Vor einigen Wochen hatte ich anlässlich einer Meilensteintagung des Projektverbundes “Interactive Science” Gelegenheit, mit Lars Fischer (Scilogs) über seine Idee für eine Petition für Open Access beim Deutschen Bundestag zu diskutieren. Inzwischen hat Lars Fischer seine ePetition zu Open Access bei wissenschaftlichen Veröffentlichungen beim Deutschen Bundestag eingereicht und kann sich über eine überwältigende Resonanz freuen. Knapp 12000 Unterstützer haben das Volksbegehren inzwischen unterzeichnet und es werden immer mehr. Inzwischen besteht zusätzlich die Möglichkeit, auch offline für die Petition zu werben: Diese Unterschriftenliste (pdf) könnt Ihr einfach ausdrucken und Familie, Freunde und Kollegen unterschreiben lassen – die ausgefüllte Liste geht dann per Fax oder Briefpost zurück an den Petitionsausschuss.

Hier der Wortlaut der ePetition für Open Access:

Text der Petition

Der Deutsche Bundestag möge beschließen, dass wissenschaftliche Publikationen, die aus öffentlich geförderter Forschung hervorgehen, allen Bürgern kostenfrei zugänglich sein müssen. Institutionen, die staatliche Forschungsgelder autonom verwalten, soll der Bundestag auffordern, entsprechende Vorschriften zu erlassen und die technischen Voraussetzungen zu schaffen.

Begründung

Die öffentliche Hand fördert Forschung und Entwicklung nach Angaben des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung jährlich mit etwa 12 Milliarden Euro. Die Ergebnisse dieser Forschung jedoch werden überwiegend in kostenpflichtigen Zeitschriften publiziert. Es ist nicht angemessen, dass der Steuerzahler für die von ihm finanzierten Forschungsergebnisse erneut bezahlen muss.
Wegen der hohen Kosten und der Vielzahl wissenschaftlicher Zeitschriften sind Forschungsergebnisse nur in wenigen Bibliotheken einsehbar. Den meisten Bürgern ist der Zugang zu der von ihnen finanzierten Wissenschaft dadurch nicht nur erschwert, sondern de facto ganz verschlossen. Den Bürger von der Wissenschaft auszusperren ist nicht nur schädlich, sondern auch unnötig. Andere Länder haben vergleichbare Vorhaben bereits umgesetzt. Die US-Amerikanische Behörde National Institutes of Health (NIH) verlangt, dass alle von ihr finanzierten Publikationen binnen 12 Monaten an einem zentralen Ort öffentlich zugänglich sind. Die grundsätzliche Struktur des wissenschaftlichen Publikationswesen verändert sich hierdurch nicht.

Wer die ePetition unterstützen möchte, kann hier mitzeichnen. Jede Stimme zählt.

Das Aktionsbündnis „Urheberrecht für Bildung und Wissenschaft”, das auch die Göttinger Erklärung (pdf) veröffentlicht hat, unterstützt die Petition ebenfalls.

Es gibt auch eine Gruppe bei Facebook, die Lars’ Petition für Open Access für wissenschaftliche Publikationen unterstützt.

In my off duty hours, I am the layout editor of Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies. After a lot of hard work beating words into shape, I would like to announce that our second issue (Vol. 1, No. 2, 2009) is now available online. Pakistaniaat is an open access journal, which means that all of our peer reviewed content is freely available online in PDF format. You may also purchase a print copy of the journal if you choose to do so. Click here to see this issue’s table of contents.

Angeregt durch eine aktuelle Publikation der Arbeitsgruppe  Open Access  in der Alianz der deutschen Wissenschaftsorganisationen habe ich  wieder einmal in den mir bekannten Open-Access-Journalen gestöbert. Hier ein Fund im New Journal of Physics, der auch für “Nichttheoretiker” interessant sein könnte:

 How computers can help us in creating an intuitive access to relativity

Hanns Ruder et al 2008 New J. Phys. 10 125014 (22pp) –> Link 

! Der reich illustrierte Übersichtartikel aus 2008 (Link PDF) , der fast ohne mathematische Ableitungen auskommt, wird ergänzt durch 2 kleine Animationen zur Wurmloch-Geometrie, zu finden über den Link “Multimedia” 

	PDF (9.33 MB) | HTML | Multimedia | References

http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1367-2630/10/12/125014

The first annual Open Access Week (which began this Monday, the 19th and ends on the 23rd), is a growing movement that started with a “day of action” in 2007. Openaccessweek.org is a site dedicated to the week and explains the exponentially growing movement in greater detail.

In short, the week and movement in general is a collaboration between colleges, universities, professional and academic organizations to make access to research freely searchable and accessible to all. The movement was started, in part, by the National Institutes of Health with it’s unprecedented completely free access to health publications in its database PubMed, many of which are full text.

Though most Open Access blogs, movements, sites, etc. tend to over look an important piece of legislation, the “Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2007“, by President Bush, this was a landmark piece of legislation which required the National Institute of Health to include complete electronic versions of research findings in PubMed Central.

For those of you who are still unsure what exactly constitutes an Open Access Publication, Earlham College explains:

“An Open Access Publication is one that meets the following two conditions:

1. The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship, as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving (for the biomedical sciences, PubMed Central is such a repository).

Want to know how you can join the fight? Add you signature to the Budapest Open Access Initiative here.

Ich bin Christian Hauschke, bin Bibliothekar an der Bibliothek der FH Hannover und blogge unter anderem bei Infobib.de. Eines der Themen, die mich am meisten beschäftigen, ist Open Access.

Und dazu ist noch längst nicht alles gesagt. Ein interessante Frage stellt sich aktuell durch die drohende OAIster-Wegschließung: Wie kann man man eine dezentrale Alternative zu OAIster schaffen? Bis zum Bibcamp wird vermutlich ein YaCy-Prototyp für die Suche in Dokumentenservern stehen. Das Bibcamp bietet eine hervorragende Gelegenheit, diesen Prototypen auf Herz und Nieren zu prüfen und vielleicht sogar direkt vor Ort zu verbessern!

