Group items tagged

This article does a nice job of approaching the subject of the history of open access scholarly publishing from the library perspective. It also lays out some of the views of stakeholders (publishers, researchers, institutions, librarians, and consumer groups) in a nice, easy to digest way. The article is brief, so they probably don't hit all the issues, but I found it a helpful and interesting introduction.

One way of understanding the open access, knowledge, and source.

The massive expansion of higher education across all continents is one of the defining features of our century. This volume examines two dimensions of this: those of access and equity. Building on the country studies undertaken by this group of Fulbright New Century Scholars, the book offers a unique focus in its commitment to bring together an analysis of the theoretical literature on equity; a focus on the methodological problems of measuring access and equity from a comparative perspective; a comparative analysis of trends and policy developments set in a global framework; and a comparative analysis of targeted initiatives which are currently in place in different societies. The need to develop a comparative research programme addressing the question of measuring equity is noted

This is an interdisciplinary open access publication on sharing after a conference being held in Innsbruck, Austria 2011. I would especially like to recommend the article by Katherine Sarikakis (Sharing, Labour and Governance on Social Media: A Rights Lacuna), who is dealing with invisible 'online labour' on SNS from a political economy perspective. Very interesting one, because, in my opinion, this also applies to open knowledge projects as well.. But also the other articles by Andrea Hemetsberger ('Let the Source be with you!' - Practices of Sharing in Free and Open-Source Communities), Volker Grassmuck (The Sharing Turn: Why we are generally nice and have a good chance to cooperate our way out of the mess we have gotten ourselves into), and the others (half of it in English, the other in German) are definitely worth reading!

Two of the articles might be considered as "position papers". Leah McEwen and Ye Li highlight opportunities for librarians as curators across the entire research life cycle, beyond ELNs and data sharing. Jeremy Frey and Colin Bird present a viewpoint on data sharing, addressing the reluctance of researchers to share information with their peers, and examining the processes of data exchange from the perspective of a trading environment.

"This paper interrogates and situates theoretically from a Marxist perspective various aspects and tensions that inhere in the contemporary academic publishing environment. The focus of the article is on journal publishing. The paper examines both the expanding capitalist control of the academic publishing industry and some of the efforts being made by those seeking to resist and subvert the capitalist model of academic publishing. The paper employs the concepts of primitive accumulation and alienation as a theoretical register for apprehending contemporary erosions of the knowledge commons through the enclosure effects that follow in the wake of capitalist control of academic publishing. Part of my purpose with this discussion will be to advance the case that despite a relatively privileged position vis-à-vis other workers, academic cognitive labourers are caught up within and subject to the constraining and exploitative practices of capitalist production processes."

This is a special issue from Nature Magazine on the future of science publishing and open access. In addition to the feature articles, the comments also provide different perspectives.

"In opening up its new Stephen Fry book to crowdsourced remixes, Penguin hopes to catalyze an amazing, disruptive reading experience."

Peter Downes wrote this blog criticizing the Cape Town Declaration. It was very interesting reading in terms of looking at the issues from different perspectives. I did not agree on everything he wrote, but the following paragraph was resonated in my mind as I read it. I DID , however add a word - in parenthesis. "If there is anything that could be thought of as a truism in contemporary education, it is the idea that we are all learners and that we are all teachers. The idea of lifelong learning makes explicit the former idea, and the principles of learner-centered, constructive and inquiry-based learning make explicit the latter. Knowledge - particularly social and public knowledge - is not something that is (only) produced by a hothouse meeting of experts, but rather, is produced through a process of dialogue and conversation".

The fact is someone had to initiate and ask for comments. The door might not have been widened enough as the author comments. It is perhaps time to understand that in as much as we would like to live in an open world, our views will always diverging to a number of directions.

Looks at the "Linux model" as a successful way of doing business."I think there is a general movement and a general recognition in the technology community that we need to reform the patent process. There's far too much effort and energy put into creating patents that do not end up fostering innovation," said Musk. "I think no reasonable person would say that the current patent system is ideally suited to foster innovation."

A true pioneer, Mr Musk is. I think he has an extra sense for the future. Patents seem to be an institution which increasingly focuses on short term profit instead of the common benefit on the long run.

Patents are the biggest responsible for the technological delays. The laws should change radically.

This article discusses the importance of the MOOC may have to spread open and quality content in variety of contexts. At the same time are showing the different models of organization and design that can present, depending on the objectives and strategies proposed from different perspectives, with s...

In everyday life we are learning continually from each other. Whatever the situation, most of us draw on the knowledge, skills and experience of our friends and colleagues. Within any educational setting learners naturally engage in informal peer learning to make sense of their course, test their ideas and share their concerns.

Peer learning is engaging, and researches say that people learns most effectively when they are interacting with each other. It creates this network of knowledge when you share and connect with people, it not only benefits the individual, but benefits everyone as a whole. It also relieves the pressure of University funding with teachers having to teach such a large class, which affects the quality of learning as well. With peer learning, students engage with one another, and will eventually find the correct answer. It is not independent learning, this is interdependent learning.

Thank you for your share. I think this is a great article that introduces the potential of peer learning in higher education from the teacher's perspective. I agree that connected learning does a great job in promoting student's interactivity, creativity, motivation and interest in learning a particular topic with peers. In addition, peer learning provides learners with opportunities to collaborate and learn a subject together, which might maximize the productivity if used in a correct way. Peers and collaborative learners can do their own research separately, and meet together to discuss and express different opinions on the issue, which can inspire student's deep thinking. However, peer learning and collaborative learning is not always superior to individual work, or contributing to the learning result of every individual. Sometimes it might decrease the learning productivity if the group members or peer partners over reply on others in the group without doing much themselves, or if they didn't communicate well. Thus it's important to practice students learning ability and teacher's facilitating ability in peer learning or collaborative learning.

The comments are very good. They show the same numbers and facts of the article, but in other perspective. The best one, in my opinion.

True, for openknowledge, teachers should know that not everyone studies at the same pace and that's why open access is so interesting.

Una buena aportación, rlamim. Además muy muy reciente.

Abstract: The purpose of my paper is to explore the meaning and scope of the changes in perspective that occur sometimes either when -viewing things from a theoretical point of view- there is a change of knowledge paradigm or when -viewing things from a practical point of view- there is a change of ...

establishes the importance of teaching update

"Based on a series of research projects, this book explores the role of technology in the lives of three- and four-year-old children. We analyse children's experiences at home and in preschool settings and include the perspectives of parents,

I presented this paper to a conference in South Africa in 2005, and it was described as "too radical" by the top leaders in libraries in South Africa who attended. :) So am rather happy that my vague perceptions and musings about the emerging trends have been vindicated today. "This paper will focus on another aspect that is integrally linked to the ability to access literature and information - that of cost and economics. Both the broader macroeconomic context and the more focused microeconomic (South African) environment will be referred to. We will examine the assumption that the economic development of a nation is linked to the ability to access information and test whether this is a valid assumption. From there, we will take a brief look at the issue of the cost of books, specifically in South Africa. The advent of the electronic revolution and the many paradigm shifts that the Internet and electronic media have initiated and the effects on the publishing industry, will be outlined. We will explore the "information as commodity" paradigm and briefly look at the related Copyright and Intellectual Property developments before weaving these seemingly disparate threads together to form a picture of innovative solutions that have arisen in response to the information access crisis in South Africa. These solutions have arisen from the popular notion that information should be freely available for societal good, rather than commodified. Finally, we will ponder the effect that these solutions may have on the traditional book publishing industry in South Africa."

Thank you all, very much, it is quite a new experience for me to have the paper well received. :)

Thank you for sharing this. I really appreciated the non-North American context. I grew up in the States, and am working on my Master's degree in Canada, so it's really easy to get caught up in always looking at these issues from the North American point of view. Seeing papers like this really help to confirm how global these issues are, and cement their importance in my mind.

This year, the fifth annual Publishers for Development (PfD) conference explored current developments in scholarly communication including their impact on publishers, researchers and information professionals in the global South. The rapid growth in open access, the potential for social media to increase communication of research and also new measures for the way research is used were all topics viewed from a Southern perspective. The one-day conference was held in London on 15 October and titled 'Forward Thinking: Developing a global research cycle which fully engages South and North'. It brought together publishers from 16 publishing houses, librarians and researchers from universities in Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Also present were representatives of organisations involved in research access, production and use such as the World Bank, African Journals Online, Research4Life, Development Research Uptake in Sub-Saharan Africa (DRUSSA), Talloires Network and Partnerships in Health Information.