From the Chronicle's Wired Campus,
Laura N. Gassaway, associate dean for academic affairs and a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law, says that a lawsuit recently filed against Georgia State University regarding electronic reserves could have implications for how colleges distribute course material online.Full post.
SPARC and Science Commons have released "Open Doors and Open Minds: What faculty authors can do to ensure open access to their work through their institution." The new white paper assists institutions in adopting policies that ensure the widest practical exposure for scholarly works produced, such as that adopted by the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences in February. Full Press Release.
And now the Chronicle reports,
The Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health has reversed itself and will no longer block searches for the term “abortion” in its popular public health database Popline. Searches for the word had been blocked because of concerns over federal financing.
Holy crap! Article from The Chronicle of Higher Ed describing how the word 'abortion' is now a stopword in the Popline database. Meaning you can't search for it. That's insane! oooh, except if you go now, you CAN search on that word. Yay for the interwebs!
Technorati Tags: censorship
Earlier this week, Dr. Michael Geist spoke here at the University of Calgary, on copyright, of course. The title of his talk was Why Copyright? and was a discussion of both why copyright is a hot topic in Canada right now, and why it should be a hot topic. With his permission, I recorded the talk using the same setup I did for the Prentice video, and here it is.
You can also download an mp3 of the talk, which is actually what I'd recommend. There's really not anything vitally important visually in the talk, and my "camerawork" was particularly bad with the lighting and the angle.
Sorry for no added commentary from me here, just so damn busy these days :-/ D'Arcy has some thoughts at his place. (thanks for the use of the Mic, D'Arcy)
Two different ways to explain the same weird situation - which one works better for you?
PBS NewsHour (thanks for the link Dad)
The Subprime Primer, explained by Stick Men (contains potentially offensive language)
Hope not too many of you are directly caught in this mess :-/
Cool! Not a program I would've watched ordinarily, but I'll be giving it a shot. Michael Geist points out that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation plans to freely release a high-resolution version of Canada's Next Great Prime Minister via peer-to-peer networks without any DRM restrictions. And in a Naked Conversations moment, Tessa Sproule, CBC's Executive in Charge of Digital Programming, weighs in with a comment.
On a side note, I haven't visited the CBC's home page in a while - check out all the links for podcasts and oooh, the archives. Here's a piece from December 1979 - a Buyer's Guide to Digital Watches (one model even has an alarm!)
Technorati Tags: CBC, Bittorrent
"Harvard University's arts and science faculty voted unanimously yesterday to post their scholarly articles and research online, where they would be available for free to the public, despite concerns that the move would affect the quality of research." - full story from the Boston Globe.
Some interesting quotes in the article, like this one from a VP at the Association of American Publishers, "This is a vendor-customer dispute over price," Adler said. "It doesn't surprise us that all libraries feel their budgets are far less than desirable, but that's a reality the educational community faces."
Technorati Tags: Open_Access, Harvard
As mentioned last week, Industry Minister Jim Prentice spoke at the U of C on Friday, February 8, 2008. He didn't end up speaking about copyright, though the audience sure did. His topic was on policy making around greenhouse gas reductions, but 5 of the 8 questions asked were about copyright law. He seemed to take them in stride, though got a little curt at the end. I was going to ask one too, but by then thought it'd be getting close to harassment...
Here's the entire talk (51:00) with my comments inserted along the way. I highlighted words he said that I wanted to apply to his work on the copyright bill; words he told his soon-to-be-lawyers audience, like integrity and consultation, but which don't seem to apply to the topic of copyright reform. If you watch the whole thing, or skip to the comments towards the end, the reason for the title of this post will be apparent.
Somehow when I encoded this video to flv I flipped it, which is why what you see here is reverse of the pix below.
I recorded this with my Macbook and a USB headset mic attached - had to really pump up the volume on the edit, which went through quite a process. As you may know, the Macbook camera only points towards the keyboard, so I used a Huckleberry mirror from Mungai Mirrors to shoot towards the front. Unfortunately, the Macbook model really doesn't work very well - pointing pretty high up. Fortunately, the box in which the mirror is stored is just the right size for propping up the laptop and getting the right angle :-) Makes typing a little tough, but at least I got the recording. (looks like the model for the Macbook Pro is much better, IMHO)
Michael Geist (who wasn't actually there) has some thoughts on the Q&A period as well...
