Open Access Comments is a new website with daily feed of news that will focus on conversations around open access, open licensing, open students, open scientists, open repositories, open libraries and similar open values. I invite you to join the debate where I will be mostly editing the news as well as the monthly summary of ten most interesting topics discussed on the site. OAComments site will link you to many other sources on open access as well such as newly launched Open Access Map, OASIS, Connotea’s OA bookmark, STM publishing news, SPARC eNews and more. You are welcome to follow it on Twitter and below you can read this month’s Featured Comments, first of its kind.
1. Open Access Map is Launched
At the OAI7 Workshop on Innovation in Scholarly Communication, Alma Swan from OASIS announced the launching of Open Access Map on June, 23. Anyone with an Open Access Resource or Organization they’d like to have included on the map, is invited to use the Add Item feature to share their contribution with the project. The world map will include all Open Access projects, services and initiatives. The tool will also involve a timeline which will show the development of Open Access over the last decade in terms of repositories, policies adopted and OA journals published.
2. OAI7 Summary of Open Access Advocacy Session with contributions by Monica Hammes, William J. Nixon and Heather Joseph
From OAI7 Workshop on Innovation in Scholarly Communication that ended last week in Geneva, these are notes and thoughts put together from Open Access Advocacy Session that included contributions from:
- Monica Hammes: The Open Access Conversation is more than just advocating for a mandate
- William J. Nixon: University of Glasgow, UK, advocacy through embedding: integrating repositories and research management systems
- Heather Joseph: SPARC, Washington DC, Advocacy at the national and international level
Find the entire review here.
3. An Important Interview with Bernard Rentier, Rector of the University of Liège published
Bernard Rentier, rector at the University of Liege
Richard Poynder has published an interview with Bernard Rentier, Rector of the University of Liège. University’s repository ORBi had accumulated 30,000 bibliographic references, and more than 20,000 full text documents after it was launched. “Today, ORBi is the most active institutional repository of its type in the world (Ranking first of 1,418 IRs), and ULg researchers are beginning to see the benefits of embracing OA,” Poynder reports. Read the entire interview here.
4. Few strong points in favor of open access made at the European Commission hearing on access to and preservation of scientific information
Diane Cabell of Creative Commons reports from the European Commission hearing on access to and preservation of scientific information. Few strong points in favor of open access were made:
- Open access accelerates the speed of science
- Time is wasted in serial submissions as researchers first seek the prestigious journals
- Publication is not simply a method for communication among peers; it also has practical impacts (social, economic, consumer) that should also be taken into consideration when evaluating impact
- A shift is needed away from evaluation of research based at the journal level to one that is based at the article level which can include a wider and more sophisticated variety of post-publication impact metrics beyond mere citations in other journals
To read the full plan of what should be the European Commission’s next steps, visit the Creative Commons blog. It is stated that “OA needs to be approached globally. The European Commission should set standards for harvesting, curating, trusted processing and presentation of results.”
5. “The Power of Open” book is available online – collected stories from the creators of CC licensed works
Cory Doctorow portrait by Jonathan Worth
“Creative Commons began providing licenses for the open sharing of content only a decade ago. Nowmore than 400 million CC-licensed works are available on the Internet, from music and photos, to research findings and entire college courses. Creative Commons created the legal and technical infrastructure that allows effective sharing of knowledge, art and data by individuals, organizations and governments. More importantly, millions of creators took advantage of that infrastructure to share work that enriches the global commons for all humanity,” the introduction to the book “The Power of Open”states. The book collects stories of creators of CC licensed work. What else? Download the full work in a pdf format here.
6. PLoS ONE has received its 2010 journal impact factor, 4.411, placing the open access journal in 12th spot among 85 Biology journals
PLoS ONE published nearly 7,000 articles in 2o1o and became the largest scientific journal in the world. Today, as reported in the Scholarly Kitchen, it has “received its 2010 journal impact factor, 4.411, placing the open access journal in 12th spot among 85 Biology journals.”
