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“Open Access” at Bentham Science Publishers ?

January 2, 2018
0e1fe58
This post was prompted by this tweet.

This caught my attention.

As did this.

Bentham1

So, having found an example of an “Open Access” (apparently CC-BY) paper at Bentham, as a reader, I have to comply with the following legalese when clicking on “Download”.
It gets worse.
When clicking on “Rights & Permisison” tab for this paper, more legalese….
Bentham2
Something fishy going on here.
Maybe something to do with a true source conflict.

And

Terms and Conditions

PLEASE READ THESE END USER TERMS CAREFULLY

These end user terms (“Terms”) apply between you (“you”) and BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBLISHERS LIMITED of Executive Suite Y-2, PO Box 79127, Saif Zone, Saif, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (“Bentham Science”) for the articles made available via the Website http://www.eurekaselect.com (each an “Article”).

These Terms shall at all times be read subject to applicable law. Bentham Science licenses Articles accessed by you via the Website to you on the terms set out in these Terms, and (if applicable) subject to any commercial terms otherwise applicable as between you and Bentham in respect of your use of or access to the Website, and by so accessing you agree to be bound by these Terms. Bentham Science or its licensors remain the owners of the Article (including any intellectual property rights in the same) at all times, and no right, title or interest in any Article is transferred to you by way of the Terms; you are simply granted a limited right to use the Article as per the terms set out in these Terms. If you do not agree to these Terms, you should immediately cease accessing Articles via the Website.

  1. GRANT AND SCOPE OF LICENSE

    1. Bentham Science licenses your use of the Articles as follows:
      1. Open Access Articles: if the Article is noted is being made available as Open Access, it is done so under the Creative Commons license CC-BY 4.0 (a “CC Article”). You are granted a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Article under the terms of the Creative Commons license CC-BY 4.0, further details of which may be found here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode ; Complete terms and condition are given below for your reference purpose;
      2. Trial Articles: if the Article is noted as being made available as a free trial (a “Trial Article”), you are granted a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Promotional Article in accordance with these Terms and subject to the limited period of time agreed between the institution to which you belong and Bentham (usually three months), at the end of which you will no longer be entitled to use the Article;
      3. Promotional Articles: if the Article is noted as being made available at no cost (a “Promotional Article”), you are granted a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Promotional Article in accordance with these Terms; and
      4. Payable Articles: if the Article is noted as being made available for purchase (a “Payable Article”), upon payment of the relevant fees in full you are granted a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Payable Article in accordance with these Terms.
    2. If you require a license for a Trial Article, a Promotional Article or a Payable Article that differs from the terms noted herein (such as for use within a generally available library of content or for multiple users), please contact permission@benthamscience.org. (Please note that a CC Article cannot be licensed on any other terms.) If you have any queries about the scope of approved use of an Article, please contact Bentham Science.
    3. You acknowledge that all intellectual property rights in or to the Article, throughout the world, belong to Bentham Science or its licensors, and that you have no intellectual property rights in or to the Article other than the right to use the Article in accordance with the terms set out these Terms.
    4. Bentham Science hereby grants you, in accordance with these Terms, a non-exclusive, non-transferrable license to use the Article in the course of personal study or research (including research for commercial purposes in the context of a university or other research institution); such right to use shall not extend to any other commercial, business or resale purposes, except where otherwise specifically permitted by Bentham Science in writing.

  2. RESTRICTIONS

    1. Except as expressly set out in these Terms or as otherwise explicitly permitted by agreement with Bentham Science or by applicable law (and then only to the limited extent so permitted), you undertake to:
      1. refrain from copying the Article (except that you may make a single copy for back-up purposes, including by storing it on a storage device owned or controlled by you);
      2. refrain from sub-licensing or otherwise supplying or communicating the Article, in whole or in part, to the public or to any other third party, through any media or communications networks;
      3. refrain from translating, merging, adapting or modifying the Article, in whole or in part, or allowing it to be combined with, or become incorporated in, any other articles or written materials;
      4. include on the Article a suitable copyright notice on all entire and partial copies of the Article in any form.

