[quick links: open access at harvard, what “blogging” is, Korean bloggers, saying sorry]
- Yesterday, Harvard University decided that all scholarly publications by employees at the university must be made available online in an open access repository. The University of Bergen, like many other universities, already has an open access repository; but Bergen, we have to opt in by going to the effort of uploading our work. The Harvard proposal uses the opt-out model instead, where all articles must be submitted to the repository and scholars who don’t wish their work to be openly available must apply for a waiver. I would love Bergen to follow suite!
- Anna Serner, the leader of the Swedish Newspaper Publishers’ Association, has started blogging. Or “blogging”, according to Richard Gatarski, who notes the many ways in which this “blog” fails to get what blogging is.
- Apparently 80% of Koreans over the age of six use the internet, and 40% of Korean internet users have their own blog!
- The Australian government has finally apologised for the injustices done to the Aboriginal peoples, in particular the Stolen Generation of the 1930s and onward.
- Espen Andersen wrote about the difficulties highly-educated professionals with years of experience have finding jobs when they move to Norway. Ola Tunander suggests that part of the cause is that friendship and networks are given more priority in Norway than skills, experience and education. So when we complain that our students don’t put enough effort into their studies, spending their time partying instead, they’re actually being entirely rational and will probably end up more successful - in Norway - because of it. Sigh.
February 16th, 2008 at 22:43
Your blogg is still going and vital. I saw you in Aftenposten some days ago. Great. And Jill’s pregnant. Even greater! Whish you all the best!
Øivind
February 19th, 2008 at 15:18
Open access at Harvard: the only net effect is that researchers will be stimulated to archive their publications in open access archives, but it does not affect the general policies of journals or their pricing policies to libraries, except that perhaps journals might become even more expensive.
February 19th, 2008 at 16:09
KDS, I think it makes a little more difference…
I’d say those changes are very important.
February 19th, 2008 at 16:09
Australia’s apology: to say “I’m sorry” is not to say “I’ll make up for it”. According to a related news story (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/14/2162558.htm) the Australian government seems to be spending more money on fighting reparations claims than on actually paying reparations.
February 19th, 2008 at 16:47
Jill, you write “journals will no longer be able to get away with excessive copyright agreements”, challenging my claim that open access is not affecting the journal publishers’ ‘’general'’ policies and pricing. However, the publishers are now coming up with ‘’special'’ agreements. Look at [http://www.springer-sbm.com/index.php?id=291&backPID=131&swords=open%20access&L=0&tx_tnc_news=841&cHash=0a393e20fe Springer’s Open Choice] that allows free access but demands $3000 from your university for ‘’every'’ article.
February 20th, 2008 at 22:37
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