The journal opens the era of new “mega oa journals” and Phil Davis uses the metaphor of The Blob to describe this new publishing model that “based on this trajectory, predicts 12,000 published articles by the end of 2011.”
Read the entire post by Phil Davis here.
7. Some important conversations around Open Access Peer Review were held at the UK House of Commons
UK House of Commons
UK Politicians, representatives of open access publishers, and representatives of research community have engaged in a series of conversations around open access peer review. They have discussedsplitting the traditional peer review into two separate processes: a) assessing a paper’s technical soundness and b) assessing its significance — a model pioneered by open-access publisher PLoS ONE, and now increasingly being adopted by traditional publishers; whether in order to deliver faster publishing times it is necessary to cut corners by, for instance, editing papers more lightly, and whether this approach leads to more submissions, the propagation of the PLoS ONE model and whether the journal might become a victim of its own success, cascading peer review, the difficulties in getting publishers to share reviews, and whether sharing is more likely in an OA environment, and more. Find the entire session here.
8. InTech Open Access Publisher launched the first issue of its FREE FOR ALL open access journal International Journal of RFID and Wireless Sensor Networks as well as the first issue of its FREE FOR ALL open access journal Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology
InTech Open Access Publisher launched its most recent, groundbreaking Journal’s first issue in the International Journal of Radio Frequency Identification & Wireless Sensor Networks, under the label FREE FOR ALL, available to access online, download free of charge, and submit manuscripts, no fees levied.
Under the editorship of Dr. Cristina Turcu, also the editor of four RFID and WSN books published by InTech with a total of + 7500 downloads worldwide, the Journal covers new developments in RFID and WSN technologies.
Read more from InTechWeb Blog.
9. EIFL 2o1o Annual Report is Online
EIFL is an international not-for-profit organization dedicated to enabling access to knowledge in more than 45 transition and developing countries in Europe, Asia and Africa. As partners to OpenAIRE project, EIFL have worked closely with local library staff of the countries to extend awareness of open access. They have also provided practical assistance and advice on the implementation of OA institutional repositories.
In 2010, 128 new repositories were launched in 20 EIFL partner countries, bringing the total to 314 repositories in 41 partner countries.
EIFL have also published two major reports on good practice in OA repositories and journals in developing and transition countries: an evaluation of repository development in partnership with DRIVER (a pan-European project to create a digital repository infrastructure), the University of Kansas, and Key Perspectives; and a report on the implementation of open content licences.
Download the entire annual report here.
1o. You Tube Video Editor with Creative Commons Tab Launched
YouTube added the Creative Commons Attribution License, CC BY, as a licensing option for users. YouTube also launched a Creative Commons video library containing 10,000 initial videos under CC BY. Finally, the YouTube Video Editor now contains a CC tab that allows users to search the Creative Commons video library and select videos to edit and remix. Read the entire news release from the Creative Commons blog
InTechOpen Blog 
Open Access Comments: June’s Featured News
1. Open Access Map is Launched
2. OAI7 Summary of Open Access Advocacy Session with contributions by Monica Hammes, William J. Nixon and Heather Joseph
Find the entire review here.
3. An Important Interview with Bernard Rentier, Rector of the University of Liège published
Bernard Rentier, rector at the University of Liege
Richard Poynder has published an interview with Bernard Rentier, Rector of the University of Liège. University’s repository ORBi had accumulated 30,000 bibliographic references, and more than 20,000 full text documents after it was launched. “Today, ORBi is the most active institutional repository of its type in the world (Ranking first of 1,418 IRs), and ULg researchers are beginning to see the benefits of embracing OA,” Poynder reports. Read the entire interview here.
