Interview with Microsoft's Pablo Fernicola about Article Authoring Add-in for Microsoft Office Word 2007

Jon Udell has posted an interview ("Word for Scientific Publishing") with Pablo Fernicola, a Microsoft Group Manager, about the Article Authoring Add-in for Microsoft Office Word 2007 (see my prior posting "Microsoft Developing Authoring Add-in for Microsoft Office Word 2007 with NLM DTD Support"). (Warning: there is a very annoying Silverlight download pop-up that obscures part of the post.)

Udell has also posted a screencast of Fernicola demonstrating the add-in ("Pablo Fernicola Demonstrates the Word Add-In for Scientific Authors").

CrossRef and iParadigms to Launch Scholarly Plagiarism Analysis Service

CrossRef and iParadigms will launch CrossCheck in June, which will allow publishers to analyze content in both publisher systems and Internet Web sites in order to identify works that may have been plagiarized.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

CrossRef is partnering with iParadigms, LLC to offer its members—leading scholarly and professional publishers—the opportunity to verify the originality of works submitted for publication using the iThenticate service to check against a vast database of proprietary as well as open web content. Until now, there was no automated way to check submissions against previous publications because the published literature had not been indexed and "text fingerprinted" for this purpose. The CrossCheck database will include the full-text journals of leading academic publishers, and is expected to grow very rapidly over the coming months as CrossRef member publishers sign up for the service.

CrossCheck will be available to all CrossRef members who opt to contribute their content to the database. To use the service publishers will need to integrate the checking tool into their editorial processes and develop suitable policies and guidelines. CrossRef is working with iParadigms, member publishers, and editorial system software producers on appropriate technical information and guidelines for CrossCheck.

JorumOpen, UK Repository for Creative Commons Licensed Educational Materials, Announced

JISC has announced JorumOpen, a national repository of open access educational materials under Creative Commons licenses.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

It was announced today that Jorum, the UK national repository for learning and teaching materials funded by JISC, is to offer open educational resources. This will make it easier for lecturers and teaching staff to share and re-use each other's teaching resources. JorumOpen—as it will be called—will also provide a showcase for UK universities and colleges on the international stage. . . .

Jorum is managed jointly by EDINA and Mimas, the two National Academic Data Centres funded by JISC at the Universities of Edinburgh and Manchester. During the first phase of Jorum's development, the focus has been on building a system that safeguards investment in digital learning resources and offers controlled access to licensed materials. The result is a service that supports access to over 2,500 learning resources for download for direct use in the classroom and within virtual learning environments (VLEs).

Through the development of JorumOpen, lecturers and teachers will be able to share materials under the Creative Commons licence framework: this makes sharing easier, granting users greater rights for use and re-use of online content and easier to understand. Importantly, it does not require prior registration. As a result availability is global as well as across UK universities and colleges. JorumOpen will run alongside a 'members only' facility, JorumEducationUK, that will support sharing of material just within the UK educational sector; this will be available only to registered users and contributors, as is currently the case.

Open Access to High-Energy Physics Journals: Greater Western Library Alliance Expresses Interest in SCOAP3 Project

The Greater Western Library Alliance, a consortium of 31 research libraries, has expressed interest in the SCOAP3 project. The Greater Western Library Alliance joins a growing list of U.S. institutions interested in the SCOAP3 project.

Here's an excerpt from Towards Open Access Publishing in High Energy Physics: Executive Summary of the Report of the SCOAP3 Working Party that explains the project:

The proposed [SCOAP3] initiative aims to convert high-quality HEP journals to OA, pursuing two goals:

  • to provide open and unrestricted access to all HEP research literature in its final, peer-reviewed form;
  • to contain the overall cost of journal publishing by increasing competition while assuring sustainability.

In this new model, the publishers’ subscription income from multiple institutions is replaced by income from a single financial partner, the "Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics" (SCOAP3). SCOAP3 is a global network of HEP funding agencies, research laboratories, and libraries. Each SCOAP3 partner will recover its contribution from the cancellation of its current journal subscriptions. This model avoids the obvious disadvantage of OA models in which authors are directly charged for the OA publication of their articles. . . .