(via freeculture.org)

Earlier this week, five prominent research universities unveiled the latest demonstration of their commitment to open-access research and publishing.  Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, MIT, and UC Berkeley have become the inaugural signatories of the new Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity, an agreement to set up programs to provide the publication fees that are sometimes required by open-access journals. More Here

Gutenbergtweet

(The Gutenberg Tweet, via Historical Tweets)

Wie viele andere Autoren habe ich kürzlich Post bekommen von der VG Wort. Darin bittet die VG Wort mit dem Hinweis auf das Google-Books-Settlement die Autoren urhberrechtlich geschützter Werke um die Übertragung zahlreicher Rechte und Ansprüche. Worum geht es dabei? Im Rahmen des Angebots Google Book Search bietet Google gescannte und teils mit Volltext versehene Bücher zur Einsicht an.  Für dieses Angebot scannt Google urheberrechtlich geschützte Fachliteratur einschließlich der Texte von deutschsprachigen Autoren ein. Anhand der IP-Adresse differenziert Google zwei Nutzergruppen: Bürger in den USA und alle übrigen Internetnutzer. Folglich kann Google den Nutzergruppen unterschiedliche Ergebnisse anzeigen lassen (technisch realisiert durch IP-Blocking). Google scannt gemeinfreie Literatur, deren Autoren vor über 70 Jahren verstorben sind,  wie z.B. “Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft” von Max Weber. Urheberrechtlich geschützte Werke – z.B. Monografien lebender Wissenschaftler – werden von Google, falls überhaupt, nur auszugsweise mit sogenannten”Snippets” angezeigt. Das Google Books Settlement (Erklärung bei Irights.info) beinhaltet unter anderem, dass Google Bücher, soweit sie vergriffen sind, vermarkten darf, indem Internetnutzer Ansichtsrechte einzelner Bücher oder Bibliotheken mit den Volltexten kaufen können. Dafür sichert Google den Autoren, die sich direkt bei Google melden, einen Vergütungsanspruch zu. Im Mai 2009 wurde VG Wort von ihrer Mitgliederversammlung zur Wahrnehmung der Rechte deutscher Autoren gegenüber Google autorisiert.

Nun plant die VG Wort, bei allen lieferbaren und vergriffenen Büchern das “Removal” zu erklären. D.h. die VG Wort möchte Google zwingen, die Bücher aus seinem Suchindex zu entfernen. Den Vorstellungen der VG Wort entsprechend sollen dem Internetnutzer keine Schnipsel oder Textauszüge aus lieferbaren Büchern mehr angezeigt werden. Dies würde der VG Wort ermöglichen, über mit Google über die Anzeige vergriffener Titel zu verhandeln. Inzwischen rief das Urheberrechtsbündnis die Wissenschaftsautoren dazu auf, im Interesse der Wissenschaft die Rechteübertragung an die VG Wort nicht vorzunehmen (IUWIS), weil die VG Wort die Interessen der Wissenschaftler nur unzureichend wahrnimmt, und unterbreitet den Autoren eigene Empfehlungen. Das Urheberrechtsbündnis selbst ist in Verhandlungen mit Google eingetreten und hofft, eine Übereinkunft bezüglich des Umgangs mit wissenschaftlicher Literatur zu erzielen, die Wissenschaftlern und Öffentlichkeit freien Zugang zu den Ergebnissen aus wissenschaftlicher Forschung gewährt [Leseempfehlung: Klaus Graf "Google Book Search, Open Access und die VG Wort", H-Soz-u-Kult, 28.08.09].

Was ist im Interesse der Autoren? Welche Wissensordnung ist wünschenswert?

Die Auseinandersetzung um das Google-Books Settlement wirft zum einen die Frage auf, welche Maßnahme im Interesse der Wissenschaftsautoren liegt, zum anderen die Frage nach einer geeigneten gesellschaftlichen Wissensordnung. Als Wissenschaftlerin profitiere ich davon, wenn meine Texte immerhin mit einer eingeschränkten Vorschau im Bibliotheksprogramm einsehbar sind, weil dies unter den Bedingungen des Internet Sichtbarkeit verschafft. Zusätzlich profitiere ich davon, online einen Blick in die Werke anderer Wissenschaftler werfen und zumindest selektiv darin lesen zu können. Vielfach haben mir solche “Snippets” gut gefallen, sodass ich mich danach zum Kauf entschlossen habe, und ich könnte mir gut vorstellen, dass andere Wissenschaftler ihre Entscheidug zum Kauf oder zur Lektüre ähnlich handhaben. Google’s Service der Bereithaltung von Textschnipseln liegt also durchaus in meinem Interesse. Doch über die persönliche Sicht des Einzelnen hinaus geht es ja auch um die gesellschaftliche Wissensordnung, also um das Verhältnis von Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit, darum, was legitimerweise erlaubt und verboten sein sollte. Wünschenswert wäre, dass jedermann freien Zugang zu wissenschaftlichem Wissen erhält (vgl. Göttinger Erklärung, Open Access):

1. Der Wissenschaftler ist Treuhänder bzw. Vertrauensnehmer gegenüber der Öffentlichkeit, die seine berufliche Tätigkeit ermöglicht. Dem Wissenschaftler sind Arbeitsmittel für die Zwecke von Forschung und Lehre anvertraut worden, und Wissenschaftler genießen einen gehobenen sozialen Status. In Deutschland finanziert der Steuerzahler die Professoren öffentlicher Hochschulen sowie den Großteil der Forschungsprojekte und Publikationen, und zwar bereits bevor sie erscheinen (mit Ausnahme der privat finanzierten Bildungs- und Forschungsinstitutionen). Der Soziologe Talcott Parsons ordnet das Wissenschaftssystem insgesamt dem sozialkulturellen System der Gesellschaft zu, womit die Wissenschaft Trägerin von Bildung, Forschung und Kultur wird und entsprechende soziale Funktionen wahrzunehmen hat [vgl. Talcott Parsons und Gerald Platt. 1968/1990 "Die amerikanische Universität. Ein Beitrag zur Soziologie der Erkenntnis", Frankfurt/Main: Campus].

