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Enclosing the public domain: The restriction of public domain books in a digital environment

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“This paper explores restrictions that are being applied to New Zealand public domain books once they have been digitized and hosted online. The study assesses access and usage restrictions within six online repositories, using a sample of 100 pre–1890 New Zealand heritage books. The findings indicate that new restrictions are being applied to works no longer protected by copyright. Out of the 50 titles that had been digitized, only three were hosted by repositories that do not restrict any type of subsequent use. Furthermore, 48 percent (24) were subject to access restrictions. Copyright law’s delicate balance between public and private interests is being eroded by the prevalence of online terms and conditions, which invoke the doctrine of contract law in an attempt to restrict the public domain and opt–out of limitations upon copyright. Furthermore, ambiguity surrounding the copyright status of some books is encouraging digitizers to adopt restrictive access policies, even when a work is highly likely to be in the public domain. Unless clear rules of online curatorship are articulated within legislation, previously liberated public domain works are at risk of being restricted by online intermediaries.”

URL : http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4975

Electronic theses and dissertations in CRIS

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“Electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) represent a significant part of academic publications. They contain valuable information about academic research, in particular on research projects, institutions and experts. This information can be useful for the management of expertise and skills of persons and organisations in the current research information systems (CRIS). The paper provides an overview on projects and initiatives linking ETD and CRIS infrastructures, with empirical insight from existing systems in Slovakia, Iran and France. The paper reviews also the way the Common European Research Information Format (CERIF) integrates the specific information related to ETD (results, links, second level elements, semantics…). The discussion puts the focus on metadata, interoperability and complementary material (data). The findings allow for the framing of some recommendations on the integration of ETD in CRIS.”

URL : http://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_00993261

The ethics of scholarly publishing: exploring differences in plagiarism and duplicate publication across nations

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“This study explored national differences in plagiarism and duplicate publication in retracted biomedical literature. The national affiliations of authors and reasons for retraction of papers accessible through PubMed that were published from 2008 to 2012 and subsequently retracted were determined in order to identify countries with the largest numbers and highest rates of retraction due to plagiarism and duplicate publication. Authors from more than fifty countries retracted papers. While the United States retracted the most papers, China retracted the most papers for plagiarism and duplicate publication. Rates of plagiarism and duplicate publication were highest in Italy and Finland, respectively. Unethical publishing practices cut across nations.”

URL : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3988779/

Innovative information service development: meeting the information needs of an interdisciplinary, cross-sector research complex

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“Question: How can a team of health sciences librarians effectively meet the diverse needs of a new research complex?

Setting: A satellite location of an academic health sciences library that spearheads information services for an interdisciplinary, cross-sector research complex provides a case study.

Methods: The health sciences library established a library space at a new research complex that combines the services and expertise of a bioinformationist, translational research librarian, and public/private partnership librarian. The focus is on integrated information services, and the librarians serve as a boundary-spanning unit within the research complex.

Results: The colocation of the library with research cores and other units at the research complex has led to the creation of new partnerships and deepened existing ones.

Conclusion: Meeting the information needs of a diverse population requires a multifaceted approach to providing information services, and librarians must proactively seek out opportunities to establish meaningful collaborations.”

URL : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3878944/

Open exchange of scientific knowledge and European copyright: The case of biodiversity information

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“Background. The 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development is helping the European to prepare for an integrative system for intelligent management of biodiversity knowledge. The infrastructure that is envisaged and that will be further developed within the Programme “Horizon 2020” aims to provide open and free access to taxonomic information to anyone with a requirement for biodiversity data, without the need for individual consent of other persons or institutions. Open and free access to information will foster the re-use and improve the quality of data, will accelerate research, and will promote new types of research. Progress towards the goal of free and open access to content is hampered by numerous technical, economic, sociological, legal, and other factors. The present article addresses barriers to the open exchange of biodiversity knowledge that arise from European laws, in particular European legislation on copyright and database protection rights.

We present a legal point of view as to what will be needed to bring distributed information together and facilitate its re-use by data mining, integration into semantic knowledge systems, and similar techniques. We address exceptions and limitations of copyright or database protection within Europe, and we point to the importance of data use agreements. We illustrate how exceptions and limitations have been transformed into national legislations within some European states to create inconsistencies that impede access to biodiversity information.

Conclusions. The legal situation within the EU is unsatisfactory because there are inconsistencies among states that hamper the deployment of an open biodiversity knowledge management system. Scientists within the EU who work with copyright protected works or with protected databases have to be aware of regulations that vary from country to country. This is a major stumbling block to international collaboration and is an impediment to the open exchange of biodiversity knowledge. Such differences should be removed by unifying exceptions and limitations for research purposes in a binding, Europe-wide regulation.”

URL : Open exchange of scientific knowledge and European copyright

Alternative URL : http://www.pensoft.net/journals/zookeys/article/7717/abstract/open-exchange-of-scientific-knowledge-and-european-copyright-the-case-of-biodiversity-information

Reproducibility, Correctness, and Buildability: the Three Principles for Ethical Public Dissemination of Computer Science and Engineering Research

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“We propose a system of three principles of public dissemination, which we call reproducibility, correctness, and buildability, and make the argument that consideration of these principles is a necessary step when publicly disseminating results in any evidence-based scientific or engineering endeavor. We examine how these principles apply to the release and disclosure of the four elements associated with computer science research: theory, algorithms, code, and data. Reproducibility refers to the capability to reproduce fundamental results from released details. Correctness refers to the ability of an independent reviewer to verify and validate the results of a paper. We introduce the new term buildability to indicate the ability of other researchers to use the published research as a foundation for their own new work. This is more broad than extensibility, as it requires that the published results have reached a level of completeness that the research can be used for its stated purpose, and has progressed beyond the level of a preliminary idea. We argue that these three principles are not being sufficiently met by current publications and proposals in computer science and engineering, and represent a goal for which publishing should continue to aim. We introduce standards for the evaluation of reproducibility, correctness, and buildability in relation to the varied elements of computer science research and discuss how they apply to proposals, workshops, conferences, and journal publications, making arguments for appropriate standards of each principle in these settings. We address modern issues including big data, data confidentiality, privacy, security, and privilege. Our examination raises questions for discussion in the community on the appropriateness of publishing works that fail to meet one, some, or all of the stated principles.”

URL : http://research.kristinrozier.com/papers/RozierRozierEthics2014.pdf

Ten Simple Rules for the Care and Feeding of Scientific Data

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“This article offers a short guide to the steps scientists can take to ensure that their data and associated analyses continue to be of value and to be recognized. In just the past few years, hundreds of scholarly papers and reports have been written on questions of data sharing, data provenance, research reproducibility, licensing, attribution, privacy, and more—but our goal here is not to review that literature. Instead, we present a short guide intended for researchers who want to know why it is important to “care for and feed” data, with some practical advice on how to do that. The final section at the close of this work offers links to the types of services referred to throughout the text.”

URL : Ten Simple Rules for the Care and Feeding of Scientific Data

Alternative URL : http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1003542