E-Lert # 294 / Cyberavis no. 294
Friday September12, 2008 / le vendredi 12 septembre 2008
CARL COMMUNIQUE / COMMUNIQUÉ DE L’ABRC
The program for the CARL 2008 Fall General Meeting is available
on the website.
http://www.carl-abrc.ca/horaire/2008/fgm_programme-e.html
/
Le programme pour l'Assemblée générale d'automne du
2008 de l'ABRC est disponilbe sur le site web.
http://www.carl-abrc.ca/horaire/2008/fgm_programme-f.html
NEWS / NOUVELLES
Data Deluge From Collider Prompts Next Big Information RevolutionRichard Monastersky
The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 12, 2008
When the Large Hadron Collider revs up to full capacity near Geneva, it will generate about 15 million gigabytes of data each year — enough to fill a stack of DVDs more than two miles high. So much information will be pouring out that it will equal about 1 percent of the total data produced each year throughout the world, says François Grey, head of communications for information technology at CERN, the European particle-physics laboratory where the collider is located.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i03/03a01501.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Congressional Hearing Over Public Access Filled With High Drama
Jennifer Howard
The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 12, 2008
A life-and-death battle is going on over public access to federally financed
research—life for taxpayers and many scientists, and death for publishers.
Or so each side claims. That battle, whose outcome will affect many university
researchers, kicked into high gear on Capitol Hill yesterday, as the combatants
debated the merits of a bill that would curtail the National Institutes
of Health's public-access policy.
http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/09/4589n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
More on attempts to undo the NIH policy
Gavin Baker
Open Access News, September 11, 2008
The U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet,
and Intellectual Property held a hearing on the Fair Copyright in Research
Works Act, H.R. 6845. The text of the legislation was introduced on September
9. The legislation would overturn the National Institutes of Health's mandatory
public access policy. The witness' written testimony is now available.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/09/more-on-attempts-to-undo-nih-policy.html
Patent system seen stifling medical breakthroughs
Caroline Alphonso
Globe and Mail, September 10, 2008
An outdated intellectual property system is preventing lifesaving medicines
and cutting-edge technologies from reaching those who need them the most,
a leading expert on patents asserted. "If things don't change, we're
going to all have fewer medicines to treat whatever the next diseases are,"
warned E. Richard Gold, director of the Centre for Intellectual Property
Policy at McGill University. "Not only will we not develop those drugs
... but we won't get the innovative breakthrough drugs unless we change."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080910.wcopyright10/BNStory/National/home
Australian Government Releases Innovation Review Paper
September 9, 2008
Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research,
released the report
of the Review of Australia's National Innovation System, calling it a turning
point for the future of innovation in Australia. The review was conducted
by an expert panel. The panel analyzed Australia's innovation system and
made a series of recommendations to revitalize it. Recommendations in the
review paper range across a number of key themes including innovation in
business, strengthening people and skills, excellence in national research,
improving the dissemination of publicly funded research, information and
market design, and taxation.
http://minister.innovation.gov.au/Carr/Pages/GOVERNMENTRELEASESINNOVATIONREVIEWPAPER.aspx
Study challenges e-book assumptions
Research Information, September 9, 2008
Initial observations from the UK's national e-book observatory
are already challenging assumptions about how students use e-books. According
to Lorraine Estelle CEO of JISC Collections, in the first user survey,
which received over 22,000 responses, 62 per cent of students reported that
they read online whilst only 6 per cent said that they print to read. The
survey also indicated that interactivity may not be as important to students
as anticipated.
http://www.researchinformation.info/news/news_story.php?news_id=375
Google to Digitize Newspaper Archives
Miguel Helft
The New York Times, September 8, 2008
Google has begun scanning microfilm from some newspapers’ historic
archives to make them searchable online, first through Google News and eventually
on the papers’ own Web sites, the company said Monday. Under the expanded
program, Google will shoulder the cost of digitizing newspaper archives,
much as the company does with its book-scanning project. Google angered
some book publishers because it had failed to seek permission to scan books
that were protected by copyrights. It will obtain permission from newspaper
publishers before scanning their archives.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/technology/09google.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
ProQuest and Google Partnership Will Unlock Newspaper Content
September 8, 2008
ProQuest has formed a partnership with Google that has the potential to
bring millions of pages of newspaper content to the open web. The program
allows web access to archives of both large and small newspapers. The content
delivered via Google's platform will be supported with a variety of advertising
and e-commerce models that are standard in an open web context.
http://www.proquest.com/pressroom/pressrelease/08/20080908.shtml
Digital issues deserve spot in election campaign
Michael Geist
Toronto Star, September 8, 2008
The 2008 election therefore presents an exceptional opportunity to raise
the profile of digital issues. Not only do these policies touch on so-called
core concerns such as the economy, the environment, education, and health
care, but they also resonate with younger Canadians, who could help swing
the balance of power in many ridings. In the United States election, both
Barack Obama and John McCain have unveiled detailed digital policy positions.
