Why Academics Blog & Crooked Timber Here's an excellent series of comments on why academics blog.... just the kind of thing that I should be reading too! Also this is from a blog, Crooked Timber, which looks like a ridiculously well read blog covering a whole range of academic topics... just look down the right bar! Oh heck, another x thou posts in my aggregator... why not :O) - From James Farmer's Radio Weblog on March 21, 2004 at 11:02 p.m..

Opportunity in e-Learning Why is e-Learning a great opportunity? E-learning emerges as fastest growing learning tool - AME Info. According to recent research conducted by the Dubai based Madar Research Group, the market is expected to grow at a compound average growth rate (CAGR) of 32 per cent. The growth in the e-learning market will cover content providers, technology provid [Online Learning Update] From Bill Brandon: eLearning on March 21, 2004 at 11:02 p.m..

Lessig: copyright balance needed for innovation Robert McMillan, Lessig: Be wary of "IP extremists", ComputerWorld, March 17, 2004. Summarizing Lawrence Lessig's Tuesday talk to the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco. Excerpt: "Citing a decision last year by the World Intellectual Property Organization to cancel a meeting on the role of open source in world intellectual property law [PS: the meeting would also have covered open access to research literature], Lessig said that the argument over intellectual property law has become unnecess From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:02 p.m..

OA for radiology Q&A The Society for Computer Applications in Radiology (SCAR) has converted its SCAR Expert Hotline to open access. Quoting the press release: "This valuable question and answer resource, previously available only to current SCAR members in print format, will now be archived and updated online for access by both members and non-members alike. Searching and viewing the service is free, and provides a wealth of information for professionals who use, or are From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

Comparison of US and UK cancer informatics projects Making data dreams come true, Nature 428, 239 (18 March 2004). (Access restricted to subscribers.) A Nature editorial ponders the data-sharing possibilities unleashed by the U.S. National Cancer Institute's Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBig; see Peter Suber's previous posting) and Britain's National Cancer Research In From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

Hal Abelson on OpenCourseWare and DSpace David Hendricks, MIT's maverick view of intellectual property worth considering, San Antonio Express News, March 18, 2004. An interview with MIT's Hal Abelson, touching on MIT's OpenCourseWare and DSpace projects. Quoting Abelson: "Both sites strengthen the intellectual commons. Universities are meant to pass the torch of civilization....Giving it away helps defuse complex intellectual property From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

News article on DC principles David Malakoff, "Open" Versus "Free" Journals, ScienceNOW, 16 March 2004. (Access restricted to subscribers.) Malakoff reports on "The Washington DC Principles for Free Access to Science," signed by 48 scientific society publishers affirming their commitment to making articles freely available "depending on each publisher's business and publishing requirements." The article presents these society publishers as negotiating a middle way between open access/author-payment models and for-profit publishers. Rick J From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

More on the DC principles Katie Mantell, Societies back expanded free access to research, SciDev.Net, March 18, 2004. Excerpt: "A substantial number of the United States' leading medical and scientific societies have declared their support for free access to research under certain circumstances --including access by scientists working in low-income countries." From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

Colin Steele on eprints, OA, and more JISC has published an interview with Colin Steele, Director of Scholarly Information Strategies at the Australian National University (March 18, 2004). Excerpts, all quoting Steele: ePrints are only part of the wider repository debate. It is quite clear that the main issue in populating repositories is a cultural and political one and not a technical issue. This has been reinforced by the presentations at the third OAI conference in Geneva and the Open Access conference i From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

Federal priorities for digital libraries Ronald Larsen and Howard Wactlar, Knowledge Lost in Information, NSF, March 8, 2004. A Report of the NSF Workshop on Research Directions for Digital LIbraries (Chatham, Massachusetts, June 15-17, 2003). Excerpt: "Digital libraries are transforming research, scholarship and education at all levels. Vast quantities of information are being collected and stored online, and organized to be accessible to everyone. Substantial improvements in scholarly productivity are already apparent. Digital resources have demonstrated the potential to From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