4. Few strong points in favor of open access made at the European Commission hearing on access to and preservation of scientific information
Diane Cabell of Creative Commons reports from the European Commission hearing on access to and preservation of scientific information. Few strong points in favor of open access were made:
To read the full plan of what should be the European Commission’s next steps, visit the Creative Commons blog. It is stated that “OA needs to be approached globally. The European Commission should set standards for harvesting, curating, trusted processing and presentation of results.”
5. “The Power of Open” book is available online – collected stories from the creators of CC licensed works
Cory Doctorow portrait by Jonathan Worth
“Creative Commons began providing licenses for the open sharing of content only a decade ago. Nowmore than 400 million CC-licensed works are available on the Internet, from music and photos, to research findings and entire college courses. Creative Commons created the legal and technical infrastructure that allows effective sharing of knowledge, art and data by individuals, organizations and governments. More importantly, millions of creators took advantage of that infrastructure to share work that enriches the global commons for all humanity,” the introduction to the book “The Power of Open”states. The book collects stories of creators of CC licensed work. What else? Download the full work in a pdf format here.
6. PLoS ONE has received its 2010 journal impact factor, 4.411, placing the open access journal in 12th spot among 85 Biology journals
PLoS ONE published nearly 7,000 articles in 2o1o and became the largest scientific journal in the world. Today, as reported in the Scholarly Kitchen, it has “received its 2010 journal impact factor, 4.411, placing the open access journal in 12th spot among 85 Biology journals.”
The journal opens the era of new “mega oa journals” and Phil Davis uses the metaphor of The Blob to describe this new publishing model that “based on this trajectory, predicts 12,000 published articles by the end of 2011.”
Read the entire post by Phil Davis here.
7. Some important conversations around Open Access Peer Review were held at the UK House of Commons
UK House of Commons
UK Politicians, representatives of open access publishers, and representatives of research community have engaged in a series of conversations around open access peer review. They have discussedsplitting the traditional peer review into two separate processes: a) assessing a paper’s technical soundness and b) assessing its significance — a model pioneered by open-access publisher PLoS ONE, and now increasingly being adopted by traditional publishers; whether in order to deliver faster publishing times it is necessary to cut corners by, for instance, editing papers more lightly, and whether this approach leads to more submissions, the propagation of the PLoS ONE model and whether the journal might become a victim of its own success, cascading peer review, the difficulties in getting publishers to share reviews, and whether sharing is more likely in an OA environment, and more. Find the entire session here.
8. InTech Open Access Publisher launched the first issue of its FREE FOR ALL open access journal International Journal of RFID and Wireless Sensor Networks as well as the first issue of its FREE FOR ALL open access journal Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology
InTech Open Access Publisher launched its most recent, groundbreaking Journal’s first issue in the International Journal of Radio Frequency Identification & Wireless Sensor Networks, under the label FREE FOR ALL, available to access online, download free of charge, and submit manuscripts, no fees levied.
Under the editorship of Dr. Cristina Turcu, also the editor of four RFID and WSN books published by InTech with a total of + 7500 downloads worldwide, the Journal covers new developments in RFID and WSN technologies.
Read more from InTechWeb Blog.
9. EIFL 2o1o Annual Report is Online
In 2010, 128 new repositories were launched in 20 EIFL partner countries, bringing the total to 314 repositories in 41 partner countries.
EIFL have also published two major reports on good practice in OA repositories and journals in developing and transition countries: an evaluation of repository development in partnership with DRIVER (a pan-European project to create a digital repository infrastructure), the University of Kansas, and Key Perspectives; and a report on the implementation of open content licences.
Download the entire annual report here.
1o. You Tube Video Editor with Creative Commons Tab Launched
YouTube added the Creative Commons Attribution License, CC BY, as a licensing option for users. YouTube also launched a Creative Commons video library containing 10,000 initial videos under CC BY. Finally, the YouTube Video Editor now contains a CC tab that allows users to search the Creative Commons video library and select videos to edit and remix. Read the entire news release from the Creative Commons blog
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