New legislation was introduced in the U.S. Senate last week to support the publication of federally-sponsored research results under open access terms.
Sponsored by Senator Lieberman of Connecticut and co-sponsored by Senator Cornyn of Texas, it mandates open access to author pre-print versions with peer review changes in federally-run repositories within six months of publication. Called S.1373, it is a nearly identical version to the bill of the same name that these two senators introduced in 2006, which ultimately died in committee. The 2006 version was supported by a wide variety of organizations including the American Library Association, as tracked by the Alliance for Taxpayer Access (ATA).

In his statement on the floor of the Senate introducing the bill, Senator Cornyn described the benefits of the legislation:

Our bill will ask all Federal departments and agencies that invest $100 million or more annually in research to develop a public access policy. Our goal is to have the results of all government-funded research to be disseminated and made available to the largest possible audience. By speeding access to this research, we can help promote the advancement of science, accelerate the pace of new discoveries and innovations, and improve the lives and welfare of people at home and abroad.

The practical reality of the legislation would be to endorse the NIH open access policy, apply it to a wider array of departments, and run counter to the U.S. Representative John Conyer’s proposed “Fair Copyright in Research Works Act” (discussed earlier on DLTJ). The differences between the two bills are described below. The major change is the exclusion of progress reports at meetings or conferences from the open access provisions, plus oversight by additional committees in the U.S. House and Senate. ATA released a statement that supports this version of the bill.

Gavin Baker at Open Access News has some things to watch as the bill makes its way through the legislative process.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Federal Research Public Access Act Reintroduced

A few weeks ago, a reporter at the Chronicle of Higher Education interviewed Adam Smith, Google’s director of product management, about the Google Book Search settlement and posted the interview in audio form. The page isn’t dated, but guessing from metadata in the URL it was somewhere around the publication of paper issue dated June 26, 2009. I’m calling out this particular interview because Mr. Smith said things that I hadn’t heard in other forms yet — Google’s intentions about privacy in Google Book Search, an explicit statement about the Book Rights Registry releasing information about the status of orphan works, and a statement on what Google expects the size of the orphan works problem to be once the Registry has been in operation for a while.

Below is a rough transcript of portions of the interview. I’ve added emphasis in the transcript to the parts that I hadn’t heard Google representatives say before.

Chronicle host: There has been a lot of concern among librarians and in the library community about access and privacy. Can you alay some of those fears?

Adam Smith: There has been a lot of discussion about how this settlement affect things such as access and privacy, and what we are really looking at is creating a product that will be broadly accessible to the university community as well as the internet community generally. [...] I think with respect to privacy, Google hasn’t designed the product yet so it is hard to have a privacy policy for it, but we fully intend to have a policy that is consistent with a lot of the standard procedures in the library community today. Things such as allowing authentication to happen via IP. But we take privacy seriously and it will be consistent with Google’s privacy policy as well as have some specific provisions when we actually get down to designing the product.

Chronicle host: There have been a lot of interest and concern in so called “orphan works” — where do those fit into the settlement and how do respond to some of the anxiety about that.

Adam Smith: So there is no technical definition of “orphan works” but for the purposes here we’ll say a book for which no rightsholder exists. Google’s mission in this is to really provide broad access to all of these books and when you look at the corpus as a whole, the percentage of books that are available — say — is about 20% are in the public domain or more, about 5% are kind of in print. What that leaves is this center of books that are not in print but may be or may be not in copyright. And what we believe is through the settlement agreement and the establishment of the Books Rights Registry, which is an author- and publisher-controlled entity that will try to track down the rights holders of the particular book, we believe that over time what will happen is that rightsholders will come forward to claim the money that was generated via the economic models and this will allow for better identification of the specific rightsholders to the works. And the Books Rights Registry has committed to making any information — or making the information about whether or not a book has been claimed — making that public so that someone who’s interested in making use of one of these potentially orphan works can understand as to whether or not a rightsholder has come forward for that particular book.

[...]