  3. NO WARRANTY; LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

    1. The Article is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind, either express or implied or statutory, including, without limitation, implied warranties as to title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy or currency.
    2. The entire risk as to your use of the Article is assumed by you. Neither Bentham Science nor its owners, directors, employees, contractors and/or authors can be held liable for any damages, including, without limitation, special, incidental and/or consequential damages arising (whether directly or indirectly) out of your use, or inability to use, the Article in any manner (even if used by you in accordance with the terms of the relevant license) or from any use or operation of any methods, processes, instructions, or ideas reflected in, or inspired by, the Article.

  4. TERMINATION

    1. Bentham Science may terminate these Terms immediately by written notice to you and without the need for a court order if you commit a material or persistent breach of these Terms (including without limitation exceeding the scope of the terms on which you are able to use the Article) which you fail to remedy (if remediable) within 14 days after the service of written notice requiring you to do so.
    2. Upon termination for any reason:
      1. all rights granted to you under these Terms will cease;
      2. you must cease all activities authorised by these Terms; and
      3. you must immediately delete or remove the Article from all equipment in your possession.
    3. Termination by Bentham Science shall be without prejudice to Bentham Science’s rights to claim damages or other remedies from you in respect of any infringement of intellectual property rights or other causes of action resulting from your use of the Article other than in accordance with these Terms. In addition, you agree to indemnify Bentham Science for any damages, fees or costs payable by Bentham Science to any third parties as a result of your infringing use of the Article.

  5. GOVERNING LAW AND JURISDICTION

    Any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with these Terms will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the United Arab Emirates as applied in the Emirate of Dubai. The courts of the Emirate of Dubai will have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or in connection with these Terms.

  6. COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE PARTIES

    If you wish to contact Bentham Science, or if any condition in these Terms requires you to give Bentham Science notice in writing, you can send this to Bentham Science by email at mahmood@benthamscience.org. If Bentham Science has to contact you, including by giving notice in writing, it will do so at the email address you provide to Bentham Science when registering to access the Article.

By accessing the Articles, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree to these Terms, you should immediately cease accessing Articles via the Website.

© Bentham Science Publishers Ltd – 2017

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Copyright can be confusing. Please make it less confusing !

December 18, 2017

copyleftcopyright image CC logo

copyright 1

Just stumbled across a paper licensed under an Academic Free License (AFL) 3.0.

I don’t recall seeing such a license before. My gut reaction from the name suggested this might be similar to CC0/Public Domain.

The wording however is not as straightforward as one might think…

confused

Academic Free License (“AFL”) v. 3.0This Academic Free License (the “License”) applies to any original work of authorship (the “Original Work”) whose owner (the “Licensor”) has placed the following licensing notice adjacent to the copyright notice for the Original Work:

Licensed under the Academic Free License version 3.0

1) Grant of Copyright License. Licensor grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicensable license, for the duration of the copyright, to do the following:

a) to reproduce the Original Work in copies, either alone or as part of a collective work;

b) to translate, adapt, alter, transform, modify, or arrange the Original Work, thereby creating derivative works (“Derivative Works”) based upon the Original Work;

c) to distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work and Derivative Works to the public, under any license of your choice that does not contradict the terms and conditions, including Licensor’s reserved rights and remedies, in this Academic Free License;

d) to perform the Original Work publicly; and

e) to display the Original Work publicly.

2) Grant of Patent License. Licensor grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicensable license, under patent claims owned or controlled by the Licensor that are embodied in the Original Work as furnished by the Licensor, for the duration of the patents, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, have made, and import the Original Work and Derivative Works.

3) Grant of Source Code License. The term “Source Code” means the preferred form of the Original Work for making modifications to it and all available documentation describing how to modify the Original Work. Licensor agrees to provide a machine-readable copy of the Source Code of the Original Work along with each copy of the Original Work that Licensor distributes. Licensor reserves the right to satisfy this obligation by placing a machine-readable copy of the Source Code in an information repository reasonably calculated to permit inexpensive and convenient access by You for as long as Licensor continues to distribute the Original Work.

