FSOSS 2008

I attended the Free Software and Open Source Symposium October 23-24, 2008.  As always, it was a rewarding experience, and I intend to go back next year.  For the low price of only $50 (early registration), a delegate has access to two days of sessions, several workshops, and an assortment of goodies including a tee shirt, lunches and a reception. All sessions are recorded and available on-line for viewing after the conference.

I am definitely going to try out the TikiWiki CMS/Groupware application.  It has a very handy database tool that enables the user to create databases through an easy web interface.  Web forms with customized fields can be also easily created to populate your databases. I like the TikiWiki philosophy where each release comes with every available add-on which can then be enabled or disabled through site administration pages.  This ensures that all modules are updated at the time of a new release, and saves one from having to go module-hunting when new functionality is required.

I was happy to see that FSOSS featured a session on open access.  Leslie Chan discussed the convergence of open access with open source. His session reminded us of the significance of the open source contribution to the open access revolution.  John Willinsky was visionary in realizing that a major barrier to publishing journals on-line barrier-free was the cost of creating journal publishing software.  His Open Journal Systems project has enabled over 2000 journals worldwide to make journal content available on-line, most of it without barriers to access. Open source projects like his are contributing to the steady increase of peer-reviewed scholarship freely available on-line.

Marcus Bornfreund was absolutely swarmed with questions after his talk on Creative Commons and creative copyright licensing.  His session helped to bring home the message that assigning a creative commons license to a work does not limit ones ability to make a commercial profit from said work.  The cc license only sets the base standard for all who have not made alternate arrangements with the copyright holder.  It is necessary to remember that once a creative commons license is assigned to a work, any further arrangements made with respect to that work cannot be exclusive.  Marcus will be speaking at York University with Professor Pina D’Agostino on November 19th about copyright in the academy.

National Research Council Canada adopts OA mandate

As introduced in Peter Suber’s Open Access Blog posting, National Research Council Canada (NRC) has adopted an OA mandate effective January 2009.

The NRC will be developing an OA repository called NPArC and will require as of next year that all NRC institutes deposit copies of all peer-reviewed publications and technical reports in the new repository.

It is most exciting to hear that NRC is following in the footsteps of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research with its open access policy that came into effect on January 1st, 2008. I hope that this will help keep the momentum going so that other Canadian granting agencies such as the Social Science and Humanities Research Council will follow suit.

Gratis and Libre Open Access

Peter Suber’s introduction and explanation of gratis and libre open access (OA) nommenclature in August’s Open Access Newsletter has given me a wonderful opportunity to discuss the nuances of open access with my colleagues.

To quickly clarify the terminology, Stephen Harnad and Peter Suber introduced in April 2008 the terminology “strong OA” and “weak OA”.  Strong OA was intended to describe the type of open access that removes price barriers and at least some permission barriers. The term weak OA could be used to describe open access that removed price barriers alone. After some thought, the term “weak” was deemed to not be neutral, which lead to the introduction of some new terms that I believe to be quite elegant.

Gratis OA replaces the weak OA terminology, while Libre OA replaces the strong OA technology.  This is very useful for me in daily conversations as I can introduce the terminology to a colleague without seeming like I am passing a judgment on the different models.  Furthermore, the act of introducing the terminology itself helps to open up discussion about the nuances of the different categories, helping to influence the colleague’s future choices regarding the selection of creative commons licenses or the evaluation of future copyright transfer agreements.

Scopus’ friendly seaching interface

If you have not yet had a chance to play with the Scopus interface, its well worth a look.  Through their extensive research, Scopus has made the use of facets approacable and intuitive.  Just like in Erik Hatcher’s Collex platform, users can choose to either limit or exclude multiple facets within specific categories in their searches.

I’m glad that the Scopus folks made it down to demo the service as I had a chance to ask them some questions about their content.  I’m always thinking about how to promote and include the journals that we’re hosting at York through Open Journal Systems software, and so I asked one of the three Scopus representatives about the process involved.  It turns out the there is an on-line form through which one can suggest a title.  Applications are reviewed once per year.  This year’s deadline is September 1st, 2008.  It was disappointing to hear that the rejection rate is 65% because being accessible through this interface would enable Scopus users to more deliberately discover a journal’s content.

