Are economic ideas a sustainable commons? A study of the exchange of creative economics

In this essay I claim that productive markets need not necessarily involve clearly defined and enforced property rights, upon which a price system can be used to allocate resources. I shall pursue this thought by an examination of the mechanisms that facilitate the exchange of economic ideas, and link academic norms to the emerging theoretical justification for open source software, and “free culture”.economic ideas, commons, free culture, journals

Perceptions of Open Access Publishing among Academic Journal Editors in China

Open access publishing is examined from the perspective of academic journal editors in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In addition to providing background information on academic publishing in China, the author incorporates interviews with two editors from open access and four from traditional subscription-based journals in the region. The editors share their general views on Chinese academic publishing and reflect on how open access has or could affect their publications. The editors comment on such issues as the economic viability of open access publishing in China and the potential benefits and challenges faced by Chinese academic journal editors who pursue open access

Download It While It\u27s Hot: Open Access and Legal Scholarship

This article analyzes the shift of legal scholarship from the old world of law reviews to today\u27s world of peer reviews to tomorrow\u27s world of open access legal blogs. This shift is occurring in three dimensions. First, legal scholarship is moving from the long form (treatises and law review articles) to the short form (very short articles, blog posts, and online collaborations). Second, a regime of exclusive rights is giving way to a regime of open access. Third, intermediaries (law school editorial boards, peer-reviewed journals) are being supplemented by disintermediated forms (papers on the Internet, blogs). Blogs and internet conversations between academics are expanding interdisciplinary legal scholarship and increasing the avenues of communication among legal scholars, practitioners and a wide array of interested laypersons worldwide

Knowledge exchange: A strategy for open access success at The University of Hong Kong

This paper was partially presented as a conference paper at Berlin8 Open Access Conference, Oct. 25-26, 2010, Beijing, China.The University of Hong Kong's statement on vision now has three themes: 1) Research, 2) teaching & learning, and 3) knowledge exchange (KE). KE emphasizes HKU's desire to interact with its community for a mutual benefit. A new five-year strategic plan (2009–2014) sets out operational priorities and key indicators to enable knowledge exchange at HKU. Chief among these is the establishment of an exchange hub to make HKU researchers and their research products highly visible. The institutional repository of HKU, "the HKU Scholars Hub", developed by its University Libraries, has become this KE exchange hub. Now the Hub includes HKU ResearcherPages, featuring the accomplishments of each HKU professoriate staff. HKU's policy on knowledge exchange and the "HKU ResearcherPages" have increased the incentive for faculties, departments, and authors to place more items in open access (OA). This paper will discuss what KE is, the benefits it can bring to the university and its reputation, and how it can increase OA deposit.published_or_final_versio

Integrierte Informationsdienstleistungen für die Afrikaforschung: Neuere Entwicklungen in Deutschland und Europa

New projects, services and collaborations have recently brought the infrastructural services for African Studies a big step forward. This report gives an account of new subject gateways and digitisation projects. It discusses recent European cooperation ventures in the field of librarianship. Additionally, new developments and services of the Africa Collection at Frankfurt University Library are presented, which help to address the changing needs of researchers and to handle information overload, while keeping up with the latest developments. Nevertheless, the fragmentation and compartmentalisation of the different services still hinder more integrated information services.Neue Projekte, Dienstleistungen und Kooperationen haben die Informationsversorgung der Afrikastudien einen großen Schritt vorangebracht. In diesem Bericht werden neue Fachportale und Digitalisierungsprojekte präsentiert; die in den vergangenen Jahren intensivierte europäische Zusammenarbeit der Afrika-Bibliotheken wird nachgezeichnet. Schließlich werden neue Dienstleistungen der Afrika-Sammlung der Frankfurter Universitätsbibliothek vorgestellt, die veränderten Bedürfnissen der Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler Rechnung tragen und es erlauben, die Informationsflut besser zu bewältigen und gleichzeitig den Überblick über aktuelle Entwicklungen zu behalten. Gleichwohl ist die Fragmentierung unterschiedlicher Dienstleistungsangebote noch nicht überwunden

