Treat police body-cam footage as just another public record.
 
"Footage collected by police body cameras deserves to be treated the same as any other public record, according to a new white paper published by Yale University’s Law School...."

Here's the full white paper by Josh Divine and six co-authors.
http://isp.yale.edu/sites/default/files/publications/police_body_camera_footage-_just_another_public_record.pdf
 
#oa #openaccess #bodycam #foia #watchthewatchers

Comments on the VSNU-Elsevier deal.

Publishers are very good at asserting their own interests, and Elsevier is especially good at this. Universities have been very bad at asserting their own interests, and university associations have been especially bad at this, tending to follow their slowest or least assertive members. Hence it was inspiring when the nation-wide VSNU [Association of Universities in the Netherlands] took a hard line in its negotiations with Elsevier.

The VSNU didn't get all it wanted but it took a large step and plans to take more in the future. It also hopes that other universities will follow its lead.

Here's where things get more complicated. We don't know how much the Dutch universities must now pay for the Elsevier big deal. Clearly Elsevier raised its price so that a certain number of APCs from Dutch researchers could be considered built-in or pre-paid. But we don't know the size of the price increase. The VSNU apparently signed a non-disclosure agreement. It says in its FAQ that it cannot disclose the price because that is "of course, sensitive competitive information." Price is only sensitive competitive information for Elsevier, not the universities.

It's a pity that the price of the agreement is secret. If other universities knew the price, they could bargain more effectively with Elsevier (and other publishers). Because they don't know the price, this success will spread more slowly than otherwise. This cuts against VSNU's hope that other universities will take the same steps, just as it cuts against lobbying claims often made by Elsevier and other publishers that open-access initiatives "interfere with the market".

Still, it's a step forward. I hope other universities are moved to try harder bargaining than they've tried in the past. And I hope they succeed.

One lesson from VSNU: Involve the university presidents, not just the university librarians. Another: Don't sign a non-disclosure agreement!

Here are two other caveats to keep in mind.

First, this kind of success helps entrench the APC or fee-based business model for gold OA. Charging author-side fees is a legitimate model. But (despite a popular myth) it's only a minority model today, and there are good reasons why. The no-fee model works better for many authors, many disciplines, many journals, and many regions of the world. Giving no-fee OA journals an incentive to start charging fees is backward. And moving toward a business-model monoculture for gold OA is perverse.

Second, Dutch universities could have adopted green OA policies years ago. But none did, even though more than 500 other universities around the world have already done so. Green and gold have different advantages and I support both. Hence I support those who support gold. But because green and gold are compatible, even complementary (see Section 3.2 <http://goo.gl/tcSEnA> of my book <http://bit.ly/oa-book), it's a serious tactical mistake to neglect the advantages of green while pursuing the advantages of gold. It's like fighting with one hand tied behind your back. This is exactly what the Dutch universities have done. (It's also what the Finch Committee and RCUK did at the national level in the UK, and what Sander Dekker seems to want to do at the national level in the Netherlands.) Green mandates don't require bargaining with publishers. They don't require paying more in subscriptions. They don't pressure authors to publish in some journals rather than others. Depending on their terms, they can require immediate or unembargoed OA, and require open licenses. And they help create a world in which OA is the default, which makes negotiating with publishers easier and less expensive.

VSNU announcement of the Elsevier agreement, December 10, 2015
http://www.vsnu.nl/en_GB/news-items.html/nieuwsbericht/241

VSNU FAQ on the agreement
http://vsnu.nl/files/documenten/Domeinen/Onderzoek/Open%20access/QA_OpenAccess_Akkoord_Elsevier_ENG.pdf

For more news and comment on the agreement, see the "oa.netherlands" tag library for the Open Access Tracking Project.
http://tagteam.harvard.edu/hubs/oatp/tag/oa.netherlands

#oa #openaccess


Why the copyright on Anne Frank's diary should not be extended.
 
From Michael Wolfe at the +Authors Alliance: "John Degen describes the Anne Frank Fonds’ [Foundation's] attempt to extend the copyright term of The Diary of Anne Frank by claiming Otto Frank as co-author as an 'elegant' move worthy of support. It is not. It is a tactic that is inimical to the integrity of authorship, hurts authors, shortchanges the public, and deserves the public protest it has engendered...."
 
#copyright, #copyfraud,

Which will catch up faster, open textbooks or closed textbooks?

Textbooks Out of Step with Scientists on Climate Change.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2015/12/textbooks_out_of_step_with_scientists_on_climate_change.html

There are two reasons to think that open textbooks will catch up with the science of climate change faster than closed textbooks (on average). First, they're about as easy to update as web pages. But digital, closed textbooks share that advantage, if they have the will to use it. That leads to the second reason. Open textbooks are produced by authors and publishers whose overriding motive is to share knowledge. Without question, closed textbooks can be written by good people, and published by good publishers. But the possibility of sales revenue creates mixed motives. Marketing makes one consider what different schools want. Some want state-of-the-art knowledge. But on the subject of climate change (and evolution, US history, and depressingly many other topics), some don't. Some are subject to pressure to tell the stories that legislators or parents want students to hear.

#oa, #openaccess, #textbooks, #oer, #climate

I follow many communities. But I don't want to click on them separately to see their latest posts. How can I make a stream out of all the communities I've joined?

My first choice would be to add all my communities to a circle called My Communities, or add them to several circles according to their topics or priority for my time. But G+ doesn't (yet) let us add communities or collections to circles. I've requested this feature elsewhere.
https://plus.google.com/+PeterSuber/posts/Ed2kbpmmrME

Meantime, how does G+ expect us to solve this problem? Without a solution, we can technically follow many communities, but realistically read just a few.

Dubai declaration or recommendations on open education.

Last year about this time, news stories set us up to expect the imminent release of the Dubai Declaration on Open Access to Learning. Here's an example.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/nation/education/need-for-open-access-to-learning-stressed-at-conference

I've been searching ever since and haven't found the declaration.

Subsequent news stories suggested that the title changed to Dubai Recommendations on Open Access to Learning. Here's an example.
http://www.cud.ac.ae/news/canadian-university-dubai-become-regional-hub-open-access-learning-following-%E2%80%98dubai

But I can't find the recommendations either.

Does anyone have a URL for the declaration or recommendations? Or does anyone know why they might not yet have been released?

#oa #openaccess #oer 

More evidence that #openaccess meets unmet demand.
 
From +ECS - The Electrochemical Society: "We made 100% of the content in the ECS Digital Library completely free to access for seven straight days and saw a 51% increase in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society usage compared to the same week in 2014...."
 
#oa #openaccess #usage

A few minutes ago at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. 

When are state laws copyrightable? And how complicated can it be?

Thanks and congratulations to Katie Zimmerman and Kyle Courtney for this very useful 50-state survey.

Here's the resource itself: The State Copyright Resource Center.
http://copyright.lib.harvard.edu/states/

And here's today's announcement from the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication.
http://goo.gl/2fL2ME

#law, #oa, #openaccess


This is a better shot of the same barn in my last post <https://goo.gl/mWq3nW>. Sorry for the repetition but I couldn't resist. In the first shot, the time was a bit before noon and the poetic west-facing wall was still in the shade. I snapped it anyway because I didn't think I'd be back for a while. But by chance I was able to snap it again soon after noon with some sunlight on the wall. The bump on the horizon to the right is Blue Hill.

Between Orland and Penobscot, #Maine.