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RSC Gold for Gold is ‘ingenious’ says UK Minister for Science

The Royal Society of Chemistry’s Gold for Gold open access initiative was declared ‘ingenious’ yesterday by David Willetts MP, UK Minister for Universities and Science.

The minister was giving evidence on open access to the House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Committee. When asked for his view on so-called “double-dipping” – a concern that during the transition to full open access, UK institutions will be paying for both journal subscription fees and author publication charges – the minister held up RSC Gold for Gold as a shining example of a route to helping to overcome this issue.

He said: “There are some quite ingenious attempts to avoid [double-dipping], of which the Royal Society of Chemistry Gold for Gold scheme is one that we particularly welcome.”

Ron Egginton, Head of BBSRC and ESRC Team in the Research Funding Unit at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, also commended RSC Gold for Gold at the session.

He said: “The more that this type of thinking can be seen to permeate throughout the publishing industry, the better.”

Gold for Gold was launched last year, as an innovative experiment to support researchers as they begin the funder-led transition to Gold open access.

All research institutions who are ‘RSC Gold’ customers are provided with credits equal in value to their subscription payment to make their faculty’s papers available via the RSC’s Gold open access option. The RSC took this action to enable researchers who are being asked to publish open access, but who don’t always have the funding available to pay for it directly, to meet their funders’ requirements.

Following an exceedingly successful pilot in the UK during 2012, the RSC has now rolled out Gold for Gold internationally. During the first few months of 2013, more than 60 institutions in 13 countries have used Gold for Gold credits to publish their articles, including the University of Cambridge, UCLA and the University of Queensland.

Dr James Milne, RSC Publishing Managing Director said: “We are delighted that the minister has recognised the value of the RSC’s Gold for Gold initiative. His reference to the scheme yesterday really highlights the role that learned society publishers can play in supporting the scientific community’s engagement with open access.

“It’s reassuring to hear that government recognises that the costs of publishing in a mixed subscription/open access environment need to take into account the impact that the transition to full open access will have on different stakeholder budgets.”

Springer to collaborate with the Italian Society for the Study of Eating Disorders

Springer and the Italian Society for the Study of Eating Disorders (Società Italiana per lo Studio dei Disturbi del Comportamento Alimentare – SISDCA) have agreed to a five-year collaboration to publish the quarterly journal Eating and Weight Disorders – Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, starting in 2013 with Volume 18. As the official journal of SISDCA, it will be available exclusively in electronic format on SpringerLink (link.springer.com). It was formerly published by Kurtis Editrice.

Eating and Weight Disorders – Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity provides an international forum devoted to eating disorders and obesity and the relationship between the two. Topics include over- and undernutrition and obesity surgery. The journal publishes review articles, clinical research, pharmacological studies, animal research, technical innovations, new concepts and hypotheses, and papers on medico-legal issues. Targeted are psychiatrists, psychologists, internists including endocrinologists and diabetologists, nutritional scientists, bariatric surgeons, and others dealing with eating disorders and obesity.

Massimo Cuzzolaro, Editor-in-Chief, said, “From 1996, the journal has gained increasing importance. In 2011, it had an impact factor of 0.628 and is covered in Index Medicus/MEDLINE, PsycINFO and other well-known abstracting and indexing services. Working with Springer will help to promote the journal by increasing its global visibility and supporting the society in its mission.”

“We are proud to welcome the journal Eating and Weight Disorders to the Springer clinical medicine journals portfolio. It offers an additional relevant scientific resource to all clinical practitioners and scientists working in this interdisciplinary field. Eating and Weight Disorders will join many established publications in the field of psychiatry and will have global exposure via the SpringerLink platform,” said Carlotta d’Imporzano, Executive Editor of Medicine Journals at Springer.

The SISDCA is the oldest and largest Italian scientific society in this field and most likely the first society for eating disorders in the world. It was founded as an interdisciplinary scientific society on July 19th, 1991. Its members include researchers and specialists from a broad range of fields, including internal medicine, endocrinology, neuropsychiatry, psychology and the food sciences. As a non-profit organization, the SISDCA is dedicated to research in the field of eating disorders. It promotes both preventive and therapeutic measures, and is also active in training and continuing education.

Burgundy to sell Business Expert Press e-Book collections in UK, Ireland and Scandinavia

Specializing in the promotion of innovative publishers throughout Europe, Burgundy Information Services has signed an exclusive agreement with Business Expert Press to provide sales and marketing services in the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia.

