Struggles of University presses

A special issue, v. 13, no. 2, of the Journal of Electronic Publishing focuses on Reimagining the University Press. And commentaries from the Chronicle of Higher Education,
Hot Type: Despite Broader Audiences, University Presses May Have to Scramble for Support and Inside Higher Ed, New Models for University Presses, discuss the issues.

Textbook pricing and copyright

An article from Inside Higher Ed, Challenge on Textbook Pricing, November 22, 2010 highlights the markets assault on the high cost of textbooks. And the earlier July 8, 2010 filing of an amici curia brief in the mentioned case, Costco Wholesale Corporation v. Omega, by the Library Copyright Alliance highlights the activity needed by library associations to continue to be able to provide the services that are traditional in the U.S.

Open Access Week

Open Access Week (October 18 – 24, 2010) is an online coordination of activities that highlight the collaboration and collective action that have heightened the momentum behind Open Access. Lots of exciting things are happening.

The following is from the "Welcome" to the Open Access Week site:

“Open Access” to information – the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole.

Open Access (OA) has the potential to maximize research investments, increase the exposure and use of published research, facilitate the ability to conduct research across available literature, and enhance the overall advancement of scholarship. Research funding agencies, academic institutions, researchers and scientists, teachers, students, and members of the general public are supporting a move towards Open Access in increasing numbers every year. Open Access Week is a key opportunity for all members of the community to take action to keep this momentum moving forward.

ProQuest Drops Dissertation E-Submission Fees

From Library Journal By Josh Hadro, Sep. 2, 2010

In a move with potentially broad implications for the world of Electronic Dissertations and Theses (ETD), ProQuest has dropped the fees for those using its ETD Administrator program and interface.

Copyright Symposium for Faculty

How does copyright impact our research and teaching?

September 10, 2010 (Friday)
9 a.m. – 3 p.m. (lunch included)

Auraria Library Enhanced Learning Center

Speaker: Kevin Smith, J.D., Scholarly Communications Officer, Perkins Library, Duke University

Register for this lively symposium on copyright issues online or call 303-556-3526

Topics include:

• Applications in teaching
• Protecting your content
• Copyright and media
• Evolving landscape of copyright

Presented by:
Auraria Library
Teaching/Learning Center CCD
Center for Faculty Development UCD
Center for Faculty Development MSCD
Teaching with Primary Sources – Colorado
Health Sciences Library
CU Online

Video clips, teaching and rules changes issued Monday, 8/2/10, by the U.S. Copyright Office

Video clips, teaching and rule changes issued Monday, 8/2/10, by the U.S. Copyright Office

"Champions of fair use say new copyright exemption is a victory for teaching and learning."
Inside Higher Ed

"Copyright Ruling + Online Video Platforms = Active Learning"
Inside Higher Ed

"Information on the New DMCA Exemptions"
Chronicle of Higher Education

Ireland's National Portal for Open Access to Research Goes Live

Shortened version of an annoucement received on June 9, 2010 from Paul Sheehan, Director of Library Services, Dublin City University

RIAN - www.rian.ie - will act as a single point of access to national research output, and contains content harvested from the institutional repositories of the seven Irish Universities and Dublin Institute of Technology. RIAN will significantly increase the visibility and impact of Irish research and will expand to harvest content from other Irish Open Access providers as the service develops.

A national network of institutional repositories will increase the exposure of national research output, and allows services, such as enhanced searching, and statistics generation, to be developed using economies of scale. RIAN will demonstrate the impact of research to potential funders, who recognise the value of wider research dissemination.

The Irish Government has identified growth in research as critical to its future as a knowledge economy. Raising the research profile is a key strategy in the Universities’ strategic plans, and the ability to showcase research output and identify institutional research strengths is extremely important in attracting new funding and high quality staff.

The development of RIAN was managed by the Irish Universities Association Librarians' Group and is supported by the Association. This three year project was equally funded by the Universities and the Irish Government’s Strategic Innovation Fund which is administered by the Higher Education Authority.

Benefits of RIAN to Irish authors:
* Broadens worldwide access to material
* Increases citations for research material
* Makes easier access to material via search engines such as Google, Google Scholar and Yahoo
* Raises profile of Irish researchers internationally

Benefits to Irish institutions include:
* Provides a showcase of the institution’s research output
* Raises the profile of the institution’s research internationally through broader access and citations
* Increases potential for collaboration and synthesis between Irish and international researchers

For more information contact:
Paul Sheehan, Director of Library Services, Dublin City University
Telephone: (+353 1) 7005211, Email: paul.sheehan@dcu.ie

Ning closing down free networks

Some faculty use Ning in their teaching so it is with interest that I note a PC World article Friday, April 16, 2010 by Harry McCracken which reports that Ning is now asking customers to switch to a paid plan or leave the network.

There are more articles on the topic posted on Net-gold including a list of other "still free" options.

FRPAA

The Federal Research Public Access Act - FRPAA - was introduced in the House of Representatives on April 15th.

"...the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2010 (FRPAA) has been introduced ... in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) and a bi-partisan host of co-sponsors. The proposed bill would build on the success of the first U.S. mandate for public access to the published results of publicly funded research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and require federal agencies with annual extramural research budgets of $100 million or more to provide the public with online access to research manuscripts stemming from funded research no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal" [press release from SPARC].

For more information see: "Call to action: Tell Congress you support the Federal Research Public Access Act," published Apr 16, 2010, Alliance for Taxpayer Access . http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/issues/frpaa/frpaa_action/10-0416.shtml .

Lilian Hoffecker

Institutional policies and researchers' views on open access

A journal article Open access to research outputs--Institutional policies and researchers' views by Claire Creaser examines the results of two 2008 surveys investigating the effects and impact of open access on researchers. From the abstract:

... Researchers were largely unaware of their institutions' policies with regard to open access, or whether they had an institutional repository. ... The surveys found that any researchers maintained a suspicion of open access publications, both as authors and as users of scholarly material, together with a degree of ignorance about open access and the role of institutional repositories. ...

If you have dificulty accessing the article Auraria Library patrons may log in to read the fulltext.

Understanding of academic integrity effective against plagiarism

A recent National Bureau of Econimic Research working paper titled Rational Ignorance in Education: A field experiment in student plagiarism by Thomas S Dee, Swarthmore College and Brian A. Jacob, University of Michigan found that required completion of an anti-plagiarism tutorial prior to a writing assignment substantially reduced the likelihood of plagiarism, particularly among students with lower SAT scores.

Amazon, e-books and publishers

An article from Business Week on Amazon, Kindle and publishers:

www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_02/b4162050103172.htm

What about the academic press?