The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has just released a really good 11-page document called The Copyright Act and Academic Staff (February 2008) (pdf). It discusses what they feel needs to be addressed of concern to Higher Education in any upcoming copyright legislation.
And on that note, rumour has it that tomorrow will be the day that new legislation is introduced! Industry Minister Jim Prentice happens to be speaking on the U of C campus tomorrow, and I'll be there, possibly to hear him announce what is likely to be a pretty controversial bill. Oddly, the Order Paper says the bill would be introduced today, while the Projected Order of Business makes no mention of it.
Stay tuned!
Technorati Tags: copyright, DMCA
There sure seem to be a log of acquisitions lately! Official PDF version, or:
BETHESDA, MD, USA (January 18, 2008) – RefWorks, LLC, the leading provider of a web-based research management, writing, and collaboration tool, has announced that it has been acquired by ProQuest, a Cambridge Information Group company.
With over 900 institutions worldwide and over 1M registered users, RefWorks has been successful in facilitating the advancement of scholarly work for researchers around the world and will continue to do so. ProQuest, with the development of their Research Solutions Businesses (Serials Solutions, COS and Dissertations), continues to focus on enhancing their research solutions offerings--- which directly aligns with our vision, mission and values. What does all this mean? RefWorks will be merged with the COS business which is part of Research Solutions Businesses. COS Scholar Universe is renowned for its networking capability, which provides direct access to more than 1.4 million active researchers from around the world in over 200 disciplines. With RefWorks and COS joining forces, researchers will be able to turn to one source for tools that help them identify colleagues with similar research interests, establish alliances and manage joint research projects. We see great synergy between the RefWorks and COS products that will allow us to better assist the researcher through their workflow process.
Externally there will be no changes to the product names and no changes from a customer perspective. We are enthusiastic about the opportunities this merger affords and confident of even greater success with our products.
You might be interested in this online workshop from the Center for Intellectual Property at UMUC ($150)
Building a Community that Values Academic Integrity
Dates: February 25 - March 7, 2008 (early registration by February 8 )
Moderators: Gary Pavela, M.A., J.D., Director of Judicial Programs and Student Ethical Development, University of Maryland -- College Park & Kimberly Bonner, J.D., Executive Director, Center for Intellectual Property, University of Maryland University College
Studies show that establishing a community of shared academic values fosters academic integrity in the classroom. However, establishing that community may be more difficult when students adopt the values of a digital "remix" culture that challenges the traditional understanding of authorship. How do institutions foster academic integrity values in light of changing cultural norms? Are there special techniques and tools required? Are the best tools to use in preventing academic dishonesty "technical" like Turnitin.com? And are there additional legal and ethical issues involved when using technical measures to prevent academic dishonesty?
Goals for the course:
Search Engine is a CBC radio show, also available as a podcast. I just listened to a fascinating piece about the economy of gold farmers in World of Warcraft. 100,000 Chinese working in sweatshop conditions, killing monsters for gold in 12-hour shifts, so the people playing the game can spend some real money to buy the gold and advance more quickly in the game.
The summary of the show sounds a little dry, but I really recommend you give it a listen, it's really well done and I've been really pleased with each of the 27-minute episodes.
Search Engine is your open source to all the surprising and significant ways the Internet is transforming our world. Join us each week for a look at politics and culture through the lens of the Net.
No real details, but Library Journal reports that:
Under pressure from libraries for its 2007 decision to pull its flagship publication, Science, from JSTOR, the popular electronic journals database, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) said today that it has reversed course, and that Science will remain in JSTOR. Citing a confidentiality agreement, AAAS officials issued only a brief comment: “AAAS and JSTOR are pleased to announce that we have concluded an ongoing discussion and have been able to reach an agreement to continue what has been a very productive relationship between JSTOR and the journal Science."Yay.
Not very much content there yet, mostly law titles, but CafeScribe seems to be somewhat like ebrary for textbooks - you can search, highlight and take notes in the volumes you purchase.
Found via Mashable.