ERIC contractor finally appointed The U.S. Department of Education has given a five-year contract to Computer Services Corporation to operate the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC). From the press release: "The ERIC database is the world's largest education database. Begun in 1966, it is composed of more than one million bibliographic records. The goal of the new ERIC is to provide more education materials quicker, and more directly, From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

Nature launches OA forum on OA Nature has launched Access to the literature: the debate continues, a new collection of OA opinion pieces on the subject of OA. From the site: "The Internet is profoundly changing how scientists work and publish. New business models are being tested by publishers, including open access, in which the author pays and content is free to the user. This ongoing web focus will explore current trends and future possibilities. Each week, the website will publish specially commissione From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

It's not funny any more Donald Trump has made a lot of money recently saying "You're Fired! on television. Now he wants to copyright the phrase. According to ABC News, Trump is "seeking exclusive rights to use the phrase on items of clothing, as well as 'games and playthings,' and in connection with 'casino services'." (PS: Time for basement T-shirt makers to get into the act.) From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

News article on BioMed Central pricing changes Andrew Albanese, BioMed Central Changes Tack, Library Journal 3/15/2004. Albanese reports on BMC's proposal to change institutional membership charges from a "flat fee" to a "per article published" model. Further, the article reports that the changes were announced on the LIBLICENSE-L discussion list, which surprised Phil Davis, librarian of Cornell University, who remarked: "I think BMC is trying to figure out their model as they go along," and also expressed doubts that the new model would bring home knowledge of actual publ From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

Author survey on level of protection needed for OA articles Elizabeth Gadd, Charles Oppenheim, Steve Probets, RoMEO studies 6: rights metadata for open archiving, Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems, 38, 1 (2004). Only the abstract is accessible to non-subscribers, at least so far. "This is the final study in a series of six emanating from the UK JISC-funded RoMEO Project (rights metadata for open-archiving), which investigated the intellectu From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

Treasury Dept to end embargo on scientific editing Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, Editing Ban to Be Eased, But Cuban Travel Blocked, Science, March 19, 2004. Excerpt: "After months of protests by U.S. publishers, the federal government last week said it would ease restrictions on the publication of papers from countries under a U.S. trade embargo. But that good news was offset by its warning off more than 50 U.S. scientists from attending a conference last week in Cuba, part of what appears to be a broader crackdown on travel to the com From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

Criticism of OA journals Michael Mabe, Caveat Auctor: Let the author beware, Serials, March 2004. Only the abstract is free online: "The author argues that the fundamental philosophical tenet of open access (OA) is a noble one: that all information should be free at the point of use. However, some of the assumptions behind the drive to OA should be questioned. For example: do authors really want everyone to read their articles? Does the general public From FOS News on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

OA recommendation for New Zealand journals Fytton Rowland, The Royal Society of New Zealand's journals: how can they cope with the changing serials environment? Serials, March 2004. Only this abstract is free online: "This paper reports a consultancy project undertaken in September 2003 for the New Zealand Government, which studied the government-subsidized journal publishing operations of the Royal Society of New Zealand (RSNZ) and made recommendations for changes From Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

Changing the world, one tag at a time Amnesty International USA is looking to hire one good, standards-oriented web designer/developer. From Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

A List Apart 174: Accessible Pop-up Links By Caio Chassot: Sometimes we have to use pop-ups -- so we might as well do them right. This article will show you how to make them more accessible and reliable while simplifying their implementation. From Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

Michael OO's generational blogging Michael O'Connor Clarke's father has started telling the family story. And Michael's son, Charlie, at 6.5 years has started writing stories. Not blogged yet. All I can is that I hope Queen Isabelle gets better. Oh, and, "Scramble!" :-)... From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

