Scholarly Communication : Open Access : JISC grant program for open-access journals. JISC has launched a grant program for open access publishing. It invites proposals from "academic publishers or learned societies looking to move to an open access model for their journal(s)." The grants will go to a small number of applicants who "agree to waive open access submission and publication fees for UK HE staff for a one-year period." The application deadline is February 2, 2004. (Thanks to Fred Friend.) [Open Access News]  2:52:22 PM   [Feedback ]  

Scholarly Communication : Open Access : Politics of open access. Dick Kaser, The Politics of Open Access, Information Today, December 2003. A summary of the pro and con arguments, with an accent on the skepticism expressed by the commercial publishers. [Open Access News]  1:06:56 PM   [Feedback ]  

Scholarly Communication : Open Access : Steps toward a better system of scholarly communication. John Unsworth, Not-so-Modest Proposals: What do we want our system of scholarly communication to look like in 2010? A presentation at the CIC Summit on Scholarly Communication, December 2, 2003 --and a strong, detailed endorsement of open access. Here are his seven steps to "a better system of scholarly communication":

1. We all admit that most information is born digital now, even if that's not how it's published.
2. Department chairs, even in History departments, accept the idea that quality and impact are what matter, not the quantity or the medium or the genre of publication
3. Open Access becomes the new political correctness among content-producers
4. Libraries insist on collecting digital content and universities support their effort to do so, out of an awareness that this is the key to a better world
5. University presses normalize digital information to lower the cost of collecting and preserving it, and they perform a number of other functions that lower the cost of scholarship and increase its impact
6. Provosts use subsidies, marketing, and university policy to encourage an ethos of open access among faculty, and to support open access principles as being in the best interest of all research organizations.
7. Provosts use subsidies, marketing, and university policy to encourage collaboration between libraries and presses

Unsworth is the Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. [Open Access News]  9:58:12 AM   [Feedback ]  

Scholarly Communication : Open Access : Mark McCabe's OA research. The Library Journal Academic Newswire for December 2 contains a short overview of the open-access research funded by the Open Society Institute and undertaken by Mark McCabe. Excerpt: "Researchers and academic librarians may be increasingly disillusioned about the marketplace for e-journals, but the emerging open access movement in STM publishing may help change that, says Georgia Tech economist Mark McCabe. In a conversation with the LJ Academic Newswire, McCabe, an expert on the evolving STM marketplace, said that open access has made a strong first step toward success --and may offer the only 'socially sensible' solution to reversing STM inflation. McCabe is currently in the early stages of an Open Society Institute-funded study that will analyze various open access models vs. subscription-based models. He said that open access can succeed in STM publishing because it restores a concept to the STM market that has diminished in recent years: competition." [Open Access News]  9:57:55 AM   [Feedback ]  

Open Source : Open source, open access, open courseware.... Peter Spotts, Who will build our digital future? Christian Science Monitor, December 4, 2003. Primarily about open-source software, but generalizing to other arenas in which "networks of strangers are challenging traditional firms with products that are just as good, more flexible --and often free." Spotts mentions the OpenCourseWare project and the Public Library of Science as related examples. Quoting Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future: "You're seeing the first whispers of a gale on the horizon." [Open Access News]  6:52:06 AM   [Feedback ]