Chronicle host: Another concern is maybe the one that Google encounters the most — is the question of monopoly. And why we should be happy that the idea that a private company has essential control over 10 million plus works?

Adam Smith: So I think at its root what’s really important here is to look at the agreements. And Google has non-exclusive agreements at the root of all of its agreements. So, its agreements with its library partners are non-exclusive, its agreements with its publishers and authors are non-exclusive. So anyone is free to enter into agreements with those institutions or those publishers. With respect to the settlement agreement, for all works for which a rightsholder comes forward, the Books Rights Registry will have the ability to license or enter into economic models with other parties for those works. So really this is not an exclusive license to Google, but rather it’s establishing the ability for them to get access to these. Obviously for the public domain works, there is no rights or contract associated with that. So what this really leaves is what we believe is a very thin slice of the remaining books, which are the orphan worked books.

I’m glad to see some sensitivity to the notion of privacy in Mr. Smith’s response to that question. The notion of privacy goes beyond using IP address authentication to enable institutional subscription users to access the scanned books, of course — specifically to the collection and disposition of log files related to individuals’ use of the Google books database. I wonder if Google will really consider severing the link between reader and work, as is common practice in libraries today. In the case of online books, that would mean not collecting — or at least immediately anonymizing — the IP address of the machine used to read portions of the book. Time will tell, and this is certainly an area where I hope there is more dialog between Google and academic libraries (should the settlement agreement be approved).

It is interesting that a Google representative is making statements about what the Books Rights Registry will do with orphan works information. I would think it would be up to the registry’s board of directors to decide whether or not they publicly release information about the orphan status of a work. I don’t recall reading in the settlement agreement that it would be mandatory.

Mr. Smith’s answer to the monopoly question ignores the “most favored nation” clause in the settlement agreement that says the Registry cannot offer licensing terms to another party that are more favorable than the ones offered to Google. While that might not be a monopoly in the strictest sense, it certainly makes it harder for any other entity to compete effectively with Google. That same answer also shows Google’s optimism in the estimate that there will be “a very thin slice” of works that will turn out to be orphans — in copyright but without an identified rightsholder. I can only assume that they have internal research to back that up. My gut tells me that there is considerably more than a thin slice, but that part of Mr. Smith’s answer plays well with the notion that Google won’t really have a monopoly because there will be so few books that Google will have the exclusive protections in the class action lawsuit settlement to digitize.

Adam Smith also has answers to questions about why Google didn’t fight it out in court, what Google is doing to help the settlement be approved, and what Google’s reaction might be if the settlement isn’t approved.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Google Book Search Privacy, Orphan Works, and Monopoly

OCLC has published the final report from the OCLC Review Board on Principles of Shared Data Creation and Stewardship and announced the formal withdrawal of the proposed Policy on Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records. In doing so, OCLC has reaffirmed the existence and applicability of the “Guidelines for the Use and Transfer of OCLC-Derived Records” (the 1987 guidelines) and announced its intention to assemble a new group to draft a policy with “with more input and participation from the OCLC membership.”

There will also be an open forum at the ALA Annual conference in Chicago where the Review Board will discuss their findings and answer questions. The forum is on Sunday, July 12th from 10:30am to noon in the Waldorf room of the Chicago Hilton. OCLC is offering a registration form for the event.

Found via a post by Jennifer Eustis.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

OCLC Formally Withdraws Proposed Record Use Policy

A controversy is starting to pick up in the business librarian community — primarily in the U.K. it would seem — regarding the licensing demands of Harvard Business Press (HBP) for the inclusion of Harvard Business Review articles in EBSCOhost. HBP content in EBSCOhost carries a publisher-specific rider that says use is limited to “private individual use” and explicitly bars the practice of putting “deep links” of articles from EBSCOhost (so called “persistent links“) into learning management systems. In my words, HBP is attempting to limit access to its content in EBSCOhost to those who find it through the serendipity of searching. And now HBP is going after schools that are using persistent linking, and this raises all sorts of troubling questions.