Established in 2008 with input from faculty and academic librarians and now used by hundreds of thousands of students, Business Expert Press publishes concise, practical treatments of the topics taught in MBA programs. Their born-digital books are written by professors who translate real-life business experiences into teaching tools, and serve as curriculum-oriented, cost-effective alternatives to high-priced textbooks by providing the kind of information that’s not offered in introductory textbooks or case studies.

Speaking of the partnership Burgundy’s International Sales Director, Paul Calow, commented that “We are delighted to be working in partnership with Business Expert Press to deliver their unique, innovative Business Education materials to new users throughout Europe.”

David Parker, President at Business Expert Press said “Burgundy is a leader in bringing unique and valuable new products and services to the library world. In our short history we have quickly gained traction in the US and Asian library markets but have lacked a skilled partner to help us enter the UK and Europe. I am certain we have found the right partner in Burgundy.”

ProQuest Completes Acquisition of EBL

ProQuest, an information company central to global research, has completed its acquisition of Ebook Library (EBL), significantly expanding its e-book delivery and aggregation capabilities with libraries worldwide. The acquisition supports ProQuest’s overall goal of enhancing the research experience through seamless discovery of content across multiple formats, including books, journals, dissertations, newspapers, and video.

Kari Paulson, President of EBL, and EBL’s current staff have joined ProQuest with Ms. Paulson in the role of Vice President and General Manager of the combined ebrary and EBL e-book business unit. She will lead the planning efforts to combine the strongest features of ebrary and EBL into one optimized e-book platform that has the most flexible selection of business models, the most comprehensive range of content, and the most effective tools available to support both researchers and librarians. The company will be actively soliciting customer feedback throughout the integration in order to provide libraries with an even better e-book solution.
ProQuest does not anticipate disruption for EBL or ebrary customers over the estimated 18 month integration timeframe. Customers and partners should continue to work with their current EBL and/or ProQuest representatives.
To learn more visit ProQuest at www.proquest.com.

Copyright Clearance Center Joins Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association

Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), a not-for-profit organization and leading provider of licensing and Open Access (OA) solutions, has joined the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), which offers a forum for bringing together the entire Open Access community.

“As traditional and new publishers gather and create standards around Open Access publishing, it’s increasingly important to have organizations like OASPA leading dialogue among publishers, academics, researchers and others”
“As traditional and new publishers gather and create standards around Open Access publishing, it’s increasingly important to have organizations like OASPA leading dialogue among publishers, academics, researchers and others,” said Roy Kaufman, Managing Director, New Ventures, CCC. “We’re honored to be a part of OASPA’s ambitious mission of exchanging information, setting standards, improving the author experience, educating the research community and the public and promoting innovation.”

CCC currently works with many of OASPA’s members on issues such as collecting Article Processing Charges (APCs) and Open Access-aware licensing through its RightsLink® for Open Access solution, which helps reduce costs, increase operational efficiency and improve author experience and satisfaction.

CCC was named one of “10 to Watch” by information industry analyst Outsell in its 2013 Open Access Market Report and recently endorsed the Research Information Network’s call for cooperation among funders, universities and publishers.

CCC has been helping publishers improve the author experience in collecting APCs for over six years and welcomes efforts toward standardization and transparency.

CCC hosts webinars and podcasts on many aspects of Open Access and works with organizations such as the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) on creating standards around Open Access as part of its non-profit mission.

SAGE launches MobileStudy

SAGE today announced the launch of its highly innovative digital revision tool, MobileStudy to aid student learning on the go. As one of the first revision tools to use a QR reader, SAGE’s MobileStudy is a significant step in supporting the student interactive learning experience on the go through mobile technology.

Using QR codes within the printed book, SAGE’s MobileStudy, enables Smartphone and tablet users instant access to key textbook extracts and additional study resources tailored for mobile use, making it possible to study and revise whenever and wherever they like. Linking through to lecturer resources, additional summary material, revision questions and summaries, the digitally innovative mobile revision tool creates an engaging textbook learning environment, supporting the changing need of today’s students whilst simultaneously helping to improve learning outcomes.

SAGE’s MobileStudy was first rolled out as part of the well renowned and highly regarded fourth edition Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics textbook by Professor Andy Field.

“Student reading habits are changing, with a much higher demand for interactive material that engages the student while on the move,” said Ziyad Marar, Global Publishing Director, SAGE. “The work we have done on MobileStudy is a direct response to a large amount of feedback we’ve had from students around the world, and, we believe, meets their needs in an innovative and highly effective way.’

