01 August 2004|
Bank evaluation vindicates PRSP critics. The World Bank's Operations and Evaluation Department (OED) has just released the report of an evaluation they have conducted in parallel with the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office. Both assessed the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and the Poverty Reduction Growth Facilities [Bretton Woods Project] 10:11:34 PM 
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UK launches Research Libraries Network. The UK is launching the Research Libraries Network and funding it with £3 million. From yesterday's press release: "A new national initiative - the Research Libraries Network (RLN) - announced today, is set to transform the way research information is collected, organised, preserved and accessed across the UK. The RLN will bring together the UK's four higher education funding bodies, the British Library, the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales and the eight members of Research Councils UK to develop the UK's first national framework aimed at addressing the information needs of researchers....Initially the RLNA's work is likely to include feasibility studies and market research to shape the longer-term programme. Early emphasis is likely to be on improved knowledge of and access to existing resources (for example, by developing search tools and 'union catalogues' which give a single point of access to a number of different collections). Future potential workstreams include collaborative work on developing and preserving digital archives, maximising access for professional researchers to key collections, and working towards collaborative development of collections to ensure access to the widest possible range of research materials." (Thanks to Gary Price.) [Open Access News] 10:09:37 PM
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The impact of OA initiatives. Colin Steele, Digital publishing and the knowledge process, forthcoming in Steve Ching et al. (eds.), eLearning and Digital Publishing. Excerpt: "The impact of Open Access initiatives could have a profound impact on scholarly knowledge distribution. The process will be both liberating and disruptive, but in the short term will undoubtedly be a hybrid situation for access to and distribution of knowledge. Liberating in that it could release a large amount of scholarly material in a variety of forms globally without the financial barriers imposed by multinational publishers. Disruptive in the sense that major changes will be required in scholarly practice to change the paradigms of scholarly communication." [Open Access News] 10:07:54 PM
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OA developments in Australia. Colin Steele, World's knowledge base should be open to all: Are you free? Australia well placed to react to UK open access initiatives, unabridged edition of an article from the Australian Financial Review, July 26, 2004. Excerpt: "University and institutional researchers create a large part of the world's knowledge base. Researchers tend to give away their intellectual output free of charge to large multinational publishers who generate hundreds of millions of dollars of profits annually....[But things are changing.] Less than a week after a US Congressional Committee called for open access to research funded by National Institutes of Health, Britain's prestigious House Of Commons Science and Technology Committee has issued a major Report: Scientific Publications: Free for All?...In Australia Open Access developments have been ahead of the international pack....The National Scholarly Communications Forum (NSCF), a body sponsored by the four Australian learned Academies, has provided important leadership in this area....The NSCF recommends Australian research accessibility to be widened through open access research initiatives within institutions, particularly through the encouragement of institutional repositories, including the adoption of universitywide policies to collect and archive institutional research output, for example in connection with RAE exercises and the adoption of further open access mechanisms, such as open access journals and not-for-profit electronic publishing." [Open Access News] 10:06:42 PM
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Publishers correct "myths" of OA. Setting the Record Straight About Academic Journal Publishing, the Professional/Scholarly Publishing (PSP) division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), July 2004. An attempt to correct four "myths" about subscription-based journals spread by OA defenders, apparently modelled on the BMC page of anti-OA myths. The first myth and its correction will give you an idea of the document's quality. The first myth is that "[traditional publishing], relative to open-access publishing, hinders the progress of science and medicine and reduces the benefits to the public." To show that this proposition from the PLoS web site is false, the document asserts that subscription-based journals add value, including date stamps and peer review (conceded, not at issue) and that they are more widely read than OA journals (conceded, not at issue). The answer simply misses the target, which is especially troubling since the authors got to pick the myth to which they wanted to respond. The claim in the PLoS quotation was that conventional journals hinder progress "relative to" OA journals, not that they hinder progress absolutely or offer nothing of value. Moreover, when the document points to the valuable features of conventional journals, it seems to forget that OA journals have all of them (date stamps, peer review, disseminating research, and archiving) with the possible exception of marketing. [Open Access News] 10:04:19 PM