The only visible sign of the publisher-specific rider (that I can find) is text appended to the end of each article from Harvard Business Review in EBSCOhost (copied from a post by Paul Pival):

Harvard Business Review Notice of Use Restrictions, May 2009 Harvard Business Review and Harvard Business Publishing Newsletter content on EBSCOhost is licensed for the private individual use of authorized EBSCOhost users. It is not intended for use as assigned course material in academic institutions nor as corporate learning or training materials in businesses. Academic licensees may not use this content in electronic reserves, electronic course packs, persistent linking from syllabi or by any other means of incorporating the content into course resources. Business licensees may not host this content on learning management systems or use persistent linking or other means to incorporate the content into learning management systems. Harvard Business Publishing will be pleased to grant permission to make this content available through such means. For rates and permission, contact permissions@harvardbusiness.org.

It was Pival’s next statement, though, in that same post where he relays a conversation with a colleague at a different institution that raised my eyebrows (emphasis added):

He also mentioned that HBSP [Harvard Business School Publishing] had leaned on his school and when they decided not to pay, EBSCO turned off the ability for them to create PURLs for that publisher.

Huh? How does HBP know that deep links are being used in that way?

EBSCO Information Services Website Privacy Policy

Graphical representation of the HTTP Referer Header

So now that we know how it is probably happening, we can ask “Is there anything in EBSCO’s terms-of-use that permits them to share usage information with content suppliers?” The answer would seem to be “probably yes”. The place to look is the EBSCO privacy policy. Here is an extract from the policy dated December 26, 2006 (the current version as of the time of writing). The HTTP Referer header seems to fall in the category of “Non-Personal Identifying Information:

B. Collection of Non-Personal Identifying Information
We collect and use non-personal identifying information, including IP addresses and web server log files to track trends, administer the website, track user movement, and gather demographic information. We use this non-personal identifying information in the aggregate. We do not combine these types of non-personal identifying information with personal identifying information [a term defined earlier in the privacy policy; e.g. user's name, address]. We may also share aggregated demographic information with our business partners, sponsors, advertisers, and companies that control, are controlled by, or are under common control with EBSCO Information Services.

The HTTP referer information comes from the web server log files (it is a byproduct of running a web server), and HBP is probably considered a “business partner”, so HBP can make a request of EBSCO like “Give me all of the HTTP referer addresses that link to HBP articles, and the number of times each referer addresses is used.” It would be pretty simple then for HBP to determine which institutions were deep linking directly to Harvard Business Review articles.

EBSCO Publishing License Agreement (Terms of Use)

C. Licensee and Authorized Users agree to abide by the Copyright Act of 1976 as well as any contractual restrictions, copyright restrictions, or other restrictions provided by publishers and specified in the Databases. [...] Publishers may impose their own conditions of use applicable only to their content. Such conditions of use shall be displayed on the computer screen displays associated with such content. The Licensee shall take all reasonable precautions to limit the usage of the Databases(s) to those specifically authorized by this Agreement.

And the repercussions of violating the Terms of Use? They are spelled out in the “Termination” section:

A. In the event of a breach of any of its obligations under this Agreement, Licensee shall have the right to remedy the breach within thirty (30) days upon receipt of written notice from EBSCO. Within the period of such notice Licensee shall make every reasonable effort and document said effort to remedy such a breach and shall institute any reasonable procedures to prevent future occurrences of such breaches. If the Licensee fails to remedy such a breach within the period of thirty (30) days, EBSCO may (at its option) terminate this Agreement upon written notice to the Licensee.

B. If EBSCO becomes aware of a material breach of Licensee’s obligations under this Agreement or a breach by Licensee or Authorized Users of the rights of EBSCO or its licensors or an infringement on the rights of EBSCO or its licensors, then EBSCO will notify the Licensee immediately in writing and shall have the right to temporarily suspend the Licensee’s access to the Product(s). Licensee shall be given the opportunity to remedy the breach or infringement within thirty (30) days following receipt of written notice from EBSCO. Once the breach or infringement has been remedied or the offending activity halted, EBSCO shall reinstate access to the Databases. If the Licensee does not satisfactorily remedy the offending activity within thirty (30) days, EBSCO may terminate this Agreement upon written notice to the Licensee.