The mobile learning tool will be rolled out across a number of SAGE higher education and college market textbook titles by end Q1 2014.

Library Copyright Alliance applauds introduction of Unlocking Technology Act

The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) applauds the introduction in the US House of Representatives on May 9, 2013, of H.R. 1892, the Unlocking Technology Act of 2013, by Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), and Jared Polis (D-CO). The bill guarantees that legitimate uses of digital works and technologies will not run afoul of copyright law, even if they require breaking digital locks. Prompted by the recent uproar over cell phone unlocking, the bill recognizes that issue as a symptom of a much larger problem and would fix that problem permanently.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed in 1998, made it illegal for owners of legally purchased digital media and technologies to modify their property if it would break digital rights management (DRM) and other forms of digital locks. The DMCA placed a shadow over a host of normal activities of libraries and their patrons: ripping DVDs to facilitate teaching and learning, converting e-books to accessible formats, modifying tablets to run different software, and more. Under current law, libraries and their patrons must ask the Copyright Office for special carve-outs every three years to allow these kinds of uses, even though they don’t infringe copyright. The Copyright Office has issued some favorable rules for library uses, but those rules are limited in scope, difficult to win, and can be revoked by the office at any future rulemaking. Indeed, it was the revocation of the cell phone unlocking exception that raised recent alarms about the DMCA and the power it gives the Copyright Office.

The Unlocking Technology Act does away with this bizarre aspect of the DMCA, freeing all non-infringing uses regardless of their effect on DRM. Importantly, the Unlocking Technology Act also permits the creation and distribution of tools required for unlocking, without which the right to unlock would be useless. LCA applauds the bill’s sponsors for their leadership and vision, and urges others in the House to support this important bill.

The sponsors’ press release, full text of the bill, and a section-by-section summary are available on Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s website.

View/download a PDF of this statement on the LCA website.

Thomson Reuters forms Research Analytics Customer Advisory Board

The Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading provider of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced the launch of its Research Analytics Customer Advisory Board, an esteemed group of university and funding leaders working with the Scientific & Scholarly Research business unit to provide counsel and direction on the evolution of the company’s research analytics solution.

“We realize that our research analytic solutions are used by our global customers to evaluate their performance, people and peers. These are mission critical evaluations that rely on the gold standard metrics and analytics stemming from the Web of Science®,” said Gordon Macomber, managing director, Thomson Reuters Scientific & Scholarly Research. “Through our newly formed Research Analytics Customer Advisory Boards we are honored to be working with esteemed leaders from the world’s elite research institutions and funding bodies to help co-create the next generation of InCites®, the leading platform for research analytics.”

There are three advisory board branches, representing the main geographic regions the business serves: Asia, Europe and the Middle East, and the Americas. Each board addresses its local needs and trends, ensuring an end solution that is comprehensive and global.

By drawing citation data from Thomson Reuters Web of Science, the world’s most authoritative discovery and research platform with academic citation databases, Thomson Reuters InCites delivers objective benchmarks, metrics and indicators to support the comparison of people, peers and regions.

Members of the Research Analytics Customer Advisory Board aim to guide and inform the evolution of the next generation of InCites, making it “a single destination for research evaluation and management,” said Mr. Macomber.

Thomson Reuters InCites enables scholarly profiling, research benchmarking and expert consulting and interpretation. Offerings within the InCites solution will include Journal Citation Reports, Essential Science Indicators and Research In View. The Customer Advisory Board will work to ensure that InCites is of value to provosts and the “academic c-suite,” as well as research analysts, through insightful visualizations that can be drilled into for access to the underlying Web of Science data.

Thomson Reuters Research Analytics information is available online.

EBSCO strengthens its leadership position

EBSCO announced today that its 2013 Information Days in Norway were judged by delegates to have been successful in helping librarians to face the challenging task of promoting the resources in their own libraries, and letting their users know there is an alternative to traditional search engines.

Eighty librarians attended EBSCO’s 2013 Information Days held in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, and Tromsø, representing Norway’s top universities and prestigious institutions such as NTNU (Norway’s second largest university and its primary institution for the education of engineers and scientists). Delegates networked with publishers Karger and Oxford University Press; they gained industry insights and discovered EBSCO’s time-saving new products and services. One librarian commented that the day was “a good combination of product information and an excellent opportunity to share experiences with colleagues.”