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The Effects of Contrast and Density on Visual Web Search. "This study evaluated the effects of white space on visual search time. Participants were required to search for a target word on a web page with different levels of white space, measured by level of text density. Screens were formatted with one of four types of graphical manipulation, including: no graphics, contrast, borders and contrast with borders under two levels of overall density and three levels of local density. Results show that search times were longer with increased overall density but significant differences were not found between levels of local density. Only the use of contrast was found to be significant, resulting in an increase in search time." (Software Usability Research Lab Usability News 6.2) [InfoDesign: Understanding by Design] 10:01:07 PM
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Why Do Bloggers Read Blogs?. The graphic from this article is explanantion enough:
Via: Joi [Common Craft - Online Community Strategies]9:58:57 PM
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[bellanet-l] New Panos Report: Completing the Revolution: The Challeng e of Rural Telephony in Africa. Please send your inquiries directly to: /Pour obtenir plus de précisions et information, n'hésitez pas à joindre : Murali Shanmugavelan Communication for Development Programme Email: muralis@panoslondon.org.uk +++++++++++ Completing the Revolution: The Challeng e of Rural Telephony in Africa It warns that by overplaying the success of mobile phones, which has been driven by the opening up of telecommunications markets, the whole issue of universal access - where every person should be within reasonable distance of a telephone - could potentially slip off the policy agenda as governments may now see the free market as the best way to achieve this. This was illustrated by the recent pan-Africa charter NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development) and the World Summit on the Information Society declaration, both of which failed to address specifically the need for a rural communications structure. Published by the Panos Institute, a think tank on the role of media & communications in development, the report states that the growth of mobile phones has been concentrated in urban areas - where a third of Africans live - and is creating a widening communication gap between rural and urban communities. Leaving service provision to competition and the market alone is not sufficient, argues the report, as companies perceive low profit in providing telephones to a poor and thinly spread population. The development implications of access to phones and information remain immense in a continent where more than half of the population lives below the poverty line, and where a phone call can cost as much as half the daily wage an agricultural worker. Since liberalization and the World Trade Organization's 'Basic Telecommunication Services Agreement' six years ago, Africa's telephone growth rate has indeed been phenomenal. Last year it had the world's fastest annual average growth rate in mobile subscriptions (65%). However, national and international teledensity figures - the number of telephones per 100 inhabitants - are not usually disaggregated into urban and rural, so the rapid growth of urban use conceals what is often a stagnant picture of rural telecommunications development. For example, the teledensity of Malawi is one in 200 on average for the whole country, but taking out the four major towns, this figure rises to one in 1,250. Murali Shanmugavelan, author of the report, says, "African governments need to find effective and transparent ways of subsidising rural telecommunications structure, and not simply hope that businesses and new technologies can bring about universal access... By Monitor@community.eldis.org. [Community@Eldis: ICT for Development messages] 9:56:00 PM
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Major development in providing OA to taxpayer-funded research. Rick Johnson, Director of SPARC, just sent this message to SPARC members. I blog it here with his permission.
PS: This is extraordinarily important news. It sensibly focuses on OA archiving, which leaves authors free to publish in non-OA journals if they like. It sensibly avoids the mistakes of the Sabo bill, such as needlessly requiring the public domain rather than open access and needlessly interfering with patentable discoveries. The NIH is the largest funder of science in the US federal government, five times larger than the second-largest funder, the NSF. Expect opposition, and be prepared to support this proposal through personal and institutional letters to members of Congress. I'll report further details as I get them. [Open Access News] 9:53:22 PM
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A repository for foundation-supported research reports. PubHub is "A Repository of Foundation-Supported Reports" hosted by The Foundation Center. It's a searchable, browseable, open-access repository, "[s]tarting with the arts — and eventually including the full scope of philanthropic activity in the United States". It also supports current awareness by email. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.) [Open Access News] 9:52:02 PM
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Peer review and open access. Tracey Brown et al., Peer Review and the acceptance of new scientific ideas, Sence About Science, June 24, 2004. A thorough exploration of peer review, particularly to help the public understand the process and learn to ask the right questions about controversial research results. For brief overviews, see the publisher's announcement and press release. The report endorses open access in several ways. For example, when "commercially generated scientific findings" must be disclosed prior to peer review, e.g. to prevent insider trading, then they should be accompanied by open-access data files to help researchers assess the reported findings (pp. xii, 28). OA journals may change the way they manage peer review but will not change the principle of peer review (p. 21). Self-archiving has created a new outlet for peer-reviewed articles (pp. 21-22). "Open Access may even increase the extent to which science is self-corrective because all qualified experts will be able to access all published papers" (p. 22). [Open Access News] 9:50:00 PM
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Barriers to health info are barriers to health. Fiona Godlee, Neil Pakenham-Walsh, Dan Ncayiyana, Barbara Cohen, and Abel Packer, Can we achieve health information for all by 2015? The Lancet, July 9, 2004. Abstract: "Universal access to information for health professionals is a prerequisite for meeting the Millennium Development Goals and achieving Health for All. However, despite the promises of the information revolution, and some successful initiatives, there is little if any evidence that the majority of health professionals in the developing world are any better informed than they were 10 years ago. Lack of access to information remains a major barrier to knowledge-based health care in developing countries. The development of reliable, relevant, usable information can be represented as a system that requires cooperation among a wide range of professionals including health-care providers, policy makers, researchers, publishers, information professionals, indexers, and systematic reviewers. The system is not working because it is poorly understood, unmanaged, and under-resourced. This Public Health article proposes that WHO takes the lead in championing the goal of 'Universal access to essential health-care information by 2015' or 'Health Information for All'. Strategies for achieving universal access include funding for research into barriers to use of information, evaluation and replication of successful initiatives, support for interdisciplinary networks, information cycles, and communities of practice, and the formation of national policies on health information." (Thanks to ResourceShelf.) [Open Access News] 9:48:38 PM
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Yet More Thoughts on Global Information Architecture. "(...) the 80/20 Rule: we pick a small set of locales that require minimal translation, are reasonably easy to design, are owned by people who want to cooperate with our efforts, and provide the business with most bang for its buck." (Louis Rosenfeld) [InfoDesign: Understanding by Design] 9:43:10 PM
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These web sites are identical - or are they?. "This survey compares 10 web sites through elements of their layout: styles, page construction and elements. The survey seeks similarities and differences between those well known web sites, built by famous, talented designers. What can be observed is that those web sites agree on implicit, internalized layout and design norms (Consensus rate), and that deviance from these rules (Dissidence rate) is uncommon." (François Briatte) - courtesy of douglas bowman [InfoDesign: Understanding by Design] 9:42:13 PM
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Writing effective link text. "Follow these six guidelines for how to write effective link text and your site visitors will be able to find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently." (Trenton Moss - evolt.org) [InfoDesign: Understanding by Design] 9:41:22 PM
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More on the UK report. Richard Poynder, British Politicians Call on U.K. Government to Support Open Access, Information Today, July 26, 2004. Excerpt: "Following 7 months of deliberation, the U.K. House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee has concluded that the current model for scientific publishing is unsatisfactory, and it has called on the U.K. government to support open access (OA)....Indeed the U.K. government may well reject the committee's recommendations: While it is obliged to respond, it does not have to act on the report. Nevertheless, suggested Rick Johnson, director of OA advocacy group SPARC, the case for open access is now so overwhelming that it is only a matter of time, and regardless of the fate of specific proposals there is a 'cumulative impact' evident. 'What is emerging is a broad recognition that taxpayer-funded research is a public good, and a public good that funders get more value out of from use, rather than from supporting a system that makes research a scarce good, and so drives up the price and restricts access.' Examples of the growing pressure to implement OA are not hard to find. The week before the U.K. report was published, the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Appropriations recommended that NIH --the largest science funder in the U.S. federal government-- provide free public access to research articles resulting from NIH-funded research 6 months after publication. And last month, following the example of the U.K., the EU commissioned a study of the STM publishing markets in Europe. But perhaps there is no better evidence of the traction OA now has than the positive spin placed on the U.K. report by Derk Haank, CEO of Springer (and former chairman of Elsevier Science), who appears to have concluded that traditional publishers now have little choice but to respond to calls for OA." [Open Access News] 9:36:59 PM
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More on the US and UK proposals. Sophie Rovner, Legislators Back Open Access, Chemical & Engineering News, July 26, 2004. On the major OA proposals for taxpayer-funded research in the US and the UK. Excerpt: "Government committees in the U.S. and U.K. are taking steps to promote free online access to scientific literature. Open-access proponents are delighted, but others are concerned about potential risks. The committees' support and other recent endorsements of open-access publishing 'amount to a stinging rebuke of the prevailing subscription-based publishing system,' according to a statement released by Public Library of Science, an open-access publisher. 'Open access is the only acceptable outcome.' Not so fast, responds the Association of American Publishers. 'We don’t oppose open-access publishing, but only its premature and unwarranted imposition through government mandate,' says Barbara J. Meredith, vice president for professional and scholarly publishing....In the U.K., a parliamentary committee last week issued a report on publishing. In 'Scientific Publications: Free For All?' the House of Commons’ Science & Technology Committee voiced its displeasure with the high prices and access limitations that characterize some scientific publishing and offered possible solutions. Research institutions should set up a network of free-access online repositories containing their staff's publications, the committee suggested, and government-funded researchers should put a copy of their publications in these repositories. The government should help fund the repositories and cover fees that authors pay publishers to make their articles open access. The U.K. government will respond to the committee’s report within the next few months." [Open Access News] 9:35:56 PM
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More on the UK report. Kevin Davies, UK MPs Debate Open Access, Bio-IT World, July 27, 2004. Excerpt: "The report – 'Scientific Publications: Free for All?' authored by British Members of Parliament and published earlier this week – concludes that research findings should be made freely available to fellow researchers and the public alike. The MPs criticized the traditional scientific publishing model, in which libraries and individuals are forced to absorb steeply rising subscription costs....The committee endorsed the alternative 'open access' model, championed by journals such as PLoS Biology and the Journal of Clinical Investigation, which requires authors to cover the costs of publishing, but in return makes the text of the published papers fully and freely available online....The UK report urges British universities to establish a network of computerized 'institutional repositories,' which would store all UK-based research papers." (Thanks to Gary Price.) (PS: Actually the report does the reverse. It would mandate institutional repositories and encourage experimentation with OA journals funded by processing fees paid by authors or their sponsors.) [Open Access News] 9:34:00 PM
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Zerhouni supports NIH OA plan. Paula Park, NIH research to be open access, The Scientist, July 29, 2004. Excerpt: "National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Elias Zerhouni indicated at a gathering of 43 scientific journal publishers and editors Wednesday (July 28) that eventually all NIH-financed research will be freely available to the public. Zerhouni stopped short of setting deadlines for depositing full-text materials in the searchable PubMed database, as recommended in a House Appropriations Committee report released earlier this month. Instead, he asked the publishing executives to inform him how best to manage material so that the public can freely use it. 'The public needs to have access to what they've paid for,' Zerhouni told commercial and nonprofit publishing executives at a meeting he called on the NIH campus....'The status quo just can't stand.' " [Open Access News] 9:33:05 PM
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Access to knowledge. The June issue of the International Association of Universities Newsletter is devoted to "Access to Knowledge". It contains articles on INASP by Carol Priestly (pp. 1, 4), on copyright and access by Séverine Dusollier (pp. 5, 7), on knowledge-sharing between north and south by Bonaventure Mve-Ondo (p. 6), on the DOAJ by Lotte Jorgensen (p. 11), and on Érudit by Guylaine Beaudry (p. 12). There are no deep links to individual articles. [Open Access News] 9:31:47 PM
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Circles Of Trust: Influence Indicators On The Internet. JD Lasica reports from the BlogOn Conference: "Influence is moving from big media to the edges. Users are becoming as influential as big media in certain areas, especially in specialized niches. What are the metrics of influence on the Internet?"... [Robin Good's Latest News] 9:29:45 PM
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Transparency And Credibility On The Web: How To Increase Them. Transparency and credibility are probably among the hardest assets to build online. The lack of a physical presence greatly diminishes our normal ability to assess an organization/company credibility by looking at visual clues and by having direct communications with its... [Robin Good's Latest News] 9:27:44 PM
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ieSpell. This is a simple tool that I use almost daily. Anytime I’m writing in a web based form, like through a browser, I use this tool to check spelling. Every weblog post, every Yahoo Groups post, every time I write online, I use this tool to check spelling. IE Spell makes me look better and saves me time by filling a gap in the IE browser. 9:26:27 PM
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© Copyright
2004
Peter ferguson
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Last update: 24/08/2004; 10:47:38 .
Last update: 24/08/2004; 10:47:38 .
