Open Access

Scholarly Communication (NCSC 2008)

On my way down to Lund to attend the Fourth Nordic Conference on Scholarly Communication. for me the highlights of the first day will be

Open Scholarship: Synergies between Open Access and Open Education
Melissa Hagemann, OSI

Access, Usage and Citation Metrics: What Function for Digital Libraries and Repositories in Research Evaluation?
Chris Armbruster, Research Network 1989 and Max Planck Digital Library

Judging Merit – The Value of Publications
Ingegerd Rabow, Lunds Universitet

And naturally the opportunity to speak to lots of people with the same interests.

Posted on by mklang

Top misleading open access myths

Biomedcentral has a list of top misleading Open Access myths

In the evidence presented to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee Inquiry into Scientific Publications, many dubious arguments have been used by traditional publishers to attack the new Open Access publishing model.

Myth 1: The cost of providing Open Access will reduce the availability of funding for research

Myth 2: Access is not a problem – virtually all UK researchers have the access they need

Myth 3 :The public can get any article they want from the public library via interlibrary loan

Myth 4: Patients would be confused if they were to have free access to the peer-reviewed medical literature on the web

Myth 5: It is not fair that industry will benefit from Open Access

Myth 6: Open Access threatens scientific integrity due to a conflict of interest resulting from charging authors

Myth 7: Poor countries already have free access to the biomedical literature

Myth 8: Traditionally published content is more accessible than Open Access content as it is available in printed form

Myth 9: A high quality journal such as Nature would need to charge authors £10,000-£30,000 in order to move to an Open Access model

Myth 10: Publishers need to make huge profits in order to fund innovation

Myth 11: Publishers need to take copyright to protect the integrity of scientific articles

Posted on by mklang

Handbook of Applied Cryptography

The Handbook of Applied Cryptography by Alfred J. Menezes, Paul C. van Oorschot and Scott A. Vanstone is available free online for download. This is an important book – in my discussions with online activists I try to explain the importance of them doing all they can to protect themselves. This is certainly a step in the right direction.

  • Chapter 1 – Overview of Cryptography ps pdf
  • Chapter 2 – Mathematics Background ps pdf
  • Chapter 3 – Number-Theoretic Reference Problems ps pdf
  • Chapter 4 – Public-Key Parameters ps pdf
  • Chapter 5 – Pseudorandom Bits and Sequences ps pdf
  • Chapter 6 – Stream Ciphers ps pdf
  • Chapter 7 – Block Ciphers ps pdf
  • Chapter 8 – Public-Key Encryption ps pdf
  • Chapter 9 – Hash Functions and Data Integrity ps pdf
  • Chapter 10 – Identification and Entity Authentication ps pdf
  • Chapter 11 – Digital Signatures ps pdf
  • Chapter 12 – Key Establishment Protocols ps pdf
  • Chapter 13 – Key Management Techniques ps pdf
  • Chapter 14 – Efficient Implementation ps pdf
  • Chapter 15 – Patents and Standards ps pdf
  • Appendix – Bibliography of Papers from Selected Cryptographic Forums ps pdf
  • References ps pdf
  • Index ps pdf

The book is not under a particularly generous license but it is available. Make sure you read the copyright notice.

Posted on by mklang

Free Software Conference

On the 7-8 December Göteborg will be hosting the first Free Software Conference Scandinavia (FSCONS). The event, which is already promising to become an important event on the Free Software calendar, is a good mix of techies and freedom folks.

While the techies will be able to enjoy talks on squid, gtk, GnuTLS and OpenMoko (among others) the non-techies (like myself) will be talking about digital rights, consumer rights, free software licensing & women in IT.

I am looking forward to speaking on the topic of Digital Rights

In an Internet-based participatory democracy we are particularly dependent upon our technological infrastructure. The qualities of digital communication and interaction create a situation where the user is often incapable ensuring the integrity and security of the communications infrastructure. Therefore we are becoming increasingly dependent upon experts to ensure the openness, accessibility and freedom of the infrastructure of our democracy. This session will address the threats and opportunities faced by users in a digital participatory democracy and the steps we need to ensure the openness of digital democracy.