EBSCO’s Nordic operations are growing from strength to strength, with important new customers on board such as NTNU, and, more recently, Stockholm University in Sweden. A new General Manager of the UK and Nordic operations, Paul Harwood, joins EBSCO on 30 May 2013 to further strengthen EBSCO’s leadership position in Norway and the Nordic markets.

Wiley and Snapwiz to bring Adaptive Learning Technology to WileyPlus

John Wiley & Sons and Snapwiz, a Fremont CA based company that specializes in adaptive and personalized learning solutions, announce the launch of WileyPLUS with ORION, the initial offering to come out of a new partnership aimed at giving students highly personalized experiences that improve learning outcomes and go further to creating adaptive, collaborative, and interactive learning spaces than anything currently on the market.

The first in a suite of new learning products, WileyPLUS with ORIONintegrates Snapwiz’s adaptive learning engine with WileyPLUS, a research-based online learning environment, with learning, practice, and assessment capabilities, enabling each learner’s experience to be uniquely adapted to his or her unique strengths and needs.  WileyPLUS is already offered with more than 300 Wiley titles, is used by over 2 million users in more than 20 countries, and has been proven to improve outcomes.

“WileyPLUS with ORION expands WileyPLUS’s proven ability to improve learning outcomes, providing students with a personal, adaptive learning experience so they can build their proficiency on topics and use their study time most effectively. Snapwiz’s platform helps students navigate through their studies with a state-of-the-art user interface, highlighting both strengths and the areas where they need to invest more time,” said Joe Heider, Senior Vice President, Global Education. “WileyPLUS with ORION employs data gathered from individual student usage to inform instructors of students’ performance and proficiency, adjust course content, and provide a tailored learning experience.”

Wiley and Snapwiz are continuing to work together to develop new products and services that will result in superior learning experience for students.  “Using the Snapwiz platform, Wiley can now launch courses with a unique blend of adaptive, collaborative, and interactive learning features that are designed to increase student engagement, retention, and success,” explained Madhu Narasa, CEO of Snapwiz.  Wiley and Snapwiz intend to use the aggregated data to gain insights into student learning behaviors and further enhance the offering.  The companies plan to offer role-based performance and proficiency analytics to encourage “ownership of learning” and predictive recommendations at the author, student, faculty, and institution level.  Also on the road map is the development of collaborative learning tools that encourage peer-to-peer discussion and social participation analytics to encourage participation and preparedness.

Launching this summer for use in fall 2013, WileyPLUS with ORION will be included at no extra cost to students using WileyPLUSacross some of Wiley’s leading titles in disciplines such as Introduction to Business, Introduction to Psychology, Financial Accounting and Anatomy and Physiology.

Students begin by taking a quick, chapter-level diagnostic to determine their baseline proficiency. Based on the results of their diagnostic and ongoing practice, WileyPLUS with ORION will present students with questions appropriate for their current level of understanding, and will continuously adapt to each student, helping them build their proficiency. WileyPLUS with ORIONdelivers individualized notifications and reports to help guide students in using their time most effectively.  All content is tied to a specific learning objective and each interaction is tracked, measured, and used to help improve productivity, support retention and lead to greater student confidence.  Instructors have access to dashboard reporting on student/class usage and overall class proficiency, including detailed views of productivity and metacognition. The questions used for the adaptive practice are numerous and are not found in the WileyPLUS assignment area.

Thomson Reuters expands intellectual property management consulting offerings

The Intellectual Property (IP) & Sciencebusiness of Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading provider of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced the expansion of its intellectual property management consulting offerings to include strategic services for its growing client base. The team now provides specialty consulting related to IP business strategy, benchmarking, portfolio-to-product mapping, and data management, in addition to its traditional suite of IP process-related services.

“The Thomson Reuters IP Management Consulting Services team has been instrumental in helping us ensure our intellectual assets are properly protected and leveraged,” said Christyn Cianfarani, director of Government Programs, Research and Development and Intellectual Property at CAE Inc., formerly Canadian Aviation Electronics. “The team has also provided us with valuable analysis of the patent landscape to help us make important IP decisions.”

Many companies and law firms have embraced the consultative business model in response to downsizing in the wake of the global financial crisis. Consultants knowledgeable in their fields offer the benefit of deep industry insight and IP experience, both of which command top salary levels for employees brought “in house.” By using skilled consultants, “the client gets the best of both worlds – a dedicated expert for the project at hand but without the long-term salary and benefit commitment,” said Adam Jaffe, JD, director of IP Management Consulting Services for Thomson Reuters.