2. Der Wissenschaftler wird in der Öffentlichkeit anhand seiner Inhalte, Positionen und Publikationen identifiziert und beurteilt. Im Kampf um eine vorteilhafte Positionierung im akademischen Feld ist jedoch zwischen Forschern, Fachbereichen, Hochschulen und Forschungsinsinstitutionen ein Konformititätswettbewerb um die bestmögliche Erfüllung von Zielvorgaben entbrannt, welcher durch leistungsorientierte Mittelverteilung (LOM) als Steuerungsinstrument forciert wird und die professionelle Autonomie der Wissenschaftler infrage stellt. Der Leistungsbemessung und -bewertung wird eine Logik der Kennzahlen zugrunde gelegt, wo bibliografische Kennzahlen, z.T. auch sachfremde Tätigkeiten wie die Akquise von Drittmitteln an die Stelle Inhalten und Positionen in Forschung und Lehre getreten sind. Sie führen dazu, dass an die Stelle der horizontalen Differenzierung nach inhaltlichen Profilen eine vertikale Differenzierung nach Rang getreten ist und die durch Rankingverfahren systematisch bevorteilten Eliten bessere Ausgangspositionen haben, um ihren Fortbestand auch in Zukunft zu sichern als die bereits in früheren Rankings ins Hintertreffen geratenen Wissenschaftler, Fachbereiche, Hochschulen und Forschungsinstitutionen [vgl. dazu Richard Münch, "Qualitätssicherung, Benchmarking, Ranking. Wissenschaft im Kampf um die besten Zahlen." H-Soz-u-Kult 2009; Schimank 2005: "Die akademische Profession und die Universitäten: "New Public Management" und eine drohende Entprofessionalisierung" In: Thomas Klatetzki und Veronika Tacke (Hg.). Organisation und Profession. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.]. Wenn nun Bestandserhaltung an die Stelle der Funktionswahrnehmung tritt, lässt sich argumentieren, dass Wissenschaft als “Elitewissenschaft” mit dem Regime des “New Public Managment” (NPM) und “Total Quality Managment” (TQM) ihre soziale Funktion nur unzureichend erfüllt und deshalb durch ein neues Regime abgelöst werden muss, mit der Wissenschaft ihrer sozialen Funktion als Trägerin von Bildung, Forschung und Kultur besser gerecht werden kann.

3. Das Kapital der Wissensgesellschaft ist Wissen, das nur entsteht, wenn Lernende in einem aktiven Aneignungsprozess herumliegende Information in lebendiges Wissen transformieren. Nur durch einen Prozess der Aneignung durch einen Lernenden wird Information zu Wissen. Nur Wissen befähigt einen Akteur zum Handeln, d.h. zum Eingreifen in die Welt und zum freien Entscheiden. [Nico Stehr, 2003, Wissenspolitik, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, S. 31]. Was der Prozess der Aneignung konkret beinhaltet, hängt von den verfügbaren Kulturtechniken ab: z.B. lesen, schreiben, diskutieren, öffentlich aufführen oder remixen. Sind Informationen aus wissenschaftlichen Publikationen nicht öffentlich zugänglich, bleibt die Aneignung durch die potenziellen Nutzer aus, und was als wissenschaftliches Wissen für die Öffentlichkeit mühsam geschaffen wurde, verkommt zu toter Kultur [Georg Simmel 1919 "Der Begriff und die Tragödie der Kultur". In: Philosophische Kultur, S. 223-253]. Damit wissenschaftliches Wissen nicht in Bibliotheken verstaubt, damit jeder eine Chance auf Zugang zu wissenschaftlichem Wissen und damit jedem entsprechende Teilhabechancen in der Wissensgesellschaft offenstehen (auch Jobchancen für die heutigen Kinder und Jugendlichen bei ihrem Berufsstart), müssen die Ergebnisse wissenschaftlicher Forschung für Jedermann kostenlos und barrierefrei für Jedermann zugänglich gemacht werden.

Kein Wunder also, dass es bereits Ideen gibt, per Petition beim Bundestag den Gesetzgeber zu veranlassen, dass wissenschaftliche Publikationen, die aus öffentlich geförderter Forschung hervorgehen, innerhalb einer angemessenen Frist allen Bürgern kostenfrei zugänglich gemacht werden müssen.

Weitere Quellen:

• Bibliothekarisch.de
• Interessensgemeinschaft deutschsprachiger Autoren e.V.
• Beckblog: VG-Wort und Google – Widerspruch einlegen!
• Information Wissenschaft & Praxis 2009, Heft 5 [pdf]

Update 02.09.09: Bundesjustizministerin Zypries hat sich in den sich im Rechtsstreit um den Vergleich zwischen Google und Urhebern über das Digitalisieren von Büchern eingeschaltet, mit der Forderung, deutsche Autoren und Verleger aus dem Vergleich herauszunehmen (Heise online).

A reviewer at the National Institutes of Health evaluates a grant proposal. (Wikipedia)

I managed to read quite a number of interesting books in the last couple of months. Among them, was Scientific Writing: Easy When You Know How by Jennifer Peat et al. Marvelous book and one that I highly recommend. The book has been mainly written for health professionals. It gives you an insider’s view of how the entire peer(expert)-review process in scientific publishing works. There are also interesting nuggets on peer-review outside of medical journals such as conferences, scientific meetings, etc.