I haven’t seen mention of EBSCO going so far as to terminate access to all or part of EBSCOhost, but there are indications that EBSCO is disabling the deep links to HBP content. There are reports of HBP asking libraries to pay an additional fee to EBSCO for the ability to have deep linking for HBP content. By one account, a UK university might have to pay an additional £15,000 (about $25,000 at current conversion rates) to “create persistent links for use in teaching.”

Do We Have to Take It?

Screen capture of a record for a Harvard Business Review article on EBSCOhost

And what is EBSCO’s role in this? Isn’t a library’s contract with EBSCO, not Harvard Business Publishing? Is EBSCO earning more revenue from this HBP license requirement to enable deep linking to article content? If so, isn’t that just an incentive for EBSCO to do the same with other high-profile publishers?

I don’t have answers to these last questions, but I do get a very uncomfortable feeling.

Update

Footnotes

1. Yes, they know they misspelled the word “referrer”
2. This is probably the kind of business intelligence that EBSCO already collected about how its service is used. I doubt that the recording and processing of HTTP referer headers is something specific to HBP content.
3. In its “Academic Permission Form“, HBP says the cost of permission to reproduce and distribute articles is $3 per copy. In addition, high-quality hard copies can be purchased from HBP for $3.42 each in quantities of 10 or more.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

EBSCO in Cahoots With Harvard Business Press

Add this event to your desktop calendar program.

There will be two programs at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago where aspects of the Open Library Environment Project will be discussed. The participants in the design phase of the project encourage you to attend one or both of them to learn about the design phase deliverables and the plans for the build phase.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Two ways to learn about the OLE Project at ALA

I had the pleasure of presenting on a panel at the Ohio Student Success Assessment Summit this morning on the topic of textbooks and open educational resources. Specifically, I was talking about the plans and desires of the University System of Ohio to help faculty help students with the escalating of costs of learning materials. My talk (below and on SlideShare) gives a background of the problem in the context of the State of Ohio, principles upon which a working plan for statewide support is forming, and strategic themes

Some Things, In Retrospect, I Wish I Had Mentioned

I didn’t have time to talk about the various sources of open educational resources — that would be an entire presentation by itself. Some places to start are:

• Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources and the Community College Open Textbook project: These complimentary initiatives are undertaken by interested community colleges and faculty with an interest toward expanding the development and use of open educational resources, including textbooks. A variety of textbooks are available through these efforts (http://oerconsortium.org/ and http://www.collegeopentextbooks.org/).
• Wikibooks: This site allows for the joint creation and customization of textbooks and other educational resources (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page).
• Flat World Knowledge: This commercial site offers online access to free textbooks as well as the ability for students to download black and white, color, or audio versions of texts at reduced prices. Flatworld Knowledge supports editing procedures that allow faculty to add and delete materials to the textbooks (http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/).
• Connexions: This site allows for the creation and dissemination of modularized educational resources including textbooks following the Open Educational Resources Model (http://cnx.org/).
• BookBoon: Texts available on this site are financed by in-book advertisements (http://bookboon.com/us/student).
• Global Text Project: This site offers a variety of free text materials (http://globaltext.terry.uga.edu/).
• Textbook Revolution: This site offers a variety of free text materials and is open for contributions by faculty and others (http://textbookrevolution.org/index.php/Main_Page).

This is just a short list; you’ll find many more places where open educational resources are featured by going through these sites.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Textbook Affordability at the Student Success Assessment Summit

It has been a wild few weeks in search engines — or search-engine-like services. We’ve seen the introduction of no fewer than three high-profile tools … Wolfram|Alpha, Microsoft Bing, and Google Squared … each with their own strengths and needing their own techniques — or, at least, their own distinct frame of reference — in order to maximize their usefulness. This post describes these three services, what their generally good for, and how to use them. We’ll also do a couple of sample searches to show how each is useful in its own way.