Business for the Thomson Reuters IP management consulting team increased more than 1,000 percent over the last year, “an indicator of the genuine need for strategic insight and tactical administrative assistance in today’s highly litigious, downsized environment,” said Mr. Jaffe. “We responded to client needs by adding IP industry experts skilled in strategic consulting to our team. Many organizations want guidance in the development of an IP business strategy or deeper insight into how they compare from a benchmarking perspective.”

Thomson Reuters embraces a unique approach in staffing its consulting engagements. “We understand that through diversity of opinion our clients achieve better results,” said Cynthia Murphy, senior vice president of Thomson Reuters. “Consulting clients work with a team of Thomson Reuters professionals with complementary strengths, including IP experts, attorneys, business management strategists and technologists. These subject matter experts contribute their unique perspectives, making for a richer end solution.”

The IP management consultants unleash the power of Thomson Reuters robust intellectual property solutions for engagement projects, including resources such asDerwent World Patents Index® (DWPISM), the world’s most trusted, editorially enhanced global patent database; Thomson Innovation®, the premiere IP collaboration and intelligence platform; and Thomson IP Manager®, the leading intellectual asset management system, among other IP resources from the company.

Thomson Reuters IP management consulting services are available for one-off projects or as ongoing engagements.

OCLC launches CONTENTdm hosting services in Australia

Twenty-seven libraries throughout Australia and New Zealand are part of the more than 2,500 libraries, archives, museums and other cultural heritage institutions around the world using OCLC’s CONTENTdm Digital Collection Management Software to manage their digital collections and make them available on the Web. Of the 27 libraries, 25 are part of the CONTENTdm software “quick start” program, which makes each Te Puna member, Amlib, VDX or OCLC WorldShare Management Services user eligible for its own CONTENTdm license hosted in the OCLC Sydney Data Center at no additional cost.

OCLC recently launched CONTENTdm hosting services for Australia/New Zealand, which enables libraries in the region to have their CONTENTdm collections hosted in the Sydney Data Center. Using the Sydney Data Center, these libraries can realize faster response times and better performance. In the past few years, more libraries have switched to CONTENTdm hosting services for operational support rather than allocating their own staff and hardware to run the software on their own servers.

CONTENTdm software makes it possible for libraries to make their digital collections available online quickly for viewing by the public. No matter the format—local history archives, newspapers, books, maps, slide libraries or audio/video—the digital collections are made available to all. One-of-a-kind documents are exposed to broader audiences and can be discovered using standard Web browsers.

For the Hornsby Shire Library in New South Wales, CONTENTdm “quick start” has allowed for copies of the famous Ginger Meggs cartoon series to be made available for online public viewing. Hosted on servers in the nearby OCLC Sydney Data Center, these unique materials are now reaching a global audience.

“CONTENTdm is a great informational tool,” said Neil Chippendale, Local Studies Coordinator, Hornsby Shire Council. “It has given an opportunity to highlight our diverse collection and spread the information to a wider community.”

In Western Australia, the City of Armadale has made hundreds of historical images accessible online through its customized CONTENTdm website, Picture Armadale. Picture Armadale allows patrons to discover events and to glimpse the faces of those who shaped the City of Armadale and the townships within. One such collection is the Armadale Womens Emergency Corps (AWEC). More than 50 female volunteers were involved in AWEC and trained to perform various support roles during World War II.

“Our Picture Armadale site was simple to build and customize and does everything we need it to do,” said Jeff Walker, Digital Services Librarian, City of Armadale. “It’s allowed people interstate and overseas to access the collection instantly. We find CONTENTdm to be versatile and detailed enough to accommodate everything the library needs regarding metadata, while being suitable for our volunteers to use.”

CONTENTdm is also enabling school libraries, such as Wesley College, in Melbourne, Victoria, to make archive collections searchable for current and past students. Wesley College’s class yearbooks from 1877 through today are available for digital viewing, for example.

In addition to hosting CONTENTdm services, more than a dozen libraries are operating OCLC WorldShare Management Services from the OCLC Sydney Data Center. The Sydney Data Center employs state-of-the-art technologies to ensure high levels of performance, reliability, scalability and cost-effectiveness. Key facilities features include high performance Internet services with multiple service providers to ensure efficient routing, fully redundant heating and cooling systems, continuous power from multiple sources, and best of breed security controls and practices.

The Data Center also enables OCLC to comply with access and data privacy requirements in Australia and New Zealand and adhere to technical standards that promote the cost-effective, worldwide sharing of information across platforms, scripts, languages and cultural materials.

More information about CONTENTdm is available on the website.

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