Elsevier buys Mendeley!

It was confirmed today that Elsevier has bought Mendeley for a sum of money somewhere between $69 and $100 million. Mendeley is a platform for academics and organisations to share research and collaborate with each other via a social network.  It has been in operation since 2008.
Given that all the Mendeley staff are moving over to Elsevier this may signal their intention to become more involved in the world of open and social educational data!

Interesting times in the United Kingdom!

Some time ago the Research Council of the United Kingdom choose to select Gold Open Access. This means that the Funders pay the publishers for open access rights for scholarly publications. The alternative is Green Open Access where the author deposits a draft of his/her article in the institutional repository thus incurring no costs whatsover.

 A report published today by the House of Lords Science and Technical Committee recommends determining whether other countries are mandating Gold or Green OA. The National Principles on Open Access published before Christmas clearly show that Ireland has opted for Green Open Access and not just because we cannot afford Gold but because it is the right thing to do!

The House of Lords report has criticised the RCUK policy stating "There are still many unknowns concering the impact of the open access policy, which is why the RCUK must commit to a wide ranging review of its policy in 2014, 2016 and before it expects full compliance in 2018". Further on the report states "Open Access is an inexorable trend. The Government must ensure that in further developing our capabilities to share research they do no inadvertently damage the "complex ecosystem" of research communication in the U.K."
Lets hope they see the "Green Light" as our government has done already!

A new kind of journal was launched in December, 2012. eLife is an open access funder sponsored journal. Their mission statement says "We are a joint initiative of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society, and the Wellcome Trust. Along with a growing number of public and private research funders worldwide, these three organisations recognise that the communication of research results is as fundamental a component of the research process as the experiments themselves. Disseminating new findings as widely and effectively as possible maximises the value of research investments. The first step in the initiative is to establish a new, open-access venue for the most important advances — from basic biological research through to applied, translational and clinical studies.". This is a recognition by these powerful bodies that open access publishing increases the speed of scholarly communication,the advancement of knowledge and assists impact. Is this the start of a new trend in publishing?

National Principles for Open Access

The Irish Government has adopted the National Principles on Open Access which will come into effect in January, 2013. This means that all publicly funded research must be made available on open access. Obviously, this can only be when to do so is not a breach of the publisher's policy but the adoption of the Principles is a great stride forward for the Open Access movement in Ireland. Read National Principles for Open Access Policy

Springer for Sale!

Rumours abound that the Springer Publishing Company is up for sale. Springer publishes approx 6,500 new titles every year and owns 60 publishing houses in 20 countries in Europe, Asia and North America. This will pose an interesting dilemma for the new owners as Springer has always promoted Gold Open Access where the researcher pays for the rights to make their work freely available. This has been opposed by librarians and many others who have always supported Green Open Access where the author retains the right to publish his final draft version on an Open Access Repository. Were the new owners to have a different policy, what happens to the money researchers have already paid over to Springer for OA rights? Interesting times ahead!

Increase the number of downloads

A useful article to read is " Can LindedIn and Academic.edu Enhance Access to Open Repositories" which describes how liking your publications in such services appears to increase the number of downloads. Downloads are not necessarily an indicator of quality but they are an indication that papers are being circulated and thereby contribute to impact.

US Research Works Act abandoned

This Act would have outlawed Open Access Mandates but was quietly dropped recently. This was because Elsevier withdrew it's support for the Act because 8,500 academics had pledged to boycott the publisher if it persevered in this course of action. Self interest supports dissemination of information. Hurrah!