Wolfram|Alpha

No. It’s a computational knowledge engine: it generates output by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links.

A “computational knowledge engine”? What’s that? It is an attempt to gather facts, formulas, and natural language processing algorithms, encode them all in the language of Mathematica (don’t worry — the Wolfram|Alpha folks do that for us), and answer any factual question posed to it. An ambitious goal? It sure is, and the state of the system now is an impressive start. According to the service’s about page, “Wolfram|Alpha contains 10+ trillion of pieces of data, 50,000+ types of algorithms and models, and linguistic capabilities for 1000+ domains.”

So what is Wolfram|Alpha good for? Fact and computations about facts. The service already knows a lot about the world: geography, economics and socioeconomic data, physics, chemistry, engineering, sports, units of measurement, weather, and even music. The results come back as graphs, maps, simple facts, and tables. There is usually a “Source Information” link that lets you know how it got the answer.

Enough background, below are some things to try (some examples taken from Lifehacker). If you want more, be sure to check out the services Examples by Topic and Visual Gallery of Examples.

• Growth chart for a 12 year old girl
• How deep is the Bering Sea?
• Swine flu (It would appear the data is regularly curated and up-to-date.)
• second cousin twice removed (shows a graph)
• Will it rain tomorrow? (I’m assuming it is guessing where I am based on my IP address, but it doesn’t give any indication of this)
• How far is Las Vegas? (Again, it seems to know where I am.)
• Where is the international space station?
• (sin^2(x))/cos(x)

How is Wolfram|Alpha different than the typical web search engine that crawls the web and processes keyword searches? The first difference is in the input: all of the facts, formulas and relationships between data points are curated by real humans. A search engine crawls the web, indexes whatever text it can find, and attempts to compute relevance of a page based on the number and quality of links leading to that page. The researchers behind Wolfram|Alpha select the data sets to put into the system, and go to great length to link data sets together. The second difference is in how it processes the user’s query: Wolfram|Alpha tries to determine the real meaning of the question being asked. Natural language parsers attempt to determine the domain(s) of the question, and that becomes part of the computation for the answer. (For instance, Wolfram|Alpha doesn’t understand the meaning behind the question How many goobles are in a pickus?, but Google will give you 64 web pages when it is asked the same question. Wolfram|Alpha also prompts you to disambiguate queries that apply to multiple domains.)

Looking for more information? David Weinberger has a good analysis of the underpinnings of Wolfram|Alpha and what it might mean for those of us in the business of answering questions. Jon Udell talks about being able to “compute with facts in a more frictionless way.” There is also an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that talks about how Wolfram|Alpha can be used to answer mathematical questions and show how to get to the answer; this is generating some consternation among math instructors.

And what is a geeky service without some easter eggs¹? For instance, Wolfram|Alpha’s response when you say “hello” to it. If you are a fan of 1960’s culture, you can ask it “How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?”, with a nod to Bob Dylan. Lost? Wolfram|Alpha knows where you are — or, at least, where your computer is. It even has an answer for How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? (Easter eggs courtesy of two posts at Mashable.com)

Microsoft Bing

Bing search refinements

The interface also has other usability improvements — thumbnails of videos will start playing when you mouse over them, the image search results employ “infinite scrolling” (where the browser will load additional hits in the background as you scroll down) and a variety of ways to limit results (in facets down the left side), and unique handling of “best matches” that allows for further navigation within a site (for instance, see the results page for “Google” and “Ars Technica“).

Google Squared

Google Squared results cell

As mentioned above, Wolfram|Alpha is also a good tool for finding facts. In contrasted with Wolfram|Alpha, though — where all of the information is specifically curated to link up to each other — the facts in Google Squared are collected from the web. As such, you’ll see variability of information, as this example screen shot of the speed of the Superman roller coaster shows. But unlike Wolfram|Alpha, which may give you only the barest citation of data sources, with Squared you can go right to the page where the fact came from and use that page to determine the validity of the fact. As with many of Google’s services, it starts out okay but if it continues to get resources in the company we can expect it to get a lot better over time.