Canadian leaders have yet to promote their policies, but there are at least
five worth watching and asking about.
http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/492405
New E-Newspaper Reader Echoes Look of the Paper
Eric A. Taub
The New York Times, September 7, 2008
While the dream device remains on the drawing board, Plastic Logic will
introduce publicly on Monday its version of an electronic newspaper reader:
a lightweight plastic screen that mimics the look of a printed newspaper.
Newspaper companies have watched the technology closely for years. If e-newspapers
take off, the savings could be hefty. At the The San Francisco Chronicle,
for example, print and delivery amount to 65 percent of the paper’s
fixed expenses. With electronic readers, publishers would also learn more
about its readers. With paper copy subscriptions, newspapers know what address
has received a copy and not much else. About those customers picking up
a copy on the newsstand, they know nothing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/technology/08ink.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Amanda Tompkins appointed Finance Manager, Canadian Research Knowledge
Network
September 5, 2008
The Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) is pleased to announce the
appointment of Ms. Amanda Tompkins to the newly created position of Finance
Manager. Ms. Tompkins assumed her responsibilities with CRKN on August 11,
2008. Ms. Tompkins, a Chartered Accountant, is an accounting professional
with more than 8 years professional experience providing audit and controller
services in both consulting and corporate settings.
http://researchknowledge.ca/en/news/index.jsp
ARTICLES
When Academia Puts Profit Ahead of Wonder Jane Rae-Dupree
The New York Times, September 6, 2008
University “tech transfer” offices have boomed from a couple
dozen to nearly 300 today. University patents have leaped a hundredfold.
Professors are stepping away from the lab and lecture hall to navigate the
thicket of venture capital, business regulations and commercial competition.
None of these are necessarily negative outcomes. But more than a quarter-century
after President Jimmy Carter signed it into law, the [U.S.] Bayh-Dole Act,
sponsored by the former Senators Birch Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, and Robert
Dole, Republican of Kansas, is under increasing scrutiny by swelling ranks
of critics. The primary concern is that its original intent — to infuse
the American marketplace with the fruits of academic innovation —
has also distorted the fundamental mission of universities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/technology/07unbox.html?th&emc=th
Méfiez-vous des chiffres
Bulletin ACPPU, Volume 55, Numéro 7, septembre 2008
Les mathématiciens ne semblent pas faire confiance aux chiffres, du moins lorsqu’il est question de bibliométrie. C’est que constate un rapport publié en juin dernier par un comité de l’Union internationale des mathématiques (UIM) qui souligne que l’argument selon lequel l’importance de plus en plus grande accordée aux statistiques — établies souvent à partir de données de citations — parce qu’elles seraient supérieures à des jugements plus complexes pour évaluer les travaux de recherche scientifique est tout simplement « sans fondement ». Le rapport intitulé Citation Statistics (statistiques de citations) examine les indicateurs tels que les facteurs d’impact des revues, qui servent à évaluer les travaux de recherche en fonction de la réputation de la revue dans laquelle ils sont publiés, et les nombres de citations, qui sont censés mesurer la visibilité des travaux scientifiques selon le nombre de fois que ceux-ci sont cités par leurs pairs. HTML
Government Data and the Invisible Hand
David Robinson et al
Yale Journal of Law & Technology, Volume 11, 2008
If the next [U.S.] Presidential administration really wants to embrace
the potential of Internet-enabled government transparency, it should follow
a counter-intuitive but ultimately compelling strategy: reduce the federal
role in presenting important government information to citizens. Today,
government bodies consider their own websites to be a higher priority than
technical infrastructures that open up their data for others to use. The
authors argue that this understanding is a mistake. It would be preferable
for government to understand providing reusable data, rather than providing
websites, as the core of its online publishing responsibility.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1138083
RESOURCES / RESSOURCES
Bloomsbury Academic: new monograph publisherSeptember 8, 2008
Bloomsbury Academic is a new scholarly imprint, launched in September 2008,
that will begin publishing monographs in the areas of Humanities and Social
Sciences. Publications will be available on the Web free of charge and will
carry Creative Commons licences. Simultaneously physical books will be produced
and sold around the world. For the first time a major publishing company
is opening up an entirely new imprint to be accessed easily and freely on
the Internet.
http://www.bloomsburyacademic.com/
ACRL Podcast: The Desk and Beyond
David Free
ACRL Insider, September 5, 2008
In this podcast, College & Research Libraries News editor-in-chief
David Free talks with Sarah Steiner and Leslie Madden of Georgia State University,
editors of the ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries) publication
The Desk and Beyond: Next Generation Reference Services. They are joined
by chapter authors Meredith Farkas of Norwich University, Ross LaBaugh of
California State University - Fresno, and Jerilyn Veldof of the University
of Minnesota to discuss the book along with current and future trends in
reference services.