In practice, the OA transition will be facilitated by the fact that the large majority of HEP articles are published in just six peer-reviewed journals from four publishers. Five of those six journals carry a majority of HEP content. These are Physical Review D (published by the American Physical Society), Physics Letters B and Nuclear Physics B (Elsevier), Journal of High Energy Physics (SISSA/IOP) and the European Physical Journal C (Springer). The aim of the SCOAP3 model is to assist publishers to convert these "core" HEP journals entirely to OA and it is expected that the vast majority of the SCOAP3 budget will be spent to achieve this target. The sixth journal, Physical Review Letters (American Physical Society), is a "broadband" journal that carries only a small fraction (10%) of HEP content; it is the aim of SCOAP3 to sponsor the conversion to OA of this journal fraction. The same approach can be extended to another "broadband" journal popular with HEP instrumentation articles: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A (Elsevier) with about 25% HEP content.

Creative Commons Statement of Intent for Attribution-ShareAlike Licenses Made Official

The draft designation for the Creative Commons Statement of Intent for Attribution-ShareAlike Licenses has been removed, and the document is now the official explanation of the goals of this group of licenses.

Read more about it at "Creative Commons Statement of Intent for Attribution-ShareAlike Licenses Released."

Georgia State Copyright Infringement Suit Coverage and Commentary

Here's a selection of news articles and Weblog postings about the Georgia State copyright infringement lawsuit.

"Coursepack Sharing: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?": John Mark Ockerbloom, who maintains The Online Books Page, looks at the suit from an open access point of view. He says:

But in a world that's brought us global content sharing systems like Flickr, CiteULike, and PubMedCentral, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine systems that would let instructors provide and share open access course readings more readily. A well-designed, browsable and searchable repository of such readings could provide a convenient way for professors to upload, organize, and disseminate open coursepacks for their students ("Just go to the OpenCoursePacks website, and type in the name of my course", they could say). The same site could also let profs could tag, annotate, and recommend their readings, thereby making it that much easier for other professors to find and include suitable open access content in their own coursepacks. With a good design, and suitable scale and interest, a coursepack sharing site could make a lot more good instructional material widely and freely used and shared.

"Georgia State Sued For Copyright Infringement": Information Media Partners supports the suit and provides an interesting comment about publishers' fear of entering the "valley of death" of the print-to-electronic transition.

"Oxford, Cambridge and Sage Sue Georgia State": Paul N. Courant, University Librarian and Dean of Libraries at the University of Michigan, reacts to the suit. In summary, he says:

Things have come to a pretty pass when academic institutions sue each other over academic matters. Even if the publishers prove to be right on the merits, the lawsuit ought to be the last resort, and student use of academic materials produced by academic institutions ought be priced at something like marginal cost, rather than at the price that maximizes profit. And one wonders why three rich and distinguished institutions would go after an urban university that is much less well-resourced.

"A Press Revolt against E-Packet Practices": Andy Guess' Inside Higher Ed article overviews the suit, provides background information about prior communications between GSU and the plaintiff’s law firm, notes that the suit indicates that the e-reserves system wasn't restricted access until after a complaint to the university, and includes a call from Kenneth C. Green, director of the Campus Computing Project, for a iTunes-like system for scholarly material.

"Publishers Sue Georgia State for Copyright Infringement": Calvin Reid's Publisher's Weekly article overviews the suit and includes comments by Patricia Schroeder (AAP President and Chief Executive Officer), Allan Adler (AAP Vice President, Legal and Governmental Affairs), and Niko Pfund (Oxford University Press Vice President).

"Publishers Sue Georgia State University Over E-Reserves": Andrew Albanese's Library Journal article overviews the suit and includes comments by Pfund as well as a useful brief recap of prior e-reserves disputes and resolutions. (For more background, see Albanese's 2007 article "Down with E-Reserves: Confusing, Contentious, and Vital, E-Reserves Fuel Higher Education—And an Ongoing Copyright Battle.") Albanese notes that the "suit offers a remarkably detailed view of what the plaintiffs believe to be infringing activity at GSU, including specific examples of uses it considers to be well beyond the scope of fair use and a detailed appendix of alleged infringed materials."