On the road: I'm at the DC Politics Online Conference, put on by the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, where Markos Zuniga of the Daily Kos and I are supposed to be "debating" Zack Exley of MoveOn.org and someone from RightMarch.com on the topic: "One lesson from the Dean campaign is that centralization and control are the keys to using the Internet to win campaigns." Sure they are. And so are decentralization and the willingness to give up some control.... From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

[poc] Opening Plenary Panel I'm at the Politics Online Conference, put on by the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. It seems to be te place to be. With 400+ paid attendees, it's the biggest conference the IPDI has put on. The attendees ain't no Internet hippies. The guys dressed informally are the ones whose navy blue suits don't have pin stripes. Well, there is a Net brigade here, including Cameron Barrett, Mathew Gross, Joe Trippi, Dick Bell, Scott Heiferman, Joe Trippi. I've heard Zephyr is coming, too. (Yay!) [NOTE: Much of what follows is in the voice of the speakers.] Phil From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:01 p.m..

[poc] Media panel Cam Barrett, ex of Clarke, now consulting to Kerry, starts. At Clarke, he built an infrastructure for online community. Everyone got to have their own voice and point of view. Gary Kebbel, News Director for AOL, says that only online news is growing. It's not just the medium. It's the audience. [We are not an audience!] That's why at AOL we've created an election site that hits all the audiences. We're most proud of our "SideShow" page, a partnership with Comedy Central, the Onion, Bill Mahr and others. He reads some cynical definitions from The Onion. It's got au From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:00 p.m..

[poc] Influentials [I came late to this.] Influentials are more Republican and less Democratic than the general public, but less likely to be undecided. The top concerns of the influentials are terrorism, foreign relations, but they are less interested in terrorism than the general public and more interested in foreign relations. Terrorism is trending up. The breakdown of the family is trending down. The only domestic issue trending up is health care. Who are the online influentials? They did a a phone survey of 1,000 poeople and an online survey of 1,400 people. 7% of the phone surveyees counted as online... From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:00 p.m..

[poc] Ken Mehlman The lunchtime talk begins with Ken Mehlman, Bush-Cheney's campaign manager. He starts graciously by thanking the Dean campaign which taught us a lesson: "The power of the power of the Web and the power of technology means if you have an idea thats interesting, there's a viral way to get that message out." [Excellent! He only sees it as a way of moving messages around!] He says the party first onto the a technology historically is the campaign that dominates it. The Web is not a substitute for the message. Technology is a way you communicate a candidate's message; it's... From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:00 p.m..

[poc] Joe Trippi Joe Trippi follows Ken Mehlman as we eat our bad desserts in the packed room. He says [notes, not transcript! As always.]: I agree with Ken that the party that puts the resources into the new medium usually ends up dominating that medium. It's a little worrisome that we may have just awakened a sleeping giant. I want to talk about something bigger than any campaign. The Net is a new medium that's different: it empowers the average American. TV doesn't. TV may have been the most powerful appliance in the American home, but the power was for the... From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:00 p.m..

[poc] Control vs. Decentralization Keynote Panel This was supposed to be a debate, with Zack Exley (MoveOn.org) and a guy from RightMarch.com on one side [Sorry, I didn't get his name! Ack!] and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (Daily Kos) and me on the other. Predictably, we all agreed that campaigns need both, although Kos and I did push the decentralization side harder. We each gave a 5 minute intro, moderated by the natty Sidney Blumenthal of Salon and general media fame. Zack made an impressive, coherent case for the power of centralized control, while admitting that decentralized community-forming does have a role. But, to win the... From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:00 p.m..

[em] Regulation of Media Ownership in the Tech Age The moderator is Jerry Kang from the UCLA LAw School, a visiting prof. at Harvard. Kang: The FCC wants to maximize competition, diversity and localism. So, what do they do? Horizontally, they decide how many TV stations a single firm can own in a local market. In 1996, the FCC decided that a single company could own two stations, with some restrictions. In the Sinclair case (2002), you can own more than 2 if it's one of 18 big markets. Similarly for radio. Nationally, in 1996, the cap on how many stations a single company can own was enlarged.... From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:00 p.m..