The publishing process in a nutshell:

1. Upon submission to a journal, a paper will first go through preliminary screening by special staff who check for typographical errors. Not scientific merit. Did you stick to the word limit? Are the margins, fonts and spaces in accordance with the journal’s ‘instructions to authors‘ policy? If not, the paper will bounce back like rejected email!
2. If it does scrape through, it goes to an editorial committee. Editors in turn run an ambiguous check on the paper’s scientific rigor and impact, whether it appeals to their sensibilities and whether it makes business sense to get it out in their journal. It is then forwarded to external reviewers.
3. Many journals maintain databases of potential external reviewers who are ‘experts’ in their fields, some of whom are on contract for the journal and others who are not. These reviewers have a track record of being active in other journals and meetings. Journals may even rank reviewers based on whether they review papers on time, their general demeanor with authors of papers, etc. Often these chaps are perched in just about every nook and corner of the world. They look at the paper’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of study design, whether the conclusions put forth are in accordance with the reported results, whether the statistics measure up, whether certain areas need clarification, whether some parts should be rephrased or even omitted altogether. Their comments and annotations are then forwarded to the editors and in turn to the authors.
4. Both editors and reviewers often refer to checklists to standardize this process, even if it be somewhat ambiguous. Because different people have different mental cutoffs for ‘clinical significance’ when it comes to reported results, different people will reach different conclusions even if they look at the same ’statistically significant’ data. When two reviewers differ in what they think about a paper, editors will often request a third reviewer to look at it.
5. After a lot of back and forth communication between authors, editors and reviewers the paper is finally published. The editorial committee is the final arbiter that decides whether or not the paper gets published.
6. This process usually take months, unless there is a good reason.

Here are some interesting facts that you might not know about scientific journals:

1. Multiple surveys have shown that journals are more likely to publish ’statistically significant’ findings. This is an important thing to realize. For any scientific study with a Type 1 error rate of 5%, if the null hypothesis was true you would get a statistically significant result 5% of the time. Purely as a result of random chance. But it’s the 5% of studies that report such a ’statistically significant’ result that are more likely to get published than the remaining 95% of studies that don’t.
2. Most of the scientific literature is biased in favor of content produced in English. Translated works are an extreme minority.
3. The most popular articles in a journal are reviews, editorials, letters, etc. and not research papers. Consequently, journals contain more narrative reviews than genuine research. It’s what keeps them in business.
4. Being published is not necessarily something that is a natural consequence of your scientific caliber or contribution to mankind. It is a very political and arbitrary thing. Maybe the editors or reviewers for the journal are biased against your work. Or it could be that the editors do not think publishing your paper will increase their business, for obscure reasons. Maybe your paper is just too specialized and caters to a minority niche of readers. Editors usually want stuff that sells and increases readership (who by the way, more often care about narrative reviews as mentioned previously), impact factors and profits. Quite similar to newspapers actually. Editors may even decide to publish a paper regardless of what the reviewers think, as long as it makes sense to them to do so!
5. When you submit a paper to a journal for consideration, you immediately transfer whole and sole copyrights to it. You are not permitted to share that paper outside of the research team without prior permission from the editors. Transfer of copyright to journals is pretty common and there are only a minority of fledgling journals out there that give you the luxury of retaining copyrights.
6. Many journals have pre-publication ‘embargoes’. If you have discussed your paper in a scientific conference, meeting, on a random website, with the press … and so on, different journals will have different policies on whether or not such a paper constitutes ‘duplicate’ material. That depends on how many beans you spilled out during such conferences, talks, … etc. and under what circumstances. Did you discuss just the abstract, some random figures and tables or the whole thing? Did you submit the paper before or after such disclosure? Does it constitute a copyright violation? If it’s considered duplicate, it will not be published unless there is a good reason.
7. Transfer of copyright also means that you cannot submit your paper elsewhere or hand out copies of it to colleagues in meetings, conferences, etc. You can’t show off the paper on a website either. As long as the paper is under consideration for publication, you need prior permission from the journal. If the paper is rejected or withdrawn from submission, the copyrights are transferred back to the authors.
8. Different journals will have different time limits on copyright. Some will allow you to maintain a copy on a website or a repository after a number of years have passed. These can rightly be called post-publication ‘embargoes’².
9. Scientific knowledge is thus ultimately controlled by vested interests making it difficult for a free and open society. This has led to calls for reform in peer-reviewed scientific publishing, including the open-access movement. There are two main models in open-access: Open-access journals, that make all peer-reviewed content free to the public. Journals from the Public Library Of Science (PLoS) are a good example. Open-access self-archives are another model. Authors can deposit copies (a.k.a. ’self-archives’) of pre-prints or post-prints of articles that they have submitted to non-open-access, peer-reviewed journals that agree to such activity. They can then share these self-archives using websites and other tools. However, often self-archives are deposited in repositories which are usually institutional. Such repositories allow free public access not only to peer-reviewed scholarly content, but also non-peer-reviewed content such as theses and other gray literature. OAIster is a good example of a cross-repository search engine¹.
10. In certain cases you may want to submit your research for urgent publishing. Different journals will call these kinds of papers by different names – ‘rapid response’, ‘rapid paper‘ …, etc. Often they do not contain too much detail as to study design or statistical rigor. These papers will be submitted by editors to external reviewers on the condition that they be reviewed within a specified time frame. Once such a paper has been accepted and published, you may not be able to submit an addendum or supplement later as it might be considered ‘duplicate’ material!
11. Following reporting guidelines such as those mentioned at the Equator Network, will improve your chances of being published.
12. Submitting your paper to a specialty journal increases your chances of success. Most papers fulfill a niche and so do most specialty journals.
13. The chances of you being struck by lightning are higher than the chances that your paper will be accepted without modification. Nearly always, editors and reviewers will get back asking you to change your paper in some way.
14. In highly specialized fields, many journals will use the same set of reviewers. If you disagree with a reviewer and choose to withdraw your submission, it will not do you much good to submit to a different journal.
15. Reviewers are usually free to remain anonymous to authors. And some journals will let authors be anonymous to reviewers in the interest of fairness. However, anonymity does not always happen.
16. If you are well known in your field, don’t be surprised if you receive an offer to expert-review a paper from a random journal.
17. Despite how enticing it sounds, reviewers do not make a lot of money from this business!
18. Different journals select editors using different criteria. At the end of the day, it is the business team of a journal that usually decides. A candidate who can improve a journal’s appeal, impact factor and business profits ultimately wins.

Have anything else to share that’s not on the list? Send me your feedback and I’ll put it up here!

–

Your feedback counts:

1. Special thanks to Stevan Harnad of Open Access Archivangelism fame for corrections in the comments. Matt Warren writes in to talk about the NIH’s involvement in open-access. Their Pubmed Central service is worth checking out. ^{[go back]}
2. With regards to ‘embargoes’ and copyrights, Christina Pikas writes in to say that most of this stuff is part of the ‘copyright transfer agreement’, which should always be examined carefully. She also says that many institutions can influence how many rights you have and that if your work was done for a corporation, a corporate lawyer will often help you in the process. Just to add a tiny point, the book that I referred to above mentions that many institutions have policies on copyright and intellectual property (IP) for their departments. Some will allow researchers to hold on to IP rights, while others will take over these IP rights from them. It’s always a good idea to check with your institution or department. ^{[go back]}

Copyright © Firas MR. All rights reserved.

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Kiebowitz, Stan J. and Stephen Margolis. “Seventeen Famous Economists Weigh in on Copyright: The Role of Theory, Empirics, and Network Effects.” Harvard Journal of Law and Technology 18 (Spring 2005): 435.

Kiebowitz and Margolis point out the assumptions and weaknesses in the brief 17 notable economists wrote collaboratively to support the Supreme Court case Eldred v. Ashcroft, which challenged the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act of 1998. The Court overturned the challenge, and the authors argue that the economists’ argument did not have any hard data to back it up and it did not offer a complete understanding of the purposes of copyright. Copyright is not merely exclusion; it is ownership, and ownership (through copyright) helps regulate production and prevents some of the negative impact of network effects. It isn’t just the copyright owner vs. the public commons good; copyright is more about protection (for the public good) than about exclusions.

Quotable Quotes

“Open access is not a universally preferrable way to manage a resource” (448).

“The copyright owner’s role is similar to the private owner of a natural resource that can be subject to crowding. In both cases, the owner tries to prevent dissipation of value through misuse of an asset. A rational owner would approve derivative projects that maximize his or her profits. Copyright policy must balance beneficial restrictions that constitute stewardship over resources against standard monopoly losses” (449) – then argues for the benefit of allowing paradoies, critiques

“copyright protects expression, not ideas” (449)

“A more complete view requires consideration of the responsiveness of creative efforts to marginal incentives and the function of onwership of intellectual property beyond the incentive to create” (449).

Notable Notes

only a small % of books, movies made from 1920s-1930s have current market value – the law doesn’t affect that many of them

the brief argued two things: 1. copyright extension doesn’t make economic sense, since the authors weren’t not creating because they didn’t have a super-long copyright protection 2. extra incentive has little real effect on the authors (*focused on the economic effect with royalties, not other effects) but imposes new and more restrictions and costs on new authors

the law – 70 years after death, 75-95 years for institutional authors, applied retroactively

Kane, Gordon. “Internet and Open-Access Publishing in Physics Research.” In Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism. Eds. Eisner and Vicinus. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2008. 48-52.

Gordon explains how open-access digital publishing, which has now become the norm in physics (esp. theoretical physics), has changed the nature of the field: physicists now publish at an accelerated rate with short articles that function more as a dialogue between scholars. Their online publication (print journals are now used as archives) has opened up access to a wider range of scholars and students.

Wie am vergangenen Donnerstag im Seminar ‘Theorien und Konzepte der multimedialen Kommunikation’ angerissen, steht das deutsche Urheberrecht auf dem Prüfstein und muss sich gegen z. T. verfassungwidrige, z.T. radikal ‘laissez-faire’-Sympathisanten verteidigen.

Hierzu dienlich sind die Verlautbarungen der Internationalen Konferenz zur Zukunft des Urheberrechts und einige Artikel der FAZ:

Michael W. Perry: Alles hängt jetzt von Europa ab, FAZ, 5.5.2009

Michael Hagner: Open access als Traum der Verwaltungen, FAZ, 6.5.2009

Burkhard Hess: Es wird Zeit, daß die Bundesregierung eingreift, FAZ, 7.5.2009

David Wiley (coiner of the oft-useful water/polo analogy for online/education) has produced another parable – this time taking a potshot at the journal publishing industry:

Once upon a time there was an inventor. She was brilliant. [...] They all set to work. It was alternately glorious and tedious, fulfilling and demoralizing. [...] at length the day arrived when they had a product ready to ship!

Relieved, the inventor began contacting shipping companies. But she could not believe what she heard. The truckers would deliver her goods, but only subject to the most unbelievable conditions:

• the inventor had to agree to ship her product via the one trucking company exclusively,
• this exclusive shipping deal had to be a perpetual deal, never subject to review or cancelation, and
• the truckers would be the ones who would sell her product to the public and the truckers would keep all the profits.

Every shipping company she contacted gave the same response. Dejected, but unwilling to see the fruits of all her labor go to waste, she eventually relented and signed a contract with one of the companies.

It is, of course, a story about academics and the journal publishing industry.

This is not a new complaint.  My now-retired colleague (and prolific and widely-read author) Derek Rowntree campaigned at length against the madness that meant he had to apply for permission to use his own writings in his own teaching, which was sometimes denied.

But as I argued in my Scholarly Publishing 2.0 talk, the online world is having two effects.  Firstly, the publishing industry are making the situation worse, e.g. by coming up with new ways to restrict what users of  “content” can do with it (DRM), and charging double-digit inflation year on year on electronic journals when Moore’s Law is driving all other technology products (and content) in the opposite direction.  And secondly, it opens up alternatives – it is possible to do things differently, and to organise a campaign about this.  The whole Open Access movement is a great example of this.