"Trying to Sue State U": Kevin Smith, Scholarly Communications Officer at Duke University, analyzes the suit, weaving in an analysis of a recent case of state sovereign immunity and copyright infringement (discussed here in "Copyright Infringement Liability of State Employees"). In summary, Smith says:

A little bit of attention to the economics of scholarly publishing quickly undermines the claim in this complaint that, without permission fees for electronic reserves, the incentive system of copyright will be undermined. No monetary incentive currently exists for the vast majority of academic publishing, from the point of view of faculty, yet academics keep writing. There is no evidence at all that this well of free content will suddenly go dry if publishers are not able to collect an additional income stream from that well. If this suit goes forward in spite of sovereign immunity, that should be the issue on which the court focuses its attention.

For further reactions, see Jennifer Howard's "Librarians React to Lawsuit Against Georgia State U."

Copyright Infringement Liability of State Employees

Analyzing Mary Minow's "District Court Invalidates Portion of Copyright Act as Unconstitutional; Holds State University and Employee Immune from Claim for Copyright Infringement," copyright expert William Patry has written a timely summary of the copyright infringement liability that state employees face in light of the state sovereign immunity doctrine ("State Sovereign Immunity and State Employees"), and Georgia Harper has commented on his analysis ("Another Attention Getter on the Campus Infringement Front").

Here's an excerpt from Harper's post:

His [Patry's] commentary, and the commentary to which he points at the Stanford Fair Use blog [Minow's commentary], both make the distinction which can be sort of confusing, that even though sovereign immunity protects individuals acting in their official capacity, when they have acted in a way that is illegal, they are going to get stripped of the character of "acting within official capacity," Basically, you can't be acting officially if you are breaking the law. It can't be the official act of the state to break the law. Isn't logic great?

"Institutional Repository Checklist for Serving Institutional Management"

Leslie Carr, Wendy White, Susan Miles, and Bill Mortimer have deposited a for-discussion draft of the "Institutional Repository Checklist for Serving Institutional Management" in OR08 Publications repository.

Here's the abstract:

This document is a For Discussion draft that came from the Research Assessment Experience session of the EPrints User Group at Open Repositories 2008. Comment is invited from managers of all repository platforms to share experience of the demands of the processes involved in supporting research assessment at an institutional level. The aim of institutional repositories has focused on serving the interests of faculty—researchers and teachers—by collecting their intellectual outputs for long-term access, preservation and management. However, experience shows that in order to attain the engagement of the faculty, it is necessary to obtain the support of the institutional management. But in order to gain management support, a repository has to demonstrate a measureable and effective contribution to current management agendas and concerns—e.g. research management or research assessment. Such contributions are achievable, but only if the repository fulfils a number of criteria that are in addition to its usual library-faculty roles. This document lists the success criteria as distilled from the authors' recent experience.

ALCTS Preservation and Reformatting Section Publishes Digital Preservation Definition

The Preservation and Reformatting Section of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association, has published its formal definition of digital preservation.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The definition was developed to promote an understanding of digital preservation within the library community, as well as our allied professions and the user communities we exist to serve. This definition is presented to mark our current understanding of digital preservation and encourage further development of these ideas.

This definition grew out of a conversation held at the Digital Preservation Discussion Group at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in 2007. An ad hoc task force crafted language that was shared with a number of constituencies during the spring and early summer of 2007. The definition was discussed and approved by the PARS Executive Committee during the 2008 Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia. The ALCTS Board of Directors approved it during Midwinter, and the definition was presented to and accepted by Council as an informational document. The definition is being incorporated into the forthcoming revision of the current ALA Preservation Policy currently being undertaken by PARS.

