."

The same situation with all "large number of online subscription databases of indexes and full-texts" only in the libraries in many countries and many libraries, not only LOC.

26 August To mark the launch of the Open Knowledge Foundation in Australia, founder Dr Rufus Pollock is touring Australia. His "Open Knowledge Down Under" tour will take in several capital cities and includes a series of public lectures.

"Open data could add up to $3 trillion worth of economic activity per year worldwide, according to a study by McKinsey Consultants. But in the race to liberate thousands of data-sets from the government and business sectors, the African continent is seen as lagging behind. "

If there is any continent that needs Open Data most, it is Africa. African needs transparency and accountability, which are the core foundation of Open Data, to create meaningful change on the continent. But making data available and Open is just the initial stage of accomplishing something. The challenge here is how to ensure that the people of Africa have knowledge of the information and are ABLE to ACCESS the information. What use is information when still limited Internet access, scarce electricity, and other ICT infrastructure, including language barriers continue to act as roadblocks to accessing Open data? Wow!! Just when I finished this short posting, the light went off. Couldn't access the Internet. Everything is dead. I have being waiting 30mins, 1hr, 2hrs, 2hrs 45mins … and now its 4hrs and my laptop battery power is running down. ALAS!! Finally power is restored after 4hrs 49mins for me to make my post. You feel me? This is not the exception, and this is not a coincidence but the norm

The Global Open Access Portal (GOAP) presents a current snapshot of the status of Open Access (OA) to scientific information around the world.For countries that have been more successful implementing Open Access, the portal highlights critical success factors and aspects of the enabling environment. For countries and regions that are still in the early stages of Open Access development, the portal identifies key players, potential barriers and opportunities.

"Progress has been made toward making academic research, knowledge, and resources accessible to the broader public. This is a great cause. It is certainly a matter of justice and equality. Ironically, a number of scholars - particularly those from marginalized communities themselves (women, people of color, LGBT people) - cannot or are hesitant to participate in the move toward open access. However, many scholars, particularly marginalized scholars, participate in a different form of open scholarship: intellectual activism. "

© 2010 Carolina Rossini. The text of this article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 45, no. 4 (July/August 2010): 60-68 Carolina Rossini ( carolina.rossini@gmail.com), a Brazilian lawyer and law professor, is currently a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University, and Coordinator of OER-Brazil ( http://www.rea.net.br).

"Increased access to information and knowledge, underpinned by universal literacy, is an essential pillar of sustainable development. Greater availability of quality information and data and the involvement of communities in its creation will provide a fuller, more transparent allocation of resources."

"In this context, a right to information would be transformational. Access to information supports development by empowering people, especially marginalised people and those living in poverty, to: - Exercise their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. - Be economically active, productive and innovative. - Learn and apply new skills. - Enrich cultural identity and expression. - Take part in decision-making and participate in an active and engaged civil society. - Create community-based solutions to development challenges. - Ensure accountability, transparency, good governance, participation and empowerment. - Measure progress on public and private commitments on sustainable development. "

Of the 255 papers that underwent the entire editing process to acceptance or rejection, about 60% of the final decisions occurred with no sign of peer review. For rejections, that's good news: It means that the journal's quality control was high enough that the editor examined the paper and declined it rather than send it out for review.

This article is certainly controversial, and I believe in some way did a service to the Open Access community by highlighting the practice of predatory journals. However, the irony of Bohannon's article, being an example of the kind of "bad science" he describes in his own article is inescapable. First, there is no randomization of his "experimental group", and there is no control group; second, there was elimination of non-responders; third, there was no application of the intention to treat principle in the analysis; and finally there were no inferential statistics and no references! Using his own standard, there is nothing that can be concluded from his study. For the criticism regarding Bohannon's targeting of OA journals exclusively, it is important to note that this experiment has been done before with 'traditional' journals as well- and many of them failed the test of peer review. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/02/27/how_nonsense_papers_ended_up_in_respected_scientific_journals.html

I think Bohannens "study" should be considered more "investigative journalism" than scientific study. While it may have some flaws if held against the standards of a scientific study, as a journalistic piece it goes a long way to justify its central accusation that there are predatory open access journals. He does not claim that there are no or evwen less predatory journals in the tradional sector (although it seems reasonable to believe that it might seem easier to predatory publishers to dupe unsuspecting scientists rather than subscription paying librarians). It demonstrates that open access is not a cure for all the problems besetting acacemic publishing. I think more deeply about it, it shows that author fees for publication may create a buisiness model just as open to abouse as the traditional subscription system. One answer might be to make the peer-review process more transparent, i.e. name the reviewers But that of course has other drawbacks.

"Showing "The World of Science", the map below portrays global research production as expressed through science journals' publishing in the early 2000s. It makes a dramatic point about the complexities of global inequalities in knowledge production and exchange. What would it take to redraw the knowledge production map to realise a vision of a more equitable and accurate world of knowledge?"

The research environment in the global South faces many pressing challenges given resource inequality. Technical and financial issues aside, Laura Czerniewicz asserts it is the values and practices shaped by the Northern research agenda which contribute just as much to the imbalance.