If I gave investment advice – which I don’t, and it would almost certainly not be worth what you are paying for it – I wouldn’t be suggesting Reed Elsevier stock as a great bet for your retirement savings.

Update: Blimey.   Apparently Merck paid Elsevier to publish a fake peer-reviewed medical journal. “Truckers” is perhaps not a rude enough word.

Das Pharma-Unternehmen Merck (of “Vioxx” fame, siehe 11k2) bezahlte Elsevier, nach Eigenangaben “einer der führenden Wissenschafts- & Fachbuch-verlage” dafür, eine Ausgabe des “Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint” zu veröffentlichen. Darin Auszüge von Artikeln aus anderen Fachzeitschriften und ein ausführlicher Bericht über die unwiderlegbaren Vorzüge des Medikaments Fosamax (siehe Bild).

Trotz möglicher Nebenwirkungen (in den USA wird dazu gerade prozessiert) wird das Mittel gerne bei Osteoporose verschrieben. In einfachen Worten: Die angebliche Forschungsarbeit zu Fosamax (a.k.a. Alendronat) war eine reine Werbebroschüre.

Und der angeblich im Namen der Wissenschaft handelnde Verlag Elsevier nahm das Geld und schwieg. Natürlich sind solche Verlage und solche Hersteller gegen OpenAccess (siehe 11k2 zum “Heidelberger Appell”). Weil dann alle Arbeiten jedem zugänglich wären. Und man einfach viel schlechter betrügen kann.

( bioethics via boingboing)

Continua da questo post.

In quanto ereditaria del patrimonio dell’ex monopolista statale SIP, Telecom detiene la proprietà dell’unica rete (in pratica) di interconnessione telefonica del paese. Questo è la causa principe di tutti i problemi del settore, poiché chiunque intenda inserirsi in questo business deve, prima o poi, rivogersi a Telecom, fosse per una attivazione, per l’affitto di spazio in centrale o per interventi di manutenzione. Appare chiaro come questo comporti problemi di conflitto di interessi, poiché gli stessi tecnici Telecom saranno portati a lavorare al meglio per i propri utenti, mentre tratteranno con meno riguardi gli utenti altrui, fino a consigliare loro il passaggio proprio a Telecom.

Questo problema, però, non è solo italiano, poiché in quasi tutti i paesi il sistema telefonico è nato come società statale ed è stato solo in tempi recenti privatizzato. Diversamente da noi, però, altri paesi hanno risolto efficacemente il problema, separando il controllo della rete fisica e assegnandolo ad una nuova società, di fatto esterna ed indipendente ai vari operatori (operazione definita OpenReach). In questo modo, i tecnici non sono direttamente o indirettamente dipendenti di nessun operatore e lavorano quindi con maggiore coerenza.

In Italia, giusto per distinguerci come da nostra abitudine, abbiamo accettato invece la nuova idea Telecom, quella dell’Open Access. Trattasi non di separazione della rete dall’operatore, bensì di una riorganizzazione dei reparti tecnici, con nuove regole di gestione e di trasparenza.

Belle parole, ma in pratica non è cambiato nulla da quando, oltre un anno fa, tale ristrutturazione è stata avviata. I tecnici continuano a lavorare per Telecom, continuano a preferire i propri clienti rispetto a quelli dei concorrenti, continuano a declamare la maggiore efficienza delle offerte Telecom rispetto agli operatori alternativi, ben sapendo che dal punto di vista tecnico sono esattamente le stesse.

Cosa infatti Telecom intendesse cambiare, non lo sa nessuno. Le dichiarazioni hanno puntato sul nome, OpenAccess (accesso aperto), senza descrivere cosa tale nome intendesse, visto che di fatto l’accesso alla rete è riservato ancora esclusivamente ai tecnici Telecom. Sono cambiare le regole? E chi può dirlo? Possiamo solo constatare che tale progetto è fallito, proprio come ci si aspettava.

Per lo meno, dal punto di vista degli utenti, poiché per Telecom si è trattata di una vittoria facile ed economica: AGCOM ha plaudito infatti all’iniziativa, ha esaltato le nuove possibilità di equo trattamento, ha incensato di lodi sperticate la nuova iniziativa Telecom. I comunicati AGCOM sembrano ora provenire direttamente dall’ufficio marketing di Telecom. Anziché sottolineare come questa iniziativa fosse solo un blando palliativo contro i veri problemi strutturali del settore, AGCOM ha voluto far passare l’impressione che la rete, seppur ancora di proprietà Telecom, fosse diventata effettivamente più libera ed ad accesso più equilibrato, per gli altri operatori.

Avrebbe, al contrario, dovuto indicare la strada reale che porta alla separazione tra rete ed operatore di maggioranza.

Ma questo, si sa, non conviene a Telecom.

Nel prossimo atto, scopriremo come questa riorganizzazione abbia portato si a nuove regole di gestione ma, guarda caso, a grave danno degli utenti e degli operatori.

Continua su questo post.

Mit dem “Heidelberger Appell” und dem “Fair Syndication Consortium” formieren sich Federkiel-Intellektuelle und Verleger, um das OpenAccess-Prinzip des Internets zurückzudrehen. Im Zentrum der Empörungswelle steht vor allem Google. Die Revolte erinnert ein wenig an die hilflosen Versuche der Musikindustrie, Tauschbörsen und mp3-Download-Piraterie mit, Kopierschutztechniken, strafrechtlichen Abschreckungsmaßnahmen und Abmahnterror in den Griff zu bekommen. Wenn die Musikbranche ihre Energie und Kreativität statt in Juristen eher in Marketing und Innovationen gesteckt hätte, dann wäre es ihr selbst gelungen, sich neu zu erfinden und nicht Apple. Denn mit der Plattform iTunes und den coolen Endgeräten ist es Steve Jobs gelungen, gigantische Umsätze zu machen.