How the Web changed my name All my life, I've been "David," except to my older sister who calls me "Dave" or "Davey." If you call me "Dave," I won't correct you, although if you ask me my preference, I'll say "David" without hesitation. If you ask me why, I won't be able to give you a meaningful answer other than that my family called me "David." Now, at age 53, I find I'm becoming a Dave. About half the time. The explanation is, I think, simple... Continued at Many2Many...... From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:00 p.m..

F2F Criticism There's something fetching about David Ansen's interview with Kevin Smith. Ansen is Newsweek's film critic and Smith is the creator of sloppy-but-appealing movies. Ansen has liked much of Smith's work but not his latest, Jersey Girl. They have an honest conversation about it. How odd!... From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:00 p.m..

[pcf] Faxes do not count as electronic documents I just arrived in Scottsdale and walked in late to the first session of PC Forum. I was late because our America West plane sat on the ground for 3 hours as they diagnosed and fixed a faulty oil pump. Of course, things break and I don 't blame them for that. But the first 1.5 hours were spent on faxing the diagnostic procedures from Phoenix to Boston. Faxing????? I used to work at Interleaf. We had this problem solved in 1989. Then, for the 9 hour flight (6 hours flying, 3 on the ground), we were rewarded with... From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:00 p.m..

[pcf] Ride over: PW domain I shared a ride from the airport and happened to sit with two guys doing really interesting things. Let me tell you about one of them... Tom Barrett has done a deal with Palau (pop. 16,000) to offer the .pw top-level domain. He's got a 50-year exclusive contract, with revenue sharing for the Palauians. And he's doing something interesting with it. You can register a domain name at .pw...sort of. Your ISP might offer you "joe@smith.pw," if your name were Joe Smith. But if you were then to go to www.smith.pw, you wouldn't go straight to your home page. You'd... From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:00 p.m..

[pcf] PC Forum Bloggers Here's a list of people blogging the conference: * Esther Dyson * Ross Mayfield * Bret Fausett * Scott Heiferman * Cory Doctorow * Edward Vielmetti - following along from home * Scott Rosenberg * David Sifry * Brian Dear... From Joho the Blog on March 21, 2004 at 11:00 p.m..

Distributive Justice: Fair Shares for Professors and Teachers Summary: After a series of entries, in which I progressively moved my study of distributive justice toward its specific application to educators, I recently concluded that principles of distributive justice do apply to teachers. In this entry I start with what professors and teachers have in common. I end by setting up a later entry in which I explore the differences. [Naturally, every entry in this continuing series is, even if perfectly argued, not binding upon the behavior of employers, not, that is, until From Connectivity: Spike Hall's RU Weblog on March 21, 2004 at 11:00 p.m..

Test, Test, Test This is a test posting. I've been off-line for more than a week because of problems with my Radio weblog data files. I lost postings from the week of March 8th that I will try to re-post. JH From EduResources--Higher Education Resources Online on March 21, 2004 at 10:46 p.m..

Before Attacks, Bush Administration Dismissed Al Qaeda Danger Tonight's "60 Minutes" on CBS features Richard Clarke, former top anti-terrorism advisor to Presidents Bush and Clinton, excoriating the Bush people for ignoring repeated warnings about Al Qaeda's intentions -- until the 9/11 attacks, at which point they insisted that Iraq,despite the evidence, was somehow behind the atrocities. "I find it outrageous that the President is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism," Clarke tells CBS. "He igno From Dan Gillmor's eJournal on March 21, 2004 at 10:46 p.m..

Globalization, Off-Shoring and the Elephant in the Room The first PC Forum panel consists of people relentlessly promoting free trade and offshoring. There was lip service to job losses, but not a word about the big question sitting out there. There's a reasonable chance that the flood of well-educated, technically astute and English-speaking people into the work force will be a disaster for the American economy. This isn't because U.S. workers are bad; it's because the several hundred million people I just mentioned are happy to work for a quarter of what American can afford to work for at this point. We could have a domestic e From Dan Gillmor's eJournal on March 21, 2004 at 8:45 p.m..