Service Comparisons

The three searches, with the three corresponding links to the three services, are listed below. The first, bolded service is the featured service for that search.

Will it rain tomorrow?

Wolfram|Alpha, Google Squared, Microsoft Bing

Columbus

Microsoft Bing, Google Squared, Wolfram|Alpha

Republican Governors

Google Squared, Microsoft Bing, Wolfram|Alpha

Speaking of comparisons, a new service called “Blind Search” will allow you to run the same search across Bing, Google, and Yahoo and allow you to compare the results. The hits come back in three columns, but the search engine used to generate each column of hits isn’t revealed until you select the search engine that gave you the best results. So, in a blind test, you can see if one search engine is better than another in terms of the raw relevance ranked results without all of the additional bells and whistles of each service.

Footnotes

1. Easter eggs are messages, videos, graphics, sound effects, or an unusual change in program behavior that sometimes occur in a software program in response to some undocumented set of commands, mouse clicks, keystrokes or other stimuli intended as a joke or to display program credits. — Definition courtesy of Wikipedia

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Three New Search Services: Wolfram|Alpha, Microsoft Bing, Google Squared

I continue to be astonished by how efficient the used textbook market has become. This week, at the end of the spring quarter at Ohio State University, a drive-thru textbook buy-back service popped up on the site of a long-closed gas station. It is a tent on a parking lot that truly does allow someone to drive through to drop off books (see the third image down). The operation is run by Budgetext, a national textbook wholesaler from Fayetteville, AR. I spoke with company representative Jerry Mohr about the service.

Images here link to larger versions in Flickr

Budgetext is partnered with Student Book Exchange (SBX) to bring this first-in-Columbus service to Ohio State. Budgetext services the textbook wholesaling needs of SBX. Since Budgetex has the list of textbooks through SBX that are needed for the next school term, it can more intelligently buy back the books that will be needed. Jerry said that most of the books bought back through the drive thru service will stay in the area, with the remainder wholesaled through their national network.

It is hard to beat the convenience. One literally drives up, hands the books over, and gets the cash back (or the book back if it is not needed by Budgetext). On a day like today in Columbus — with the downpour this morning and this afternoon — that process certainly seems to beat lugging the books to a desk inside a bookstore.

Although this is the first drive-through in central Ohio, it is not the first such setup in the state. A drive-through program was set up at Owens Community College in northwest Ohio two years ago. Jerry told me that in its first 4 1/2 days of operation, 500 cars came through. The following term 1,500 cars came through. All kinds of people come through — parents with kids, handicapped individuals, even multiple students in one car. Jerry said that one car last year had three students: one each from Owens Community College, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. It is still too early to tell how well the service will do in this location.

The impact of these improved efficiencies in the used textbook market makes the textbook ecosystem even more complicated. It is capitalism at its finest, but I’m not sure this present trajectory is sustainable.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Drive-Thru Textbook Buy-Back

The sand is really starting to shift under the traditional textbook providers as the open course content movement shows signs of, well, movement. Already this year there are two events that point to shifts in how instructors and students can shortcut the complex ecosystem of textbooks as we know it today. First, Flat World Knowledge — a provider of open access course materials — launched earlier this year. Second, new legislation has been proposed in the U.S. Congress to mandate that some agencies use their funding to produce open access course materials.

Flat World Knowledge Launches

Flat World Knowledge launched earlier this year, and it brings an entrepreneurial feel to the staid subject of textbooks. Billed as “the world’s first publisher of open-source college textbooks,” their website has a scrappy, web2.0 start-up feel to it. It should probably come as no surprise, then, that they are a web2.0 start-up — they recently received $8 million in venture capital funding. To faculty and staff in higher education, Flat World Knowledge describes themselves this way:

We preserve the best of the old – textbooks by leading experts.

Then we flip it on its head.

Our books cost $0 online.  We provide paperbacks, audio books, and self-print versions for under $30.  Our books are open for you to edit for your class.  Our new editions are on your terms.  We publish them – you decide if and when to use them.

