Category Archives: Open access

Workplace #1 Inaugural Issue Republished!

The Institute for Critical Education Studies (ICES) has embarked on the daunting, yet enjoyable, task of reissuing all back issues of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor in OJS format.  We begin with the inaugural issue and its core theme, “Organizing Our Asses Off.”  Issue #2 will soon follow.  We encourage readers and supporters of Workplace and Critical Education to revisit these now classic back issues for a sense of accomplishment and frustration over the past 15 years of academic labor.  Please keep the ideas and manuscripts rolling in!

In Court, a University and Publishers Spar Over ‘Fair Use’ of Course Materials

The Chronicle: In Court, a University and Publishers Spar Over ‘Fair Use’ of Course Materials

Maybe you’re a professor who wants to use a chunk of copyrighted material in your course this spring. Or perhaps you’re a librarian or an academic publisher. If so, the much-followed Google Book Search settlement is not the only legal case you need to be watching. A federal case involving publishers and a state-university system, Cambridge University Press et al. v. Patton et al., should produce a ruling soon, and its stakes are high.

New Journals, Free Online, Let Scholars Speak Out

The Chronicle: New Journals, Free Online, Let Scholars Speak Out

He seems genial, but John Willinsky is a dangerous man.

As a leader in the development and spread of “open access” scholarly journals, which are published online and offered free, the Stanford University education professor is not just helping to transform academic publishing. He is also equipping scholars around the world with a tool to foment revolution.

University worker accused of extorting student file sharers

RockRap.com: University worker accused of extorting student file sharers

by Greg Sandoval CNet News

If you thought the Recording Industry Association of America was hard on illegal file sharing, consider Dorin Dehelean.
Dehelean, an Internet security analyst, was in charge of tracking illegal file sharing at the University of Georgia until he tried to shake down the student downloaders he caught.

Last week, police arrested the 37-year-old Dehelean on a felony extortion charge, according to a report published by the Web site of the Athens Banner-Herald. Police allege that Dehelean contacted a female student two weeks ago to tell her that he’d caught her violating school policy by illegally downloading copyright materials.

He also told her he could make the “situation go away in exchange for money,” Jimmy Williamson, chief of campus police at the university, told the Banner-Herald. “All he was doing was (offering) to keep the information from going to Judicial Programs.”

The student, who apparently could have faced disciplinary action for the downloading, told Dehelean that she didn’t have the money and then informed a school official about the conversation. The police were contacted and they sent a plainclothes officer to meet with Dehelean posing as the student. After Dehelean accepted a payment of an undisclosed amount, he was arrested and the school immediately fired him.

Police believe Dehelean tried to extort other students and may have been paid off by at least one student. No word yet on whether the female student was disciplined for the downloading.

www.rockrap.com

U. of Oxford Bans Legal File-Sharing Service

The Chronicle: U. of Oxford Bans Legal File-Sharing Service

Universities have been known to forbid illegal file sharing on their campuses, but the University of Oxford has decided to ban a music-sharing program that’s perfectly legal. Spotify, a popular music-streaming service that uses peer-to-peer technology, is now prohibited on the campus network because it was simply consuming too much bandwidth.

Open Access Encyclopedias

Inside Higher Ed: Open Access Encyclopedias

Can an information source that is free also be reliable? Or does the price of content always reflect its value?

In higher education, this debate usually takes place in the context of academic publishing, where open access journals have emerged to challenge their pricey print predecessors. This mirrors a wider trend in media, where lean, Web-based, free-content outlets

Ottawa Is First Canadian University in Open Access Group

Inside Higher Ed: Ottawa Is First Canadian University in Open Access Group

The University of Ottawa has become the first Canadian institution to join the Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity, in which five leading American universities in September pledged to develop systems to pay open access journals for the articles they publish by the institutions’ scholars. Ottawa has also pledged to make its scholarly publications available online at no charge, to create a fund to support the creation of digital educational materials organized as courses and available to everyone online at no charge, and to support the University of Ottawa Press in publishining a collection of open access books.

Judge won’t stop student from promoting illegal downloading

The Boston Globe: Judge won’t stop student from promoting illegal downloading

Four record labels that were awarded a total of $675,000 in damages after a Boston University graduate student illegally downloaded and shared music online have lost their bid to get a federal judge to order the student to stop promoting such activity.

US District Court Judge Nancy Gertner today granted the labels’ request that she order Joel Tenenbaum to destroy the 30 songs that a federal jury found he downloaded and to not commit further copyright infringement. But she rebuffed their request to bar him from encouraging others to break the law.

Oberlin Adopts Open Access for Faculty Research

Inside Higher Ed: Oberlin Adopts Open Access for Faculty Research

Faculty members at Oberlin College voted last week to create an online and free archive to which they will add all work they publish in peer reviewed journals. The move, similar to those taken by faculties at several research universities, reflects support for the open access movement in which the paid subscription model for journals is being challenged. Sebastiaan Faber, professor of Hispanic studies and chair of the General Faculty Library Committee said in a statement: “The current system of journal publishing, which largely relies on subscriptions and licenses, limits access to research information in significant ways, particularly for students and faculty at smaller and less wealthy institutions, as well as for the general public. Access is also seriously limited around the world in countries with fewer resources.”

A Call for Copyright Rebellion

From Inside Higher Ed: A Call for Copyright Rebellion

DENVER — The manner in which copyright law is being applied to academe in the digital age is destructive to the advancement of human knowledge and culture, and higher education is doing nothing about it.