The working group studied a number of resources to familiarize itself with the critical elements of digital preservation identified by a broad selection of individuals and agencies. These ideas were cast into language that speaks to a wide variety of stakeholders while also being consistent with the core preservation concepts that have developed in the library and archival communities.

The core concepts are presented in a short, medium and long version to accommodate a variety of needs. The long version includes a number of currently accepted best practices but is not intended to be an exhaustive list. As more is learned about implementing digital preservation programs, the definitions should be reviewed and revised on a regular basis.

The definition will be reviewed and updated as needed.

OCLC Announces Digital Archive Service

OCLC has announced the availability of a Digital Archive service.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The service provides a secure storage environment for libraries to easily manage and monitor master files and digital originals. The importance of preserving master files grows as a library's digital collections grow. Libraries need a workflow for capturing and managing master files that finds a balance between the acquisition of both digitized and born-digital content while not outpacing a library's capability to manage these large files. . . .

The Digital Archive service is a specially designed system in a controlled operating environment dedicated to the ongoing managed storage of digital content. OCLC has developed specific systems processes and procedures for the service tuned to the management of data for the long term.

From the time content arrives, the Digital Archive systems begin inspecting it to ensure continuity. OCLC systems perform quality checks and record the results in a "health record" for each file. Automated systems revisit these quality checks periodically so libraries receive up-to-date reports on the health of the collection. OCLC provides monthly updated information for all collections on the personal archive report portal.

For users of CONTENTdm, OCLC's digital collection management software for libraries and other cultural heritage institutions, the Digital Archive service is an optional capability integrated with various workflows for building collections. Master files are secured for ingest to the Digital Archive service using the CONTENTdm Acquisition Station, the Connexion digital import capability and the Web Harvesting service.

For users of other content management systems, the Digital Archive service provides a low-overhead mechanism for safely storing master files.

Comcast and Pando Networks Want to Create P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities

Comcast and Pando Networks have announced that they want to create a P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. The announcement was greeted with skepticism by some net neutrality advocates.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Comcast Corporation and Pando Networks, Inc. announced today they will lead an industry-wide effort to create a "P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" (BRR) for peer-to-peer (P2P) users and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The two companies plan to collaborate and engage with industry experts, other ISPs and P2P companies, content providers and others to set a framework for the BRR that can serve as a best practice. The purpose would be to clarify what choices and controls consumers should have when using P2P applications as well as what processes and practices ISPs should use to manage P2P applications running on their networks. For example, P2P users should have the right to control their computers’ resources when using P2P applications.

In addition, Comcast and Pando plan to conduct a test of Pando Network Aware™ P2P technology on Comcast’s fiber-optic network. The purpose of the test will be to capture and analyze the data flow associated with downloading a file using Pando’s P2P application. These tests, along with tests Pando will conduct on a variety of other ISP networks, including cable, DSL, fiber and wireless, will measure things like performance, speed, distance and geography as well as the bandwidth consumption impact to the ISP. Comcast, Pando and the P4P Working Group plan to publish the results of these tests so other ISPs can benefit from understanding how P2P applications might be optimized for traveling over different types of networks in different environments and geographies.

Today’s announcement builds on Comcast’s March 27th announcement to collaborate with BitTorrent and the broader Internet and ISP community to more effectively address issues associated with rich media content and network capacity management. It also builds on Pando’s recent announcements of its P4P test results which demonstrated Pando’s ability to reduce network congestion and speed content delivery by routing P2P traffic more effectively across cable, DSL, and fiber broadband networks.

The Pando test will provide additional data to help Comcast migrate to a protocol-agnostic network management technique by the end of this year. The arrangement is yet another example of how these technical issues can be worked out through private business discussions and without the need for government intervention.

Read more about it at "But Why Do We Need a P2P Bill Of Rights in the First Place?"; "Comcast Calls for 'P2P Bill of Rights'"; "Comcast Loves File Sharing, Honest!"; "Comcast to Spearhead Creation of P2P Bill of Rights"; "Comcast Wants to Be the Net's Judge, Jury, and Executioner"; and "Public Knowledge Calls Comcast-Pando Proposal 'Ludicrous'."

Association of American University Presses Issues Press Release Supporting Digital Copyright Lawsuit against Georgia State

The Association of American University Presses has issued a press release supporting the digital copyright lawsuit against Georgia State University (see "Georgia State Sued by Three Publishers for Alleged Digital Copyright Infringement in E-Reserves, Course Management, and Other Systems.")

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In today's universities, it is increasingly rare for students to buy assigned books at the campus bookstore or purchase coursepacks at the local copyshop. Instead, professors often distribute assigned course readings electronically through digital course management, e-reserves, or similar systems. While many universities seek legally required permissions, others do not and simply distribute substantial excerpts from books and journals without permission or compensation. This has become a significant problem for university presses, who depend upon the income due them to continue to publish the specialized scholarly books required to educate students and to advance university research.

Against this backdrop, three scholarly publishers, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Sage Publications, have recently filed suit against Georgia State University officials, citing a pattern of illegal distribution of copyrighted book and journal content through digital course management and similar systems controlled by Georgia State. The Association of American University Presses supports the difficult decision made by Cambridge and Oxford, both AAUP members, to take this action—particularly in light of its broad concerns for the critical role that university presses, which are non-profits, play in the world of university instruction and scholarly communications.

The basic legal issue in the suit, namely whether permissions are required for course materials, was forcefully addressed in Basic Books v. Kinko's Graphics Corp. (1991), which held that the coursepacks sold by Kinko's required the payment of permissions fees to publishers, and that the reproduction of a single chapter was "quantitatively [and] qualitatively substantial" under the Copyright Act. While AAUP respects the doctrine of fair use, which permits spontaneous and limited uses of copyrighted material for instruction, it is clear that universities need to seek permission for more regular and substantial uses of excerpts in coursepacks and other assigned reading. That the delivery method for coursepacks is digital rather than print-on-paper does not change the nature of the use or the content, and such uses are governed by the same legal principles established in earlier cases.

University presses are non-profits that operate on very thin margins, and their primary audience is the university community. Indeed, although university presses comprise only a small segment of the market, they supply a very significant proportion of the books and journal articles taught and read in universities, particularly in graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses. . . .

University presses also serve a critical role for universities by providing faculty with a platform to publish their research, a role central to scholarship and the tenure system. . . .

Many universities have understood these realities and have promulgated strong institutional policies on the digital use of copyrighted materials. Over the last two years, publishers have had productive discussions with several universities including Cornell, Syracuse, Marquette and Hofstra, all of whom have recently adopted sound copyright policies about the use of digital course materials. Several mechanisms currently exist for universities to obtain clearance for the use of these materials, whether through individual publishers or the Copyright Clearance Center. While many universities have adopted a centralized approach and treated electronic course materials as they do paper, Georgia State has flatly rebuffed repeated attempts by publishers to work toward an acceptable university policy and has continued to foster a system of widespread copyright abuse.

The decision to file a suit is never easy, and always a last resort. It is particularly painful for non-profit publishers to sue a university, even if in this situation it was unavoidable. "It feels like suing a member of the family" said AAUP Executive Director Peter Givler. "Unfortunately, the alleged infringement is like stealing from a member of the family."

Georgia State Sued by Three Publishers for Alleged Digital Copyright Infringement in E-Reserves, Course Management, and Other Systems

Backed by the Association of American Publishers, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and SAGE Publications have sued Georgia State University alleging "systematic, widespread and unauthorized copying and distribution of a vast amount of copyrighted works" via GSU's e-reserves, course management, and other systems.

The suit "seeks injunctive relief to bring an end to such practices, but does not seek monetary damages." The defendants named in the suit are the GSU President, Provost, Dean of Libraries, and Associate Provost for Information Systems and Technology.

Read more about it at "Publishers Sue Georgia State on Digital Reading Matter" and "Publishers Take Action against Georgia State University Copyright Infringement."

Going Up: Serials Prices Increase 9% to 11% in 2008

Library Journal has published "Periodicals Price Survey 2008: Embracing Openness."

Most of the narrative discusses open access developments. The news on toll-access serials remains grim:

Prices of subscription-based journals increased nine to ten percent in 2008, driven by an extremely weak dollar. Non-U.S. titles in the humanities and social sciences increased even more (11 percent), because publishers in these disciplines tend to price in native currencies, driving U.S. prices up when those currencies are converted to dollars. The sciences, on the other hand, are dominated by large European publishers that price in U.S. dollars, reducing the volatility of prices and keeping price increases in foreign scientific journals under nine percent. Given the continuing slide of the dollar, expect increases in 2009 to approach ten percent overall.

As usual, the article includes detailed tables packed with serials cost information.

Average subscription prices in some high-ticket disciplines include: Chemistry, $3,490; Physics, $3,103; Engineering, $1,919; Biology, $1,810; and Technology, $1,776; and Astronomy, $1,671.

Repositories Support Project Releases Briefing Papers: Open Archives Initiative-Protocol for Metadata Harvesting and Workflows

The Repositories Support Project has released two briefing papers: Open Archives Initiative-Protocol for Metadata Harvesting and Workflows (i.e., digital repository submission workflows). Both briefing papers provide succinct introductions to the topic at hand.

Two JISC Debates: E-Textbooks and the Library of the Future

A series of postings on the JISC Libraries of the Future Weblog document two debates: Revolution or Evolution: The JISC National E Textbook Debate and From eLib to the Library of the Future.

Here are the postings in chronological order:

California Digital Library Puts Up Mass Digitization Projects Page

The California Digital Library has added a UC Libraries Mass Digitization Projects page to its Inside CDL Web site.

The Web site includes links to Frequently Asked Questions, contracts with digitization partners, and other information.

Of special interest in the FAQ are the questions "What rights to the digitized content does UC have in the projects; will access be limited in any way?" and "How will our patrons be able to access these texts, i.e. through MELVYL, or local catalogs, or a webpage, any search engine, or….?"

Metadata for Digital Libraries: State of the Art and Future Directions Published

JISC has published Metadata for Digital Libraries: State of the Art and Future Directions.

Here's an excerpt from the "Executive Summary":

At a time when digitization technology has become well established in library operations, the need for a degree of standardization of metadata practices has become more acute, in order to ensure digital libraries the degree of interoperability long established in traditional libraries. The complex metadata requirements of digital objects, which include descriptive, administrative and structural metadata, have so far mitigated against the emergence of a single standard. However, a set of already existing standards, all based on XML architectures, can be combined to produce a coherent, integrated metadata strategy.

An overall framework for a digital object's metadata can be provided by either METS or DIDL, although the wider acceptance of the former within the library community makes it the preferred choice. Descriptive metadata can be handled by either Dublin Core or the more sophisticated MODS standard. Technical metadata, which is contingent on the type of files that make up a digital object, is covered by such standards as MIX (still images), AUDIOMD (audio files), VIDEOMD or PBCORE (video) and TEI Headers (texts). Rights management may be handled by the METS Rights schema or by more complex schemes such as XrML or ODRL. Preservation metadata is best handled by the four schemas that make up the PREMIS standard.

Integrating these standards using the XML namespace mechanism is straightforward technically although some problems can arise with namespaces that are defined with different URIs, or as a result of duplications and consequent redundancies between schemas: these are best resolved by best practice guidelines, several of which are currently under construction.

The next ten years are likely to see further degrees of metadata integration, probably with the consolidation of these multiple standards into a single schema. The digital library community will also work towards firmer standards for metadata content (analogous to AACR2), and software developers will increasingly adopt these standards. The digital library user will benefit from developments in enhanced federated searching and consolidated digital collections. The same developments are likely to take place in the archives and museums sectors, although the different metadata traditions that apply here are likely to make the form they take somewhat different.

Harold Varmus on the NIH Public Access Policy

NPR has released a digital audio interview with Harold Varmus (Noble Prize winner, President of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, former Director of the National Institutes of Health, and co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Public Library of Science) about the NIH Public Access Policy and open access.