4) Exclusions From License Grant. Neither the names of Licensor, nor the names of any contributors to the Original Work, nor any of their trademarks or service marks, may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this Original Work without express prior permission of the Licensor. Except as expressly stated herein, nothing in this License grants any license to Licensor’s trademarks, copyrights, patents, trade secrets or any other intellectual property. No patent license is granted to make, use, sell, offer for sale, have made, or import embodiments of any patent claims other than the licensed claims defined in Section 2. No license is granted to the trademarks of Licensor even if such marks are included in the Original Work. Nothing in this License shall be interpreted to prohibit Licensor from licensing under terms different from this License any Original Work that Licensor otherwise would have a right to license.

5) External Deployment. The term “External Deployment” means the use, distribution, or communication of the Original Work or Derivative Works in any way such that the Original Work or Derivative Works may be used by anyone other than You, whether those works are distributed or communicated to those persons or made available as an application intended for use over a network. As an express condition for the grants of license hereunder, You must treat any External Deployment by You of the Original Work or a Derivative Work as a distribution under section 1(c).

6) Attribution Rights. You must retain, in the Source Code of any Derivative Works that You create, all copyright, patent, or trademark notices from the Source Code of the Original Work, as well as any notices of licensing and any descriptive text identified therein as an “Attribution Notice.” You must cause the Source Code for any Derivative Works that You create to carry a prominent Attribution Notice reasonably calculated to inform recipients that You have modified the Original Work.

7) Warranty of Provenance and Disclaimer of Warranty. Licensor warrants that the copyright in and to the Original Work and the patent rights granted herein by Licensor are owned by the Licensor or are sublicensed to You under the terms of this License with the permission of the contributor(s) of those copyrights and patent rights. Except as expressly stated in the immediately preceding sentence, the Original Work is provided under this License on an “AS IS” BASIS and WITHOUT WARRANTY, either express or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of non-infringement, merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY OF THE ORIGINAL WORK IS WITH YOU. This DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY constitutes an essential part of this License. No license to the Original Work is granted by this License except under this disclaimer.

8) Limitation of Liability. Under no circumstances and under no legal theory, whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise, shall the Licensor be liable to anyone for any indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising as a result of this License or the use of the Original Work including, without limitation, damages for loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all other commercial damages or losses. This limitation of liability shall not apply to the extent applicable law prohibits such limitation.

9) Acceptance and Termination. If, at any time, You expressly assented to this License, that assent indicates your clear and irrevocable acceptance of this License and all of its terms and conditions. If You distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work or a Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort under the circumstances to obtain the express assent of recipients to the terms of this License. This License conditions your rights to undertake the activities listed in Section 1, including your right to create Derivative Works based upon the Original Work, and doing so without honoring these terms and conditions is prohibited by copyright law and international treaty. Nothing in this License is intended to affect copyright exceptions and limitations (including “fair use” or “fair dealing”). This License shall terminate immediately and You may no longer exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License upon your failure to honor the conditions in Section 1(c).

10) Termination for Patent Action. This License shall terminate automatically and You may no longer exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License as of the date You commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim, against Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original Work infringes a patent. This termination provision shall not apply for an action alleging patent infringement by combinations of the Original Work with other software or hardware.

11) Jurisdiction, Venue and Governing Law. Any action or suit relating to this License may be brought only in the courts of a jurisdiction wherein the Licensor resides or in which Licensor conducts its primary business, and under the laws of that jurisdiction excluding its conflict-of-law provisions. The application of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods is expressly excluded. Any use of the Original Work outside the scope of this License or after its termination shall be subject to the requirements and penalties of copyright or patent law in the appropriate jurisdiction. This section shall survive the termination of this License.

12) Attorneys’ Fees. In any action to enforce the terms of this License or seeking damages relating thereto, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover its costs and expenses, including, without limitation, reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in connection with such action, including any appeal of such action. This section shall survive the termination of this License.