That is what Lawrence Lessig, the Harvard University law professor and renowned open-access advocate, told a theater of higher ed technologists Thursday at the 2009 Educause Conference here. In his talk, Lessig described how digital and Web technology has exploded the conditions under which copyright law had been written.

Open Letter on Open Access

Inside Higher Ed: Open Letter on Open Access

The presidents of 57 liberal arts colleges released an open letter on Tuesday endorsing the Federal Research Access Act of 2009, a bill aimed at increasing public access to academic research that is funded by the federal government.

The bill would require certain federal agencies — those that fund more than $100 million in extramural research annually — to require peer-reviewed journals that publish that research to make it available for free on the Web after six months. It would be “a major step forward in ensuring equitable online access to research literature that is paid for by taxpayers,” according to the presidents’ letter. The signatories note that both faculty who wish to stay current on research and students who aspire to doctoral degrees stand to lose out as academic journals grow prohibitively expensive.

Breakthrough on Open Access

Inside Higher Ed: Breakthrough on Open Access

For years, as more academics have embraced “open access” publishing — in which journals are published online and free — a constant refrain from many publishers has been that the model would deprive them of the revenue they need for high quality editing and peer review. That argument was at the center of a recent report on the economics of journal publishing commissioned by the National Humanities Alliance. That argument was also cited by the Association of American University Presses to oppose federal open access requirements — over the objections of some of its members.

On Monday, five leading universities announced a new “Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity” in which they have pledged to develop systems to pay open access journals for the articles they publish by the institutions’ scholars. In doing so, the institutions are attempting to put to rest the idea that only older publication models (paid and/or print) can support rigorous peer review and quality assurance.

Jury Orders Boston U. Graduate Student to Pay $675,000 for Illegal Downloads

The Chronicle: Jury Orders Boston U. Graduate Student to Pay $675,000 for Illegal Downloads

A federal jury on Friday ordered a Boston University graduate student to pay four music companies $675,000, one day after the student, Joel Tenenbaum, admitted in court that he had downloaded and distributed more than two dozen songs that did not belong to him.

The Next Open Source Movement

Inside Higher Ed: The Next Open Source Movement

While the open source movement has taken off in course management systems, with Moodle and Sakai as alternatives to the dominant Blackboard, the administrative side of the house has been almost entirely corporate. While some colleges use home-grown systems, the norm has been to use any of a number of vendors for systems that allow colleges to manage and report on budgets, billing and many other functions crucial to running a college. These administrative software systems cost millions of dollars to install and manage, and any malfunctions can be hugely frustrating to institutions.

KU becomes first U.S. public university to pass an open access policy

KU becomes first U.S. public university to pass an open access policy

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas has become the nation’s first public university to adopt an “open access” policy that makes its faculty’s scholarly journal articles available for free online.

New home, new outlook, new publishing system for Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor

The Editorial Team of Workplace is proud to announce the journal’s new home, new outlook, and new publishing system!

We encourage you to browse the Workplace open journal system, submit a manuscript, or volunteer to review http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/workplace/index. We also welcome proposals for Special Issues; if you have an idea or have assembled a group of scholars writing on higher education workplace activism and issues of academic labor, send us a proposal.

Current preprints include:

John Welsh‘s “Theses on College and University Administration” and “The Status Degradation Ceremony.” As a whole, both feature articles challenge scholars to rethink the administration of higher education and how we frame research into this process http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/workplace/issue/current.

“The Education Agenda is a War Agenda: Connecting Reason to Power and Power to Resistance” by Rich Gibson & E. Wayne Ross

Reviews by Richard Brosio and Prentice Chandler

Thank you and please forward this invitation to colleagues and networks.

Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross, Co-Editors

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor

Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy
University of British Columbia
http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/workplace/index

Split Over Open Access

Inside Higher Ed: Split Over Open Access

In the debate over “open access” to scholarly research, the Association of American University Presses has weighed in on the “anti” side of things, backing legislation that would end a federal requirement that work supported by the National Institutes of Health be available online and free within 12 months of publication.

Open Access: Promises and Challenges of Scholarship in the Digital Age

Academic Matters: Open Access: Promises and Challenges of Scholarship in the Digital Age

Open Access: Promises and Challenges of Scholarship in the Digital Age_pic

The Internet has made Open Access publication – the free distribution of scholarly work – a powerful possibility for scholars, administrators and publishers alike. Leslie Chan takes an in-depth look at the potential benefits, and looming challenges, facing this new approach to knowledge dissemination.

MIT Professors Approve Campuswide Policy to Publish Scholarly Articles Free Online

The Chronicle News Blog: MIT Professors Approve Campuswide Policy to Publish Scholarly Articles Free Online

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is known for its ambitious effort to give away its course materials online, but now the university is giving away its research too.

Last week MIT’s professors voted unanimously to adopt a policy stating that all faculty members will deposit their scholarly research papers in a free online university repository (in addition to sending them to scholarly journals), in an effort to expand access to the university’s scholarship.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY ENDORSES INSTITUTION-WIDE, OPEN-ACCESS RESEARCH ARCHIVE

Boston University: BOSTON UNIVERSITY ENDORSES INSTITUTION-WIDE, OPEN-ACCESS RESEARCH ARCHIVE

Trend-setting policy allows voluntary online dissemination of scholarly work

(Boston) – Research by Boston University faculty and staff will soon be freely available in an online archive, bypassing the conventional and restrictive route of publishing papers in academic journals, announced BU President Robert A. Brown.