http://www.acrl.ala.org/acrlinsider/2008/09/05/acrl-podcast-the-desk-and-beyond/
The Skills, Role and Career Structure of Data Scientists and Curators:
an Assessment of Current Practices and Future Needs
Alma Swan and Sheridan Brown
Report to the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), July 2008
This study was commissioned by the JISC to specifically address two recommendations
from the report by Liz Lyon on data management in the UK (Lyon, 2007). The
main aim of the project was to examine and make recommendations on the role
and career development of data scientists and the associated supply of specialist
data curation skills to the research community.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/digitalrepositories/dataskillscareersfinalreport.pdf
Education at a Glance 2008: OECD Indicators
Across OECD countries, governments are seeking policies to make education
more effective while searching for additional resources to meet the increasing
demand for education. The 2008 edition of Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators
enables countries to see themselves in the light of other countries’
performance. It provides a rich, comparable and up-to-date array of indicators
on the performance of education systems and represents the consensus of
professional thinking on how to measure the current state of education internationally.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/23/46/41284038.pdf
2008 Survey of Technology Enhanced Learning for higher education
in the UK
Tom Browne et al
Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA)
This Report records the results from a national Survey, undertaken by UCISA,
with financial support from the JISC, into matters pertaining to Technology
Enhanced Learning (TEL). It builds upon similar Surveys which were conducted
in 2001, 2003 and 2005 and for which at each stage a longitudinal analysis
was undertaken. In the Survey TEL was defined as any online facility or
system that directly supports learning and teaching. This may include a
formal VLE, an institutional intranet that has a learning and teaching component,
a system that has been developed in house or a particular suite of specific
individual tools. The main thrust of the Report analyses the returns from
the 2008 Survey but, where appropriate, the longitudinal analysis is continued.
http://www.ucisa.ac.uk/publications/~/media/290DD5217DA5422C8775F246791F5523.ashx
MrCute 2 Moodle
MrCute is an acronym for Moodle Repository Create Upload Tag Embed, and
is intended as an optional Moodle module and block which allow direct and
straightforward access to institutional and other repositories of online
learning materials. MrCute 1 was released as a Moodle extension at the end
of March 2008. Phase 2 will be released at the end of March 2009 but it
is hoped that it will be available for testing some time before that. Mrcute
is intended primarily within the United Kingdom and some portions may only
function fully in the UK, but is released under an Open Source license for
use anywhere in the world.
http://www.learningobjectivity.com/mrcute/
Compendium of Research Papers: The International Forum on the Creative
Economy
The Conference Board of Canada, August 2008
The Compendium of Research Papers resulted from a two-day forum that took
place in Gatineau, Quebec in March 2008—a partnership between Canadian
Heritage and The Conference Board of Canada [Rapport disponible aussi en
français]. This research was part of a multi-faceted project completed
in collaboration with the Department of Canadian Heritage. The forum, brought
together 200 scholars, researchers, professionals, industry leaders, and
public officials from across Canada and around the world. This compendium
report includes academic papers from leading researchers from around the
world.
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/documents.asp?rnext=2701
EVENTS / ÉVÉNEMENTS
Using LibQUAL+® EffectivelyAssociation of Research Libraries
Washington DC, October 27, 2008
The administration of a user survey is a significant investment for any
library and it raises expectations among members of the user community and
among staff. Many aspects of the LibQUAL+® survey administration process
have been streamlined and there is rapid access to survey data and results.
But some libraries indicate that they are not well-prepared to work effectively
with and act upon the results, once received. This workshop will enable
staff responsible for administering the LibQUAL+® survey to develop
work plans that they can apply in their libraries. Registration is open
until September 29.
http://www.arl.org/news/pr/using-libqual-8sep08.shtml
A New Consensus for Building Canada's Competitiveness in the 21st
Century
Toronto, Ontario, September 29, 2008
Canada has traditionally relied on natural resources and applied technologies
for competitive advantage. But increasingly, it is our creativity, research
and innovation that drive Canada's economic prosperity. In an era when human
capital is becoming priceless, how can we stimulate original thinking and
new behaviours to build a successful 21st century? Dr. Chad Gaffield, President
of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, will propose
a new paradigm for competitiveness in the 21st century and take questions
from the audience.
https://www.canadianclub.org/do/event?event_id=3040
British Columbia Library Association Conference 2008: Jumpstarting the Public Sphere: Information Policy Issues for the 21st Century
Vancouver, British Columbia, October 23-24, 2008
The Information Policy Committee of the BC Library Association presents
a conference about net neutrality, media concentration, telecommunications
policy, TILMA, access to information, and intellectual property. Join librarians
and interested community members to discuss these pertinent issues and help
come up with ideas to address them.
http://www.bcla.bc.ca/IPC/page/conference%202008.aspx