They offer free versions of their textbooks online then charge for various derivatives and additions. Instructors can modify the textbook — rearranging chapters, add or delete chunks of text, and (coming soon according to the site) be able to add materials based on a database of what is available at Flat World Knowledge. (One has to register on the site to do this, but you can watch a video tutorial to get an idea about how it works.) Students get flexibility, too; one scenario from their website is:

Kayo doesn’t read books online. She orders the black and white softcover for about $29 bucks. It shows up in a few days. Too bland for her friend Sam – he orders the color edition for $59. Not Sharon. She commutes everyday, so nothing but the audio book on her iPod will do. Then there’s Chaz. He’s indecisive. He decides, well, not to decide. He’ll order the self-print .pdf chapters when he needs them for $1.99 per chapter. Cool. And don’t forget Tessa. She never has enough time. She’ll cut to the chase with our mp3 study guides, mobile flash cards, and online practice quizzes with feedback. That’s convenient. That’s choices. That’s Flat World Knowledge.

Right now their catalog is focused heavily on business topics, but they are looking to expand beyond it. (Into sociology, geographic information systems, and genetics according to their latest newsletter.) Here are the course materials available now and what they have in the pipeline.

H.R. 1464 — The LOW COST Act

The title of this bill is cleverly named — the Learning Opportunities With Creation of Open Source Textbooks (LOW COST) Act. Let’s set aside my twitching in response to this use of phrase “open source” in this context — the correct form of “open” is probably “open access” — but that would ruin the acronym. (I had the same reaction to how the Flat World Knowledge folks used this phrase, too, so I should probably get over it.) The bill would mandate federal agencies that spend more than $10 million on science education to spend 2% of their budget on the development of related, college-level educational resources.

SEC. 3. OPEN SOURCE MATERIAL REQUIREMENT FOR FEDERAL AGENCIES.

1. In General- Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the head of each agency that expends more than $10,000,000 in a fiscal year on scientific education and outreach shall use at least 2 percent of such funds for the collaboration on the development and implementation of open source materials as an educational outreach effort in accordance with subsection (b).
2. Requirements- The head of each agency described in subsection (a) shall, under the joint guidance of the Director of the National Science Foundation and the Secretary of Energy, collaborate with the heads of any of the agencies described in such subsection or any federally supported laboratory or university-based research program to develop, implement, and establish procedures for checking the veracity, accuracy, and educational effectiveness of open source materials that–
   1. contain, at minimum, a comprehensive set of textbooks or other educational materials covering topics in college-level physics, chemistry, or math;
   2. are posted on the Federal Open Source Material Website;
   3. are updated prior to each academic year with the latest research and information on the topics covered in the textbooks or other educational materials available on the Federal Open Source Material Website; and
   4. are free of copyright violations.

The bill is sponsored by Representative Bill Foster of Illinois, and it is currently in the House committees on Education and Labor as well as Science and Technology. There are no co-sponsors to the bill, which I don’t think is a good sign, so I’m not expecting it to go far. Still, the sentiment is nice, so it is one to watch.

I’ve also heard through the grapevine that there is a bill being worked up to be proposed in the U.S. Senate that would set aside money for the development of open access course materials. So, at the very least, the notion of open access course materials seems to be catching on from top-down funders.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Flat World Knowledge and U.S. Gov’t on Open Access Course Materials

Reported by Zotero co-director Sean Takats, tweeted by CHNM director Dan Cohen, and noted on DLTJ by Rick, Thomson-Reuters’ lawsuit against George Mason University has been dismissed. The details are sparse at the moment, but it would appear that the creators of Zotero have prevailed over the creators of EndNote. Sean’s post has the most information. (The Fairfax (VA) Circuit Court website really stinks in terms of disseminating information about the proceedings of the court.¹ ) If the details are interesting, and I somehow expect they might be, I’ll post them here.

Footnotes

1. The procedures bear a striking resemblance to Arthur Dent’s comment in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.” That is neither here nor there, though.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Thompson Reuters Lawsuit Against Zotero Creators Dismissed