Statt über Urheberrechts-Attacken gegen die Google-Ökonomie zu sinnieren, sollten Verleger, Wissenschaftler und Schriftsteller sich lieber Gedanken machen, wie man im Internet attraktive Geschäftsmodelle kreieren kann. Darauf hat der Billing-Experte Omar Khorshed von der Düsseldorfer Firma acoreus schon vor Jahren hingewiesen. „Viele Firmen sind nicht in der Lage, massenfähige Produkte mit attraktiven, einfachen und kostengünstigen Billingangeboten zu etablieren”, mahnte Khorshed. Hier werden die meisten Fehler gemacht. Wenn Verlage in Bezahldatenbanken pro Artikel zwei bis sechs Euro verlangen, haben sie den Schuss eben noch nicht gehört.

Medienprofessor Jeff Jarvis hat das in seinem Buch “Was würde Google tun” treffend beschrieben. Das Knappheitsmodell der Wirtschaft und damit die Kontrolle über Inhalte haben ausgedient. Google hatte eben frühzeitig den Instinkt, Plattformen und Netzwerke zu schaffen, statt Inhalte zu kaufen oder zu produzieren.

Warum sollte es nicht möglich sein, auch Bücher über Anzeigen zu finanzieren? Jarvis verweist in seinem Buch auf den googeligsten Autor, denn er kennt: Paulo Coelho. Er glaubt, dass die Raubdrucke seiner Bücher in russischer, japanischer, norwegischer oder serbischer Sprache ihn zum meist übersetzten lebenden Autor gemacht hat. Die Raubdrucke waren derart hilfreich, dass Coelho auf seiner eigenen Homepage Links dazu einrichtete.

Kluge Buchvermarktung im Internet

Open access publishing is slowly gaining a foothold in scholarly publishing.  The availability of scholarly publications for research through open access publishing is critical to the feasibility of an all digital research library.

In 2007 President George W. Bush signed a bill allowing the National Institute of Health to publish research as open access documents.  The NIH Public Access Policy implements Division G, Title II, Section 218 of PL 110-161 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008) states:

SEC. 218. The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

Some members of Congress are trying to stop this policy from spreading to other federal agencies, with backing from the publishing lobby.   H.R. 801 was introduced by Representative John Conyers on February 3, 2009. Called the “Fair Copyright in Research Works Act,” this bill seeks to stop public access publishing from spreading to other Federal agencies.  This bill, or a similar version, has been introduced in previous sessions of Congress, but has been overshadowed by larger problems.  However, Representative Conyers, who oversees the House Judiciary Committee, has recently abolished the subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Policy.  It is believed that Rep. Conyers made this move in an effort to pass H.R. 801 this session.

Peter Suber believes that the success of the NIH Public Access Policy will provide key evidence to support the defeat of H.R. 801.  Currently, the NIH publishes 80,000 papers per year to advance research in every area of biomedicine. Even the most reluctant publishers will be forced to adapt to open access or fail if they wish to remain relevant.  Peter Suber foresees a lawsuit from the publishing industry lobby based on copyright protection, but predicts that this will fail.  The publishing industry will soon reach a tipping point in favor of open access publishing.

Mr. Suber also believes the current economic recession will play a role in reaching this tipping point, and not simply by rendering H.R. 801 as unimportant.  He states, “If TA publishers found OA journal business models unattractive a few years ago, one reason was that subscription models still looked better.  But the balance of attraction has to change as the odds of survival under a subscription model decline…and today at least three [OA] publishers are reporting profits, including BMC…which is based in expensive London.” (¶14, SPARC newsletter).

Even the most prestigious universities are not immune from financial pressures in the current economy. Every budget item is weighed and scrutinized, and in this economic climate, paying for access to subscription databases and  publishing contracts is relegated to the lower levels of the priority list.   On March 20, 2009, M.I.T. announced that ALL faculty research would be published in a free online repository.   The press release mentions that although other universities, like Harvard and Stanford, publish research from select departments as open access documents, MIT would set a higher standard by publishing research from every department in its online repository.

Mr. Suber tempers expectations that complete open access will be reached in 2009, much less 2010.  “[M]aking predictions based on what appears to be wise rather than what appears to be unavoidable, or treating reasons as causes, is most likely to pay off when the relevant players are informed and rational.”  (¶23, SPARC newsletter).  Indeed, those who oppose open access publishing surely believe that they are ones who are “informed and rational.”

As the quantity and quality of open access publications improve, so too will the likelihood that an all digital library will come into fruition.

Works cited:

Fair Copyright in Research Works Act.  OpenCongress.org.   http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h801/show.  Accessed March 29, 2009.

Plotkin, Natasha.  MIT Will Publish All Faculty Articles Free In Online Repository
The Tech.  Online Edition. Volume 129, Issue 14.  Published: March 20, 2009.   http://tech.mit.edu/V129/N14/open_access.html   Article accessed March 29, 2009.

Suber, Peter.  Predictions for Open Access, 2009.  SPARC Open Access Newsletter, Issue #218.  December 2, 2008.  http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/12-02-08.htm#predictions. Accessed March 30, 2009.

Website, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. http://publicaccess.nih.gov/.  Accessed March 29, 2009.

Last year, I lectured in the event named Open Access Day.

国際学術情報流通基盤整備事業　│　イベント情報　│　SPARC Japanセミナー【Open Access Day特別セミナー】「日本における最適なオ-プンアクセスとは何か？」

This year, Open Access Week is held in 19-23 October 2009.

PLoS says…

After the resounding success of our first ever Open Access Day in 2008, where we had nearly 130 participating organizations from almost 30 countries, we are pleased to announce that this year’s events will be scheduled during the week of 19-23 October 2009.

Save the date – Open Access Week 19-23 October 2009 | Public Library of Science

and SPARC says…

To accommodate widespread global interest in the movement toward Open Access to scholarly research results, October 19 – 23, 2009 will mark the first international Open Access Week.

Open Access Week declared for 2009 (SPARC)

My friend made Japanese banner.

via Spread the word — Open Access Week – October 19-23, 2009

Please use it freely.