But I am particularly looking forward to listening to (and discussing with) people like Shane Coughlan, Anne Østergaard and Fernanda Weiden. It’s nice to see that events such as this (and the Stallman lecture) are being arranged in my hometown.

Great Work by the tireless Henrik!

Posted on by mklang

Free Software, Social Innovation

As a part of the STACS-project the Free Software Foundation Europe and M6-IT are organizing an event at The Hub in London.

The idea is to invite NGO’s to a show and tell session on the way in which Free Software functions. The idea is that the organizations will see the advantage of Free Software and bring it into their organizations and influence other organizations.

From the website:

We understand that not everyone will be able to cover the costs of visiting the event and we are willing to contribute towards travel and accommodation costs. We invite you to fill out an application by the 19th of October 2007 at the latest. The selected attendees will be contacted by the 22nd of October.
Venue

The Hub is an incubator for social innovation. It’s a place for people to meet, learn and connect with each other to make things happen. The Hub in London is located on 5 Torrens Street which is conveniantly close to the tube station Angel on the Underground Northern Line.

Schedule: Friday 2nd November
09.00 Free Software as a Social Innovation
10.30 Coffee/tea break
11.00 Empowering NGOs with Free Software
12.30 Lunch
14.00 Hands-on experience with Free Software
16.00 Coffee/tea break
16.30 Hands-on continued..
18.00 Social event and dinner

The number of participants is limited and the last date to apply is on the 19th October. For more information and applications go here.

Posted on by mklang

Semantic Webs

Spend 8 minutes with Tim Berners-Lee and listen to him explain the enormous potential of the semantic web built upon open access and open data. He also explains why standards and openness are cornerstones in this development.

sir_tim.jpg

 (via UBC Academic Search)

Posted on by mklang

Peer Review

A good short term strategy when attempting to prevent something is to use obviously false arguments. This is a good strategy because even false arguments can be believed if they are stated with a sense of conviction. But this is a crappy strategy in the long run since it undermines the credibility of the fool making the false argument.

One of the arguments against open access is that open access will ruin the peer review system. This is obviously total bull but stated with conviction by publishers it sounds almost credible. It sounds very credible to those who have no idea what peer-review is. It sounds even more dangerous when the importance of peer-review to the progress of science is explained.

So people tend to get nervous when open access is invoked and fear for the demise of good science. Therefore it is always a good thing to have a answer to this prepared.

Peter Suber’s article in the September 2007 SPARC Open Access Newsletter is just what you need – please read Why Open Access Undermine Peer Review?

Posted on by mklang

Publishers lobby against Open Access

The AAP/PSP has launched PRISM (Partnership for Research Integrity in Science & Medicine – read the press release) which seems to be nothing more than a lobby organization against Open Access. Among the more strange arguments (actually commonly used by opponents to OA) is that OA will ruin the peer-review system. The press release states:

Critics argue that peer reviewed articles resulting from government funded research should be available at no cost. However, the expenses of peer review, promotion, distribution and archiving of articles are paid for by private sector publishers, and not with tax dollars.

The idea of peer-review is that the articles should be reviewed by other researchers in the same field since they are the most competent and familiar. Like most other academics the task of peer-review is a challenge, an opportunity, a drain on precious time and a learning opportunity. Therefore, it is a task done, for the most part, with great seriousness (but maybe not enthusiasm) – and most importantly it is done for FREE. In other words the academic carries out this work while being paid from someone other than the publisher. Open Access will not harm the peer-review system since the system does not rely on the publishers.

For a much better and deeper rebuttal of the arguments in the press release read Peter Suber’s response to their arguments.

Update/Additional info:
According to Boing Boing at its launch the Prism website included copyrighted images used without the owners permission.

Posted on by mklang