Questionnaire: content management in Europe Erik M. Hartman of Hartman Communicatie BV has established a brief questionnaire looking at content management issues within Europe. To quote: Content management is on top of the corporate agenda for many European organisations, both profit and non-profit. This questionnaire... From Column Two on March 21, 2004 at 6:47 p.m..

Activist Congressmen Try a Power Grab Take a look at HR 3920, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on March 9, 2004. The bill, titled the "Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2004," would grant Congress the right to overturn the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court "to the extent that [they concern] the constitutionality of an Act of Congress." A two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress would be required to overturn such a decision; this is the same condition applied to overturning a Presidential veto of legislation. The bill is currently in committee. The ability to declare laws unconstit From kuro5hin.org on March 21, 2004 at 6:45 p.m..

$1 Million for Student Exchange with Europe A new student exchange project will be developed to help increase opportunities for Australian students to study in Europe. Universities will be asked to submit proposals for a third pilot project, which will help promote student mobility and further encourage formal higher education cooperation between Australia and the European Union. The project will involve a group of Australian and European universities working together to develop a joint Masters programme involving an element of student exchange between Australia and EU Member States. From EdNA Online on March 21, 2004 at 6:45 p.m..

TypePad strenghtens its position Ublog will represent Six Apart , that is Movable Type and TypePad in Europe, Africa, and the Middle-East. It will bring TypePad service with lots of localizations. Thanks to Nico for pointing me to this. From thomas n. burg | randgänge on March 21, 2004 at 4:47 p.m..

PC Forum 2004 Arrived in Phoenix for the always-interesting PC Forum conference. More on that later... The flight down, once we got going, was uneventful. But the plane had to go back to the gate due to odd data from one of the flight computers, a distinctly good thing to do with the fly-by-wire A320 we were on. They shut down the systems, started them up again, ran a bunch of extra diagnostics and sent us on our way. I'm glad it all worked, but it's a tiny bit disconcerting to realize that they had to reboot the airplane. From Dan Gillmor's eJournal on March 21, 2004 at 3:45 p.m..

Microsoft Change? Don't Hold Your Breath The evidence continues to mount, after all, that the world's biggest software company hasn't changed the methods that got it this far. With some $50 billion in cash plus a stated willingness to spend whatever it takes to prevent any meaningful modification in its behavior, Microsoft has ample resources to fend off just about anything governments can do short of sending in troops. From Dan Gillmor's eJournal on March 21, 2004 at 3:45 p.m..

Walk the talk - online social networking and the real world - BlogWalk Finally online again. I spent the last week in Brussels visiting friends there. (Un)fortunately I was not able/willing to get online even the announcement that was supposed to appear on this place didn't show up due to som... From thomas n. burg | randgänge on March 21, 2004 at 12:47 p.m..

Wikis and News “Turn to Press for the official record, Blog for social context and Wiki for the public record.”Every now and then I still get blown away by how people are using these technologies, and this is one of those times. Ross Mayfield posts about the difference between the media, blogs and wikis when it comes to covering world events, and he uses the recent Spain bombings as an example. Certainly, there were hundreds if not thousands of media reports on the bombings, From weblogged News on March 21, 2004 at 11:47 a.m..

Bruxelles Derzeit in Bruxelles. Auf halbem Weg nach Enschede. Slow blogging again. From thomas n. burg | randgänge on March 21, 2004 at 11:47 a.m..

More on Blogs and Composition A couple of other links to composition related blogging that add to the Weblogs for composition discussion. First, Charlie Lowe at Kairosnews has put up a presentation he's doing at 4Cs next week titled "Weblogs as a Personal Knowledge Publishing Tool for Scholars and Practitioners." Under the writing part, he lists: