Group items tagged

Online discussions and post-publication analyses are catching mistakes that sneak past editorial review. This article describes the pitfalls with editorial review and pre-publication peer review, and advocates for post-publication crowd-sourced reviewing through social media platforms.

I think having a comments section is a great way to provide feedback on the information provided. Often when I read articles the comments section allows me to understand different perspectives and interpretations of the information.

This article, while not necessarily explicitly, managed to hint at what I find to be a source of problematic practices/outcomes in the academy, publishing, etc. That is, it is not necessarily that traditional peer review processes are ineffective at finding errors or misconduct, but rather it is when our processes and practices become so systematized that we can mindlessly or effortlessly engage in and reproduce them without our full, critical attention that they can produce problems. While I think there are good reasons to critique the notion of peer and "expert" culture within traditional peer review processes, an additional and separate critique is the problems that arise with systematization. The article implicitly addressed this when the author commented that current post-publication environments "provide a public space that is not under the control of journal editors and conference organizers." Yet, as White indicates, there exists skepticism of the value of post-publication reviews along with a simultaneous effort to build post-publication systems that have standards that put those questioning it at ease. The National Institutes of Health establishing requirements that potential post-publication reviewers must meet demonstrated this. That is, they are trying to figure out how to systematize post-publication. For me, what this article indicates is that we ought to figure out how to keep our academic and publishing processes "fresh," so to speak. This way we don't become so comfortable with our methods and practices that they allow us to simply go through the motions without fostering innovative and critical inquiry.

Text from 2011, still extremely timely, about privacy. The author, professor of Law, deconstructs the "nothing to hide" argument that says that we should not be scared to disclose private activities or information when we do nothing wrong.

"With regard to individual rights,.... there exists a private domain in man which should not be regulated or violated. This realm constitutes what is deepest, highest, and most valuable in the individual human being." http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Younkins/Social_Cooperation,_Flourishing,_and_Happiness.shtml

Privacy off course matters.It is right that if I have not done anything wrong then why should I hide it. On other hand we can not share our family relationship information with anyone.

Case study of a copyright take down notice and discussion of copyright and public domain issues.

This is a really excellent article! Access to the public domain and to the things that are in it (or should be, but never are) is at the root of my interest in copyright. I do wish there was more information about how we can fight back, if that's even possible. (I also appreciate the link to the Public Domain review in the article, and that the Public Domain review has a Tumblr. Something to investigate for my final project!)

Curioso caso. También hay otros casos sobre los problemas que hay, por ejemplo, en los personajes animados de Dominio Público como Peter Pan, Bambi, etc., donde empresas como Disney reclaman que sean de Dominio Público para poder lucrar con ellos, pero se niegan a que otros personajes en específico Mickey Mouse lo sean. Una doble moral. http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2008/08/22/actualidad/1219356003_850215.html http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/22/business/fi-mickey22

Story on Public WiFi We took a hacker to a café and, in 20 minutes, he knew where everyone else was born, what schools they attended, and the last five things they googled. By Maurits Martijn, from De Correspondent Translated from Dutch by Jona Meijers Illustrations by Kristina Collantes

Michael Eisen is a researcher at UC Berkley and a co-founder of Public Library of Science. He discusses the news that the American Association for the Advancement of Science named Kent Anderson as its new Publisher, who is a critic of the open access movement. The most interesting thing for me was the mention in his blog post as well as in the comments section by another, that it is perhaps a trend for scholarly publications to produce open access journals. A peculiar motive, to perhaps "own" the open movement? It would be interesting to learn more about this trend, motivations behind it, and the implications on how that affects the OA movement.

And then a quick Google search found an announcement that Nature will be fully open access as of 20 October 2014... but still costs $5,200 USD to cover the article processing charges - perhaps Universities should (will) start to pay these costs instead of the high costs of subscriptions to scholarly journals as they continue to open up their access. http://www.nature.com/ncomms/open_access/index.html

Wow--these article publishing charges are ridiculous. I don't know if the scholars whose work gets published in these esteemed journals have budgets that would allow them to cover such fees, but I am sure that I wouldn't be able to get multiple articles covered by grants for my own work in the social sciences. And I'm 99% sure that the public universities I've worked for would not be ponying up that kind of money to cover my publication fees. This seems like yet another way to penalize scholars working in fields that don't get big grants or living in countries that don't have this kind of money to throw around. I prefer the UK's policy of requiring all nationally funded research to be published open access without any publication fees. That's the only way to even the playing field.

Like many of you, I'm connected to the Internet virtually every waking hour of my day - via computer, tablet and mobile phone. Yet I still regularly visit my local public library, in order to borrow books, CDs and DVDs. Which made me wonder: are these two worlds disconnected, or is the Social Web being integrated into our public libraries? In…

Many interesting charts and data of the global internet use, access, and contributions

Atlas, publications, charts and tables of global information and internet geographies and impacts on information access, information production and information distribution, done over a four year period by Oxford Information Institute. Findings, data, and publication will be published in Open Access formats and platforms. The website is simple but contains lots of information relevant to the topics in Stanford. There are links to external related publications about information geography, access, distribution and production. Very good website. Some limitations include: bias from the two developers and producers as well as institution itself, unknown (not identified) contributors and sponsors.

A very valuable collection demonstrating how economic, political, cultural and linguistic ties impact the flow of knowledge is and information. Of course, such charts do little to explain, why this happens and where a more even distribution of knowledge is desirable. Also, the data that lies behind the visualisations is not always open. Especially vauable are the links to the data collections that are accessible.

"Data connectivity is intrinsic to most of our daily lives. The place which exists in almost every community large or small, rural or urban, is the public library. Ben Lee argues that not only do libraries provide free access to data, but they do so in an environment which is trustworthy and neutral, geared to learning. Access to digital technology increasingly overlaps with access to opportunity and it is important to recognise the role public libraries already play (and have always played) in keeping the gate to knowledge open. "

"This paper provides a brief overview of the ideas and principles underlying the connected learning movement, highlighting examples of how libraries are boosting 21st century learning and promoting community development by partnering with a range of organisations and individuals to incorporate connected opportunities into their programmes"

Thanks Kevin for sharing this.

El lado oscuro de las bibliotecas: "¿Quieren leer? Pues a pagar" Es un delirio: cuando tomemos prestado un libro de una biblioteca será preciso pagar un canon http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2014/08/27/babelia/1409137321_870906.html

Hasadna LeYeda Tziburi, the Public Knowledge Workshop in English, is a non-profit, non-partisan organisation that was founded in 2011. Its mission is to allow the public to engage more meaningfully with Israeli government and public interest data by making it more accessible to the public.

The name means something. I can only guess Le = the and Tziburi = the songs. I am probably wrong. Please translate for us.

The translation for Hasadna LeYeda Tziburi is Hebrew for Public Knowledge Workshop.

"Research papers aren't always the easiest pieces of literature to read. Expecting Joe Public to understand all of these articles is simply unrealistic. Whilst they have access to the papers when they're open access, that doesn't mean they're always going to be able make good use of them. That's where social media has its time to shine. More and more scientists are moving to social media in order to promote their research and engage the public, as well as each other. Social media in itself offers the chance to reach out and make science exciting."

"Scholarly communication outreach and education activities are proliferating in academic libraries. Simultaneously, digital humanists-a group that includes librarians and non-librarians based in libraries, as well as scholars and practitioners without library affiliation-have developed forms of scholarship that demand and introduce complementary innovations focused on infrastructure, modes of dissemination and evaluation, openness, and other areas with implications for scholarly communication. Digital humanities experiments in post-publication filtering, open peer review, middle-state publishing, decentering authority, and multimodal and nonlinear publication platforms are discussed in the context of broader library scholarly communication efforts."

"Even with abundant information and the removal of censorship, truth may not prevail. This the edited text of a plenary address to the IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Singapore, 20 August 2013. Journalists and librarians share a faith in the power of public knowledge, but the media are failing in their duty"

I took this sentence from the article that I think is crucial: Public media must provide more than just "naked facts"; they must provide the resources for people to make judgments effectively.

"This report offers practical design advice to public managers and political leaders who are facing complex, dynamic public challenges involving multiple stakeholders on issues or problems where there is no clearly defined solution. In these situations, open project approaches have the potential to spark large-scale activity that could fundamentally change society."

eLife is a unique collaboration between funders and practitioners of research to communicate influential discoveries in the life and biomedical sciences in the most effective way. eLife began following a workshop at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2010, where attending scientists concluded that there was a need for a model of academic publishing that better suited the needs of their community. In eLife a team of highly regarded, experienced and actively practicing scientists ensures fair, swift and transparent editorial decisions followed by rapid online publication. The editorial team are editorially independent of the funders. They rely on their scientific expertise and active research experience to identify the best papers, make scientifically based judgements and exercise leadership in steering these papers through peer review. The entire content of the journal is freely available for all to read and reproduce for unrestricted use.

Very interesting project. I spent some time exploring some of the papers. They do seem to be opening up the peer review process slightly be publishing a "decision letter" and "author response" with each paper. I also appreciate the seeming attempt to include data publication in the publication of the paper. Though it does seem to me that some of the papers don't have enough data accompanying them, so I wonder what their data publication policy is.

"With the emergence of new publishing tools, public libraries are able to be publishers for themselves. In essence, we can build a Maker culture for local publishing. "

Thanks! I did not know about Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. Quite useful!

Two competing views on the future of publishing, and how shifts in consumer behavior to purchasing or consuming electronic content is causing such a shift in the literary world. I found it interesting to read that a number of open source software platforms were identified as the harbingers of today's self-publishing model online. I never knew Wattpad existed - watt an awesome site (pun intended). I agree with the articles viewpoint about the role that public libraries can play in this shifting landscape. A good read.

Scientific journals are surely important. They provide the most effective means for disseminating and archiving scientific results, and so are a key part of an enterprise on which our health, security, and prosperity ultimately depend. Publications are used by universities, funding agencies, and others as a primary measure of research productivity and impact. They play a decisive role in hiring, promotion, and salary decisions, and in the ranking of departments, institutions, even nations. With big rewards tied to publication, it is not surprising that some people engage in unethical behavior, abuse, and downright fraud.

The Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science is an open community offering countless ideas, DIY instruction and kits for carrying out science projects from your own kitchen (literally). Even better - you can become a part of a collaborative community, which shares ideas & tips, and all data collections are available under CC!

I particularly like the open source approach of the Public Lab, which ensures a collaborative building of creative solutions, which are then available under fair and open terms. Thanks for sharing the resource. Balthas

Chattanooga (no, I don't work or live there) is building the infrastructure for connected learning for all citizens. Gigabit broadband. Public library spaces where learners and entrepreneurs can play with all kinds of tools, not just tech ones. Make.Play.Read.Learn is a summer program offered by the library and the local Mozilla Hive Learning Community. I love the statement, "If you are reading this, you are already participating."