I am looking forward to coming　this week .

Around midterms there is always a ton of stuff to do.  Plus add on to that spring taxes and FAFSA.  Yes, I finally did the FAFSA.  After a week of calling my mother and whining about how I couldn’t find my pin, I realized that I could just email the pin center and request a duplicate, and it only takes like 2 minutes.

Worked on the SLA 23 Things some more for my special libraries class.  This week was “Play Week.”  The thing I liked the most out of that was librarything.  My username is lumagoo and you can find me here if you like.  I was surprised at how fast it was.  Just type in the ISBN and wham you’re done.  I have this weird idea in my head of creating my own classification scheme of my books.  The way I did it back when I lived at home and had more room for books was to sepeate them by geography and then chronologically, and I had a seperate section for novelty/fun books.  I could see in the next year developing a card catalog, following AACR2 standards of course!

The other thing I found out how to do today was how to create tiny urls like those small ones on Twitter.  There is, of course, the website for that, but I found a Firefox add-on for it instead.  There’s also another add-on that shows the full url when you scroll over the tiny url, so that you aren’t fooled into going to nasty sites (or at least not more so than usual).  I think the two work fantastically together.

In library news I heard that the law libraries are making a huge move towards open access.  Yay for following Library Journal on Twitter.  I would love to hear what Dorothea Salo thinks of this.  Most of it sounds fantastic to me, at least the open access part, which is great in view of the serials crisis.  I also love that they have a double safeguard in that they are making faculty members retain copyright in the contracts, which Harvard has been doing already.  The part that makes me nervous is that they are also dispensing with the print forms of their journals altogether, and based off of what I do know about digital preservation, that is very scary.

Der Kongressabge-ordnete John Conyers (Dems, Michigan) brachte den “Fair Copyright in Research Works Act” (HR801) wieder zur Diskussion. Ziel des Gesetzes ist es, die OpenAccess-Politik zu Fall zu bringen. Diese, vor einigen Jahren eingeführt, verlangt, dass Forschung, die mit öffentlichen Mitteln finanziert wurde, auch neben der Veröffentlichung in Fachpublikationen kostenlos zugänglich sein muss.

In Deutschland gibt es so eine Verpflichtung nicht, hier wird steuerfinanzierte Wissenschaftsarbeit direkt in Verlagsprofite umgewandelt. Und womöglich demnächst auch wieder in den USA.

(via boingboing, openaccessblog) (pic wikipedia pd)

John Wilbanks keynote…

SPARC, in partnership with SPARC Europe and SPARC Japan/National Institute of Informatics, hosted the SPARC Digital Repositories Meeting 2008, November 17 and 18, 2008 at the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland.

The SPARC Digital Repositories Meeting 2008 (SPARC)

more about “i love Open Access, i love Science Co…“, posted with vodpod

Creative Commons@Twitter says …

Science Commons on reddit frontpage!

Twitter / creativecommons: Science Commons on reddit …

and Science Commons@blog says …

A call for support and access to scholarly content rose to the top of Reddit this afternoon. We thank all the Reddit users for showing their support for Science Commons and for Open Access (OA).

Science Commons » Blog Archive » Reddit users show their support for SC

and and John Wilbanks says …

Science Commons got picked up on reddit this week. It was surreal – we hit the top of the charts for about 24 hours, got way more web traffic than usual, and the SC/Dylan video got almost 4000 views. Wacky.

Common Knowledge : Reddit and Science Commons

Keita Bando Mr. Komada has translated the SC video done by Jesse Dylan into Japanese. Keita told me about this and has used the service dotsub to add the subtitles to the video directly.

Common Knowledge : SC / Dylan Video – Japanese version

i ❤ Open Access, i ❤ Science Commons, and i ❤ John Wilbanks.

The Carnegie Commons – Community Event: Opening Up Education

Join the editors of Opening Up Education, Toru Iiyoshi and Vijay Kumar, and John Seely Brown, who wrote the book’s foreword, to talk about future possibilities for the open education movement and how it can improve the quality of education.

Tomorrow, October 2nd, at 2pm EDT.

The book itself is – Opening Up Education. The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge is available from MIT Press. It is also available, free, in pdf format, or as an iPaper edition.

Technorati Tags: openAccess, open, education, event, web2.0

Ich bin Lambert Heller, und ich arbeite seit 2008 an der TIB/UB Hannover. Mich beschäftigt, wie wir die Daten aus unseren Katalogen befreien. Das alte Modell ist: Wer an diese Daten ran will, kann das nur mittels unserer Katalokanwendungen, Daten und Suchanwendung  sind sozusagen miteinander verschweißt. Oder er benutzt zwei oder drei von den Bibliotheken lizensiert Daten-Oligopolisten wie OCLC oder Google.

Dabei haben Bibliotheken in der neuen Informationsökonomie, in der mit öffentlichen Mitteln erstellte Daten frei zugänglich und untereinander vernetzt sind, nichts zu verlieren: Ihre Lizenzen und physischen Bestände können besser gefunden und genutzt werden, wenn frei um nützliche Anwendungen und Verknüpfungen der Titel- und Bestandsdaten konkurriert wird. Die neuen Geschäftsmodelle von STW und SWD (PPT von sind Lars G. Svensson, DNB) sind hier wegweisend.

Aber solche Ziele werfen Fragen auf: Wie können wir webgerechte Links zwischen “unseren” Katalogdaten und überinstitutionell verwendeten Normdaten exponieren? Welche Lizenzen sind für Open Data geeignet? (In Neuseeland hat man sich z.B. für eine Creative Commons-Lizenz entschieden.) Kann und sollte man große Gesamt-Datenpakete per Bittorrent o.ä. zur Verfügung stellen? Was sind potentielle “Killer-Anwendungen” für freie Daten aus dem Bibliothekskatalog, mit denen wir das Konzept unseren Bibliotheksleitungen anschaulich und schmackhaft machen können?