13) Miscellaneous. If any provision of this License is held to be unenforceable, such provision shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable.

14) Definition of “You” in This License. “You” throughout this License, whether in upper or lower case, means an individual or a legal entity exercising rights under, and complying with all of the terms of, this License. For legal entities, “You” includes any entity that controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with you. For purposes of this definition, “control” means (i) the power, direct or indirect, to cause the direction or management of such entity, whether by contract or otherwise, or (ii) ownership of fifty percent (50%) or more of the outstanding shares, or (iii) beneficial ownership of such entity.

15) Right to Use. You may use the Original Work in all ways not otherwise restricted or conditioned by this License or by law, and Licensor promises not to interfere with or be responsible for such uses by You.

16) Modification of This License. This License is Copyright © 2005 Lawrence Rosen. Permission is granted to copy, distribute, or communicate this License without modification. Nothing in this License permits You to modify this License as applied to the Original Work or to Derivative Works. However, You may modify the text of this License and copy, distribute or communicate your modified version (the “Modified License”) and apply it to other original works of authorship subject to the following conditions: (i) You may not indicate in any way that your Modified License is the “Academic Free License” or “AFL” and you may not use those names in the name of your Modified License; (ii) You must replace the notice specified in the first paragraph above with the notice “Licensed under ” or with a notice of your own that is not confusingly similar to the notice in this License; and (iii) You may not claim that your original works are open source software unless your Modified License has been approved by Open Source Initiative (OSI) and You comply with its license review and certification process.

Quite a lot of text right ?

copyright

After a quick search, the AFL license dates back to 2002 and was released in the same era as the launch of the Creative Commons ones.

The wording (human-readable summary) as below of the Creative Commons CC0/Public Domain one is much more easier to understand.

public domain

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Talk on preprints at ReConEvent

August 28, 2017

At ReConEvent in June this year, we were very keen to attract a speaker to provide a talk for us on preprints. Of the three speakers we asked, all were keen to come (one from the USA, the others from the UK) but none of them were able to come on the day in question. Since this is a subject that I have been closely following for many years now, we decided a month before that I would deliver it myself. This event is now in it’s 5th year and I’ve never given a talk at it before so felt the time had come.

I chose the title as “Preprints: a journey though time” (yes, this talk did contain a few Doctor Who gags) which I hope was self explanatory. I spent roughly 4 weeks (on and off) putting my slides together and rehearsed it several time in advance and timed it at 12 minutes. Twitter was a good venue to get ideas/feedback on the content.

preprint journey

We had a number of possible uncoference ideas (this was one of them) and it was delivered in the breakout room. As we had two cameramen this year, thankfully the talk was recorded and as matters stand, is the most viewed video from the event.

Preprints: a journey though time from Graham Steel

SLIDES

Last Slide – Further Reading

¨Preprint FAQ

¨The Rise of Preprints

¨The selfish scientist’s guide to preprint posting

¨Ahead of the curve: embracing preprints

¨The Role of Preprints in Journal Publishing

¨The Rise of Preprints in Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Sciences

¨The arXiv of the future will not look like the arXiv

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Since this session had an allocated time of ~35 minutes, this meant there was time for a general discussion in the remaining time which was mostly preprint related.

 

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Preprints – who to follow…

May 15, 2017

COS logo

I’ve touched upon the Center for Open Science previously on this blog. Looking back and ahead – Centre for Open Science

preprints

—

The following tweet from Brian Nosek @BrianNosek Executive Director at Center for Open Science @OSFramework was the conduit to this post.

A few tweets later

And thus, Preprint Explorers was created in real time. https://twitter.com/OSFramework/lists/preprint-explorers (now deleted) Another copy may follow 😉 (And indeed it did)

—

During this period, I thought about creating a list on here, and in no order (irrelevant)…

And I then created my own one https://twitter.com/McDawg/lists/preprint-explorers

++UPDATE++

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Conflict of Interest Statements (COIS) will now appear on PubMed Abstracts for all papers where indicated in publication.

April 20, 2017

pubmed image

New York University nutrition researcher Marion Nestle has been tracking industry-funded studies on her blog: 156 of 168 reported results that favored the funders’ interests. Annette Elizabeth Allen

This post was prompted by the following tweet:-

The link in the above tweet takes you to

Too many studies have hidden conflicts of interest. A new tool makes it easier to see them.

PubMed, the Google of scientific search, is now publishing funding information in its abstracts.

Great post by Julia Belluz @juliaoftoronto

My immediate response on Twitter

The screenshot in Julia’s post comes from….. PubMed PubMed Updates March 2017

Of the four changes mentioned, this is the most significant.

pm_update_fig1

The one example given by PubMed is from an Open Access (OA) paper indexed in PubMed Central (PMC) (additional arrow added).

PubMed COI

“PubMed will include conflict of interest statements below the abstract when these statements are supplied by the publisher”

Emphasis mine.

Generally speaking in terms of published research papers, COIs are largely hidden towards the end (if at all). They are vitally important IMO but this is the first time I’ve seen one indexed upfront in PubMed. Going back to a key point in Julia’s post:-

We strongly urge … all journals listed in PubMed to provide information about funding sources and other possible competing interests in all abstracts. To facilitate research, the “competing interest” section should be fully searchable. Thus, PubMed would advise users about the entity or entities that funded the study and whether (a) the authors reported no competing interests; (b) the authors reported the competing interests; (c) the article did not include a competing-interests disclosure statement; or (d) the journal did not provide disclosure of funding sources or the authors’ other competing interests.

pubmed pharma

SOURCE

In short my question is, will traditional/legacy/subscription based publishers make such important information freely available or remain hidden behind their paywalls ?

+++UPDATE 1+++

I asked my long term trusted contact at NCBI/NIH if they could confirm if these will appear widely or just on OA papers like the one mentioned.

They advised “I believe it’s on papers where indicated in publication”

+++UPDATE 2+++

I did a check on 22nd April to see if this change had been fully implemented. The following randomly picked papers were checked to see if COIs were mentioned in the Abstracts on PubMed. No mention made. Having read through the full texts of these, COIs appear in all of them. Clearly, still work to do for the PubMed team.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27249641
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26631378
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25246643

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Extraordinary Everyday Lives #053 Open Science

April 16, 2017

ORIGINAL SOURCE c/o WAYBACK MACHINE

Update: A shorter and hopefully clearer version salvaged from Mikes analog backup recording has been posted and feds should now be getting this clearer file.

Update: Apologies for audio quality, some interference gremlins snuck in somewhere. We are looking at fixing it up somewhat and will republish the audio as soon as that’s done.

The Extraordinary Everyday Lives Show #053 Open Science
Thurs 24th July 2008

>>>>>>>>>>>> MP3 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

This show is all about the intersection of Technology and Human desire. This year Dave and I have been focusing on deepening connections with those we subscribe to via RSS. Having a chat on a podcast is a remarkable way of doing that we have found. Agenda is loose guide only, we are very stream of consciousness, no edits, no script kinda guys.


New intro music this show. Courtesy of Graham, one of our guests. I remixed it a bit for the intro and play the full song, Wake Up Now, after the discussions.

Open Science

Rough chronological talking points:
-mike had nothing more than a vague idea such a movement would exist prior to starting work at a University in April.
-his RSS reader provided some clues to a trail which I followed Graham Steel was one of the first to respond to my thinking out loud
-how graham and mike hooked up
-richard discovered it after posting an experiment on his labrats blog, and people got in touch.
-two sides open scientific publication & open notebook scientists
-trust and sharing of unpublished latest work
-tension between competition and openness
-openness outwards facing and inclusionary of wider community sharing of scientific data
-paradigm shift involvement with and giving something back to community
-blogging science
-use of podcasts big uptake in unis
-richard is attending a Science Blogging event at the Royal Institute in London on Saturday 30th August
www.nature.com/natureconferences/sciblog2008/index.html. One of the science communications team at USyd interviewed me (richard) this morning about this conference. Very interesting: theyre really keen on the idea here. Im also going to an Open Science meet at Southampton two days after the London meeting, organized by Cameron Neylon.
-guys will try to record and live blog the london event
-whats this about? http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen/2008/07/21/the-full-web20-experience-my-talk-tomorrow-at-iwmw-in-aberdeen/
–www.viddler.com/explore/CameronNeylon/videos/1/
-discussion about how to capture the esence of a event with blogging, podcasts etc. immediacy.
–http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22open+science%22&search_type=&aq=f
-going to use one of grahams songs for intro to this show http://www.macjams.com/song/34800 Wake Up Now
–http://www.music20book.com/ Gerds book
-posters in 2nd Life http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeblogs/195285627/
-mike talks about science in the sl community. specific uses of 3d environment.what are they good for in science? rf. mike crawling thru a molecule. [dnw]
-Knol somewhere between closed and open science use? http://knol.google.com/k/knol# (A knol is an authoritative article about a specific topic.)

Graham Steel http://twitter.com/McDawg

Networking between us public, science bloggers, scientists, researchers, physicians, Journals etc.

Nature Network http://network.nature.com/profile/steelgraham
Public Library of Science (PLoS) blog http://www.plos.org/cms/blog
Open Access Directory wiki http://oad.simmons.edu/
MacJams Music Blog http://blog.macjams.com/?p=223
Personal blog http://mcblawg.blogspot.com
Do Bloggers Add a New Dimension to Conferences? http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/01/science_blogging_conference_vi.php


Richard Grant (twitter: rpg_twit skype: rpg7sky AIM/iChat: rpg7aim)

Nature Network http://network.nature.com/blogs/user/rpg
University of Sydney http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/labrats/ – Richards open science stuff
Personal blog http://rg-d.com/BioLOG/


LINKS and Random Stuff


The Royal Institution


http://www.science.usyd.edu.au/outreach/

http://www.oar2008.qut.edu.au/ Open access & research meeting in Brisbane towards the end of September. Some impressive names.
On the subject of technology and human desire, check out this presentation from Prof David Wishart in Canada. http://www.scribd.com/word/full/2159511?access_key=key-29c44pnl25896imfykd1 I mashed it a wee bit.

This just in:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2008.05.004
Over the past few years, blogging (‘web logging’) has become a major social movement, and as such includes blogs by scientists about science. Blogs are highly idiosyncratic, personal and ephemeral means of public expression, and yet they contribute to the current practice and reputation of science as much as, if not more than, any popular scientific work or visual presentation. It is important, therefore, to understand this phenomenon.

Acknowledgements

Intro music, Wake Up Now, by steck, via macjams.com.

Image: Culture Tubes, www.flickr.com/photos/10775233@N00/107326169

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 7:52 pm and is filed under Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to Extraordinary Everyday Lives #053 Open Science

  1. OpenScience on latest Extraordinary podcast | Learning with the Fang Says:
    July 25th, 2008 at 8:21 am […] has already posted yesterdays chat about OpenScience for our Extraordinary Everyday Lives podcast. It was a beaut chat with Graham and […]
  2. The Podcast Network Blog » Blog Archive » TPN Week In Review: July 28 – August 4 , 2008 Says:
    August 4th, 2008 at 9:28 pm […] Extraordinary Everyday Lives #053 Open Science […]
  3. Speaking of Science | Learning with the Fang Says:
    August 9th, 2008 at 10:05 pm […] discussion (thanks to Graham and Richard) on my last Extraordinary everyday lives podcast (episode 53), there seems to be some interest in connecting the event in London with people in other geography […]

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

nature or wikipedia

January 17, 2017

Would you rather be published in logo_nature

or cited in  wikipedia_logo_detail?

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Think Check Submit

September 26, 2016

thinkchecksubmit.org

Think. Check. Submit. from Think. Check. Submit. on Vimeo.

 

thinkchecksubmit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Public Domain works by Charles Darwin are being legally sold online. Is this ethical ?

August 21, 2016

darwin manuscript

paywall

Early on Sunday morning (21st August 2016), I spotted the following (anonymized) #icanhazpdf request tweet:-

darwin tweet

After spotting this, I did indeed find that the publication of this Charles Darwin paper from 1858 is indeed sitting behind a paywall:-

darwin paywall

(Thankfully, the person who left the original #icanhazpdf request for the paper found a link to the free version).

darwin paywall1

Here’s some of the responses to my tweet:-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thankfully, a quick online search threw up a number of open access copies of this work such as here on the Darwin Online website.

So, should works dating back to that era be out of copyright and sitting in the public domain ? YMMV it would seem.

Some tweets from Copyright Librarian Nancy Sims:-

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, after being initially surprised that this public domain work is being sold by a publisher (in this case Wiley), they are within their legal rights to do this.

Earlier this year, there was an interesting thread relating to such matters after I posted this tweet:-

This is also linked to this one:-

One person however is of the view that this is NOT legal:-

Others disagree with that view:-

Let’s see if Copyright expert Charles Oppenheim will comment:-

RESPONSE

 

 

Views of someone associated with a publisher:-

the_invisible_a @McDawg @HistGeekGirl it seems wrong in principle, even if it may technically be legal. Just shows how messed up laws are.

— Andrea Wiggins (@AndreaWiggins) August 21, 2016

(Jan Velterop implies that he is of the view that it’s legal to download this from Sci-Hub as the work itself is Public Domain)

 

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Updated thoughts on live-streaming an event

July 19, 2016
This post is a re-assessment of a comment I left back in 2010 on the following blog post by Martin Fenner.
I shall leave the below intact from the original (other than some formatting). So as someone who regularly continues to follow Conferences/Events virtually, have my thoughts changed much since 2010 ? Essentially, not that much really.
Firstly, I’ve live-streamed many events since then having previously just briefly dabbled. One common misconception about live-streaming, is that if you do it, no-one will come to the event IRL. This came up in the discussion below with Mike & David. They have over two decades of first hand experience in the field. Essentially, they said “the opposite is true“.
In terms of the quality of live-streaming, this can vary massively. Some of the free applications that I used years ago either no longer exist or are now cluttered with adverts (unless you pay for a premium account). Now that there are many platforms that offer broadcasting/recording in HD, the quality of live-streaming had certainly improved, generally.
Over the last two years or so, a number of mobile APPs (e.g. Periscope, Meerkat & UStream etc.) have been released meaning that after a couple of taps, you can be live on the web. Again, the quality of these APPs can vary a lot. Archiving these recordings could be made easier (although I have limited experience in this particular area).
I still firmly believe that if you’re streaming from an event, getting a secure web connection remains important.
I also still firmly believe that post event, it’s really important to archive the recordings online ASAP before interest disappears.
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Another entity to compliment live-streaming is live blogging.

 This is something I’ve dabbled with a couple of times. Firstly, briefly at Repository Fringe (Edinburgh) 2015 and also earlier for UKSG in 2014 e.g., here and here.  Being part of a team certainly helped given the size of this event.

One person I know who has much more experience than me (and most) in this is Nicola Osborne, Jisc MediaHub Manager / Digital Education Manager at EDINA. You can view her work here.

 All in all, live streaming/blogging is certainly here to stay and technology/software continues to revolutionize the possibilities for making events open to wide audiences online.
One caveat remains though. By not attending events IRL, you do miss out on face to face discussions/socializing/networking etc.
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ScienceOnline2010 – I wish I was there

Interesting post Martin.

I’ll try to keep this as brief as possible. That wasn’t possible, so here goes.
From an general subjective Conference perspective namely focusing on the virtual attendee angle, I think one has to consider many variables such as:-

A) What subjects are you going to cover?
B) Who is your “target audience”?
C) How will you make them aware of the event?
D) Is it free or fee (#scio10 was $175 – #solo09 – £10 in person or £10 for Second Life)
E) How interactive do you wish to make it be for virtual attendees?
F) How does one tackle sessions that involve unpublished data?
etc.etc.

Now since we only appear to be able to use a max. of four url’s in the comments feed on NN at the moment, I’ll choose ’em sagaciously.
On Jan 10th, I posted this on my blog (sorry, link rot) before virtually attending last weekend’s events in North Carolina.

Based upon past experience(s), the thing that I was really looking forward to was the live-streaming/chat-room aspect of the Conference. Despite the much applauded wi-fi connection they had set up (extremely important these days and secured internet access to all present) c/o company SignalShare, it became clear fairly early on that there was -phlegm- a problem with the live-stream.

++ACTION POINT++ Must find out what went wrong so that we can learn from this for the future.

Each chunk (hourly sessions) of the event was split into five parallel sessions (Rooms A to E) and the aim was to live-stream content from all discussions in D & E. This meant that ahead of the event, virtual attendees could chose which sessions they wanted to attend. In the end alas, over the whole weekend, only about 1.5 hours worth was streamed and with very little notice.

I found this rather disappointing I have to say as discussed with Martin over the weekend (can a DM Twitter discussion be classed as a “personal communication”?) so time to follow events in other ways. I was pretty much glued to the #scio10 Twitter feed all weekend and I very much agree with AJCann’s comments above.
==
I like Martin’s Twitter suggestions !!
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Richard Grant & I covered various aspects of Conference event coverage during a podcast we did with Mike Sefang & David Wallace (link rot, try here) in July 2008. (relevant section starts at 19’30”) As a result of that discussion and with the permission of NPGs Timo Hannay, Richard recorded audio of the Wrap-Up Panel: Embracing change: Taking online science into the future at Science Blogging 2008: London which was uploaded to web within a few hours. Cool….

As discussed with a few NN staffers, even though all sessions were video recorded, due to technical issues, none of the NN files ever appeared on the web. That said, Cameron Neylon recorded and from memory live-streamed (and also self archived) some of the sessions via his laptop. Also cool.
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An observation from “Science Blogging 2008, North Carolina”:http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/01/science_blogging_conference_vi.php is as follows. Similar to what Cameron did in London, that year, a couple of individuals, Wayne Sutton and to a lessor extent, Deepak Singh, live-streamed events from their laptops. Within the space of a week (after that, little interest), their uploaded files had been viewed over 15,000 times which I think was pretty impressive. Observation from Science Online London: 2009. Video footage of 7 sessions were uploaded c/o NN’s Joanna Scott 2 weeks after the event. Total views ~ 500.

My take on this from this data is that if you are going to attract the attention of virtual attendees using video format, it needs to be instant ideally, or delayed by a day or two at the most, before interest fades. The same I guess applies to audio. As to Second Life, I personally have limited experience of this platform so am unable to comment. One for Lou & Jo to discuss as Lou has indicated earlier.

As Cameron Neylon has mentioned elsewhere on teh interwebs, as matters stand, livestreaming using a wi-fi connection is still very 50/50 in success terms. Whilst livestreaming from this years Science Online UK event shouldn’t be completely ruled out (we should at least try a secure [not wi-fi] web connection, IMO) all things considered, I have to say that I’m pretty much with Martin as per the last para of his post.
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One final point. I really like the idea of Science Online 2010: London being a two day event, yay !! The meatspace socialising aspect of such events is a real draw and something that you miss by non physical presence. I can’t really add to Stephen’s comments above in this regard.

Oh waits, I still have a link final up my sleeve. Whilst I was unable to attend the pre Science Online 2009: London party in person, I did manage to fling together the following montage. Apols for re-posting here but I thought it was rather cool and in doing something like this, it gives virtual attendees a flavour of the social aspect of events, which I think is not “essential” but of general interest.

Oh bums, I appear to have have ran out of links so let’s see if I can post this without the “missing link”.

Oh sh*te, we can’t embed stuff from Vimeo here, so “el missing linky is here.”:http://vimeo.com/6306956

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