Another huge benefit to journals indexed by Scopus is the Journal Analyzer function.  This tool allows a journal to track its citations back to 1996.  The Journal Analyzer also allows users to select up to 10 journals and compare their performance next to each other on the same graph.  This could be a useful visual accompaniment to a grant application.

Brand names and Open Access

I was reading Peter Suber’s July 08 Open Access Newsletter, and its enough to make my head spin…there are so many developments posted on Open Access News I just can’t keep up anymore, its fantastic that “hot” stories are now tagged and the feed to these stories can be subscribed to here.

I was struck by a particular point Peter raised:  that the availability of funds to pay for access [to research] does not scale to keep pace with the growth of published knowledge.

It made me think about the format problem.  I’ve been hearing it mentioned over and over again, this question: why are we so attached to packaging our research into a journal format?

Is it the brand name that we’re so attached to?  If we’re looking for quality, do we simply just seek out the Prada of journals?  Does not the research stand up for itself, just like a consumer good has to? If your Vuitton luggage falls apart after one trip down the baggage conveyor belt, does the fancy brand matter anymore?

Maybe its about lack of time.  Who has the time to compare quality of consumer goods…we’ve all purchased a generic brand at one point or another that greatly underperformed. To protect against that disappointment, its just easier to pay a little more for the name brand version.  Perhaps we adopt a similar mentality with research?

This worries me a bit.  The fact that research output volumes are multiplying so quickly…is it not in a way working against the cause?…is it not further fueling the demand for these high impact journals to exist? Is it not so much easier to simply save time by trusting the name brand research?

In my mind, the solution lies in the metrics…where citations and downloads can be measured and compared to the opinions of the elite groups of peer reviewers that decide which articles are Vuittons and which are simply generic.   I can’t help but predict that once a more unified and unprejudiced method of tracking impact appears, brand names just won’t matter.  The quality of an item of research will simply stand up for itself, visible for all to see, no longer in need of being sold under a designer label.

Useful guide for developing Open Access Journals

David J. Solomon’s Developing Open Access Journals: A practical guide is well worth the read.  This abridged, point form version of his full length book is an excellent reference resource.  I was impressed with Solomon’s nods to alternative publishing practices, such as suggesting that instead of waiting for regular intervals to publish a journal issue, that journals publish articles as they are ready for publication announcing them to readers via an e-mail subscription list.

Solomon also introduces the reader to alternative flavours of OA to illustrate the multiple methods that journals can use to finance their operation, and in several places indicates the role of institutions and libraries as hosting and research partners for journals.

ELPUB 2008

I am really inspired by some of the sessions I attended at ELPUB 2008 in Toronto June 25-27.

Publishers at York University will soon be introduced to the WebCite service.  It is a self-archiving service for web URLs, allowing users to request that a web page be archived. A successful request results in a permanent link that can be used to cite that snapshot of the web location at that particular time in perpetuity, allowing authors to use web URLs in their bibliographies with confidence.

Gunther Eysenbach`s paper discussing the WebCite service can be found here.

I am also looking forward to indexing some of York University`s encoded archival desciption files with California Digital Library`s eXtensible Text Framework. I attended the pre-conference workshop and am now happily playing with XTF on my laptop.

Research Library Publishing Services

In ARL 258 June 2008, Karla Hahn discusses the results of an ARL survey of research library publishing.

Quotes of note:
“The largest costs lies in the startup process of advertising, prototyping, creating workflows, and generating whatever layout and graphic design is considered adequate.”

“Almost all library publishing services have a substantial foundation in library operational support. All of the respondents who currently utilize library budget funds anticipate continuing to rely on this funding.”

“The question is no longer whether libraries should offer publishing services, but what kinds of services will libraries offer. Consequently, leaders need to ask to what extent can the university benefit from in vestments in library publishing services.”