Trialing project-based learning in a new EAP ESP course: A collaborative reflective practice of three college English teachers

Currently in many Chinese universities, the traditional College English course is facing the risk of being ‘marginalized’, replaced or even removed, and many hours previously allocated to the course are now being taken by EAP or ESP. At X University in northern China, a curriculum reform as such is taking place, as a result of which a new course has been created called ‘xue ke’ English. Despite the fact that ‘xue ke’ means subject literally, the course designer has made it clear that subject content is not the target, nor is the course the same as EAP or ESP. This curriculum initiative, while possibly having been justified with a rationale of some kind (e.g. to meet with changing social and/or academic needs of students and/or institutions), this is posing a great challenge for, as well as considerable pressure on, a number of College English teachers who have taught this single course for almost their entire teaching career. In such a context, three teachers formed a peer support group in Semester One this year, to work collaboratively co-tackling the challenge, and they chose Project-Based Learning (PBL) for the new course. This presentation will report on the implementation of this project, including the overall designing, operational procedure, and the teachers’ reflections. Based on discussion, pre-agreement was reached on the purpose and manner of collaboration as offering peer support for more effective teaching and learning and fulfilling and pleasant professional development. A WeChat group was set up as the chief platform for messaging, idea-sharing, and resource-exchanging. Physical meetings were supplementary, with sound agenda but flexible time, and venues. Mosoteach cloud class (lan mo yun ban ke) was established as a tool for virtual learning, employed both in and after class. Discussions were held at the beginning of the semester which determined only brief outlines for PBL implementation and allowed space for everyone to autonomously explore in their own way. Constant further discussions followed, which generated a great deal of opportunities for peer learning and lesson plan modifications. A reflective journal, in a greater or lesser detailed manner, was also kept by each teacher to record the journey of the collaboration. At the end of the semester, it was commonly recognized that, although challenges existed, the collaboration was overall a success and they were all willing to continue with it and endeavor to refine it to be a more professional and productive approach

Policy Framework and Roadmap for Open Access, Open Research Data and Open Science

Overview of the growth of policies and a critical appraisal of the issues affecting open access, open data and open science policies. Example policies and a roadmap for open access, open research data and open science are included.The autumn training school Development and Promotion of Open Access to Scientific Information and Research is organized in the frame of the Fourth International Conference on Digital Presentation and Preservation of Cultural and Scientific Heritage—DiPP2014 (September 18–21, 2014, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, http://dipp2014.math.bas.bg/), organized under the UNESCO patronage. The main organiser is the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences with the support of EU project FOSTER (http://www.fosteropenscience.eu/) and the P. R. Slaveykov Regional Public Library in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

A Comparative Study of India and Australia Open Access Repositories in OpenDOAR

An open access repository or open archive is a digital platform that holds research output and provides free, immediate, and permanent access to research results for anyone to use, download and distribute. To facilitate open access such repositories must be interoperable according to the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). Search engines harvest the content of open access repositories, constructing a database of worldwide, free of charge available research. OpenDOAR is the quality-assured, global Directory of Open Access Repositories. Its repositories provide free, open access to academic outputs and resources. This paper deals with Comparative analysis of India and Australia repositories listed in OpenDOAR in terms of their growth, type, operational status, content type, software, subject coverage, language, and policies regarding content, submission, and preservatio

Open Access Moment in Pakistan

Manuscripts are known as the intellectual and cultural heritage of a nation. Pakistan is enriched with this treasure left by Muslims antecedents of the IndoPak Subcontinent. A number of institutional and personal libraries hold a good number of manuscripts; especially on Islamic subjects and Quran collections. It is important to highlight the hidden and neglected state of these manuscripts for further research. This paper seeks to reveal the previous and current status of the manuscripts in Pakistan. A broad picture of manuscripts in Pakistan will be presented through factual data (i.e., total number, languages, institutional/personal holdings, locations, age, writing styles and materials). Governmental and professional efforts, awareness programs, state of digitization and access issues will be highlighted. Recommendations are given for considerations