I did some searching on Google News and it doesn't look like this story was widely-distributed, so here's a link to my local paper's version. Unfortunately my local paper's website sucks and this link will most likely disappear within the week, so read it quickly if this interests you.
The article profiles three authors who've decided to make their work available for free on the web, and tell how successful they've been in this endeavor. 'Course the article's pretty one-sided in the genre discussed (all three are sci-fi writers) and by not pointing out that there are probably plenty of writers who've failed at this as well. But still, it's nice to see this mentioned in the mainstream.
Technorati Tags: open_access, online_books
Two related posts from different universes: Lorcan Dempsy reporting on a D-Lib article in which the University of Washington is inserting links in Wikipedia to content they've digitized - "If Wikipedia is where many folks end up when they are looking for things, then it makes sense to have links there." And a post from Mashable.com describing how CBS is now partnering with sites like Ning and Meebo to allow their content to be distributed on these social networks. This is an attempt to combat YouTube, though for the life of me I can't see why they wouldn't allow their content to be distributed everywhere...
We're looking into placing library service-related ads in Facebook as an attempt to reach the students where they are. Surely there are other libraries doing this already?
Related to the above releases, Mashable.com is also reporting that Facebook will soon allow users to upload videos. The option's not live yet, and since libraries as entities aren't welcome on Facebook I'm not sure if this will be of professional interest to us, but it's all rattling around in my head as an example of meeting the users where they are. Got the rest of the day to think on this.
Hmmm, might have to consider subscribing to this Mashable.com site - first time I've heard of it, but it just popped up in a couple of other feeds. Mashable.com: Social Networking News.
Technorati Tags: Libraries, Wikipedia, CBS, Meebo, Content, Facebook
I haven't gotten around to listening to the NPR segment referenced in this post, but Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing points out that Google has stated in writing that none of the contracts they have with libraries to scan their collections are exclusive, meaning the libraries are free to work with other partners and/or work on their own digitization projects. He does lament the fact that Google still won't release their scans of public domain works to the public domain:
"It just doesn't seem like Google, betting against the Internet's creativity and capacity to innovate. I know they've got a lot of smart people there, but I hope they understand that they don't have all the smart people. Google makes the bulk of its money by indexing the cool stuff other people make. Why restrict people from making more cool stuff?"
Maybe a good litmus test to see how hip your institution's researchers are, you can see what tags have been assigned by researchers at your institution: 
Disclaimer - there are NO tags currently from my institution - this is actually a shot of the PUBLIC tags currently in the EV system.
Neat stuff - makes me wish this was in my discipline, but I'm never in this product...
From the press release that alerted me to this goodness:
"Records from engineering research databases including Compendex® and Inspec® and patents databases can be tagged by Engineering Village users. Users establish their own tags based upon what they find meaningful about a document. Documents can then be retrieved by searching for specific tags or sets of tags.Tagging facilitates a user's ability to share meaningful content. Users will assign tags to documents and can choose to make those tags accessible to colleagues, peer groups and even to all the users in the Engineering Village community. Users may also opt to keep tags private for personal use.
"While tagging is often considered a Web 2.0 phenomenon, it is incredibly well suited for a professional quality information service like Engineering Village" said Rafael Sidi, Vice President of Product Development, Ei. "Engineering Village databases have traditionally relied upon records being classified by experts using structured indexes. Now, by adding record tagging the power to classify records and create content has been extended to our users. Users can now tag records based on how they define a record's relevance and importance . By choosing to expose those tags, Engineering Village users' community is provided with a powerful way to identify engineering content other users find meaningful."
My colleague Margy keeps a blog for students in a Journalism class she teaches, and just posted about a piece in The Globe and Mail about an author who got nailed for plagiarism, though the admission is only that his book contains "elements [that] . . . closely resemble or are indistinguishable from passages"... I found it interesting that the word plagiarism is only used once in the article - makes it all very soft. Margy's reason for posting was to remind her students why it's important to keep track of your sources!
Technorati Tags: plagiarism, citations
Via Michael Geist's blog, Captain Copyright is no more. Back in August 2006, just before the CC site was taken down, the Canadian Library Association had "insisted" upon this action. On the former lair of The Captain one will now find the following lament, "We truly hope that there will come a time when the copyright community – including
educators, librarians and copyright collectives – can work together to provide a unbiased teaching tool that
provides teachers and students with a balanced view of copyright."
Technorati Tags: Copyright, Canada
Registration is now open for a special joint Webcast "Author Rights."
Webcast Date: December 14, 2006
Webcast Time: noon to 1 p.m. Pacific, 1-2 p.m. Mountain, 2-3 p.m. Central, 3-4 p.m. Eastern
Length: 1 hour
ACRL and ARL, through the Institute on Scholarly Communication, along with SPARC are sponsoring a special joint Webcast on author rights. Julia Blixrud, Assistant Director for Public Programs of SPARC, and Trisha Davis, Rights Management Coordinator of The Ohio State University Libraries, will discuss ways authors can amend publisher copyright transfer agreements to keep key rights to journal articles. This Webcast will provide librarians with the basic information needed to educate faculty on campus before they transfer ownership of their intellectual output and help them understand the consequences and options. Increase your visibility on campus, your influence on the higher education and research environment, and become a respected local authority on this important scholarly communication issue.
Register:
Registration is limited to 75. The cost of the Webcast is being partially underwritten by the sponsors and offered for $35 to all participants. For complete information, including a link to registration, go to: http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlproftools/authorrights.htm
* Registration is by credit card only.
* ALA members and nonmembers with an existing account will need to use their login and password to register.
* New users will be asked to create a user account before registering.
Technorati Tags: publishing, rights
Back in February I announced the COPPUL ANimated Tutorial Sharing Project (ANTS), but noted that the COPPUL Directors had not given us the green light to open the project to non-COPPUL libraries. Well gang, the light has turned green, and while I've been meaning to tell you that for a couple weeks now, a recent post by Chad on Library Voice about sharing screencast sourcecode seems to prove that the time is ripe.
To refresh your memory, ANTS makes use of a wiki at the Univerisity of Winnipeg and the DSpace repository here at the U of Calgary to coordinate the sharing of source code for animated tutorials, aka screencasts. If I build a tutorial that you like, you can grab the original source code and modify it to suit your institution. While our effort at coordination may look a little indimidating (we have guidelines 'n stuff), it's really mostly common sense, so shouldn't prove to be a burden to anyone who wants to contibute.
And this is your invitation! Have you built a screencast for one of the databases on the wiki? How about one that's not on the wiki? (that's just our list of databases we felt would be most useful within COPPUL libraries). Why not share your source code? It's easy. I'm the administrator for the DSpace collection, so I'll review your submission before it's committed to the archive, and I'll let you know if there's anything amiss, so it's a friendly contact you'll have :-) Right now have just under two dozen tutorials up there. Go ahead and take a peek, and borrow any that you might find useful for your institution. There are even a couple in French. Like Chad, we are also using a Creative Commons 2.5 license on these puppies.
Thanks in advance - off to let all the other wikis know about this project...
Technorati Tags: screencasting, sharing, ANTS
This might be an interesting idea for some of you:
The Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, in collaboration with 5 international journals, is launching a call for research and “effective practices” papers to be published in 2008 concerning distance education and the right to education (in particular reference to article 26 of the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights of December 10th, 1948) :More information.
* What is the role of distance education in the implementation of the right to education ?
* How is distance education involved when education is seen as a right ? What is its position in educational policy, as a factor of quality and an instrument for liberty.
This theme can be approached from multiple points of view, pedagogical, sociological, economical, political, legal.
Hmm, looks like I was right (me and every other sane person); publishers are starting to admit that the books that are available through Google Book Search and Amazon's Search Inside program are <gasp!> actually selling more copies!
Some quotes from the Reuters piece: ""Google Book Search has helped us turn searchers into consumers," said Colleen Scollans, the director of online sales for Oxford University Press.", ""We suspect that Google really helps us sell more books," said Kim Zwollo, Springer's global director of special licensing, declining to provide specific figures because the company is privately owned." ""Our experience has been that the revenue generated from Google has been pretty modest, whereas the Amazon program has generated more book sales," Penguin Chief Executive John Makinson told Reuters at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week."
Technorati Tags: Google_Book_Search, Amazon, Publishers, Sales
