Knowledge Unlatched:A Global Library Consortium Model for Funding Open Access Scholarly Books

This special issue of Cultural Science Journal is devoted to the report of a groundbreaking experiment in re-coordinating global markets for specialist scholarly books and enabling the knowledge commons: the Knowledge Unlatched proof-of-concept pilot. The pilot took place between January 2012 and September 2014. It involved libraries, publishers, authors, readers and research funders in the process of developing and testing a global library consortium model for supporting Open Access books. The experiment established that authors, librarians, publishers and research funding agencies can work together in powerful new ways to enable open access; that doing so is cost effective; and that a global library consortium model has the potential dramatically to widen access to the knowledge and ideas contained in book-length scholarly works

Open access and soft power: Chinese voices in international scholarship

Networked digital technologies and Open Access (OA) are transforming the processes and institutions of research, knowledge creation and dissemination globally: enabling new forms of collaboration, allowing researchers to be seen and heard in new ways and reshaping relationships between stakeholders across the global academic publishing system. This article draws on Joseph Nye’s concept of ‘Soft Power’ to explore the role that OA is playing in helping to reshape academic publishing in China. It focuses on two important areas of OA development: OA journals and national-level repositories. OA is being supported at the highest levels, and there is potential for it to play an important role in increasing the status and impact of Chinese scholarship. Investments in OA also have the potential to help China to re-position itself within international copyright discourses: moving beyond criticism for failure to enforce the rights of foreign copyright owners and progressing an agenda that places greater emphasis on equality of access to the resources needed to foster innovation. However, the potential for OA to help China to build and project its soft power is being limited by the legacies of the print era, as well as the challenges of efficiently governing the national research and innovation systems

Changing the gender narrative with open access

Academic success is regularly framed in terms of a particular set of publishing activities that disadvantages women. Katie Wilson and Lucy Montgomery discuss their recent research into how women researchers have pioneered the use of open access and the potential this could have for developing programmes that support more diverse and equitable forms of success for all researchers

Changing the gender narrative with open access

Academic success is regularly framed in terms of a particular set of publishing activities that disadvantages women. In this post, Katie Wilson and Lucy Montgomery discuss their recent research into how women researchers have pioneered the use of open access and the potential this could have for developing programmes that support more diverse and equitable forms of success for all researchers

Open Access and Scholarly Books Workshop Report

On 19 June 2013 Knowledge Unlatched and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School jointly convened a one-day workshop titled Open Access and Scholarly Books in Cambridge, MA. The workshop brought together a group of 21 invited publishers, librarians, academics and Open Access innovators to discuss the challenge of making scholarly books Open Access. This report captures discussions that took place on the day. Lucy Montgomery compiled this report

The Relation Between Achievement in Home Economics and Intelligence

This study is the result of the combination of several factors. It is principally, however, the result of an interest in the relation of grades achieved by students in high school and their intelligence; of experiences in teaching both academic subjects and home economics; and of observing the work of a number of home economics teachers. An interest in the relation of grades and I Q\u27s together with the experiences in teaching and observing home economics classes has brought up the question of the relation between grades achieved by students in this subject and the intelligence of these students as indicated by their I Q\u27s

Getting the best out of data for small monograph presses: A case study of UCL press

Digital developments in scholarly publishing are giving rise to new data sources with the potential to provide insight into how OA monographs are being used and to support strategic decision-making by publishers. However, small OA monograph publishers face practical challenges in identifying relevant data, as well as in capturing, managing and interpreting it. This case study of UCL Press reports on a collaborative research project that sought to address some of these challenges. The project involved UCL Press, Knowledge Unlatched Research and the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University in Australia (CCAT). Our goal was to identify the extent to which data that can be easily accessed by a small OA monograph press can be combined with low-cost tools for its analysis in order to provide useful insight into development and strategy; and to identify practical steps that can be taken by small OA monograph publishers to ensure that they are making the most of the data that they have access to

Investigations of ABA Signalling Pathways in Stomatal Guard Cells.

The effect of analogues of abscisic acid (ABA) on stomatal aperture and GUS activity driven by an ABA-responsive gene promoter (CDeT6-19) in guard cells was examined. The ABA analogues used were (-)-ABA, (+/-)-trans, trans-ABA, and (+)-and (-)-dihydroacetylenic abscisyl alcohol (PB1-63 and PBI-51, respectively). (+)-ABA and (+/-)-ABA were included in the investigations for comparison. (-)-ABA, hitherto believed to have little or no effect on stomatal aperture, significantly inhibited stomatal opening in Commelina communis, Vicia faba, Nicotiana tabacum and Arabidopsis thaliana. In contrast, PBI-51 [a competitive inhibitor of ABA-induced gene expression] had no effect on ABA-induced inhibition of stomatal opening (determined in both C. communis and N. tabacum) or ABA-induced promotion of stomatal closure (determined in C. communis only). Differences in the effectiveness of PBI-63, PBI-51 and (-)-ABA at inhibiting stomatal opening were discovered between plant species. These data demonstrate the importance of comparing the effect of ABA analogues on stomatal opening and CDeT6-19/GUS activity in guard cells in a single plant species. (+/-)-ABA enhanced CDeT6-J9/GUS activity in guard cells of A. thaliana but not N. tabacum. The ABA analogues that inhibited stomatal opening in A. thaliana also enhanced CDeT6-J9/GUS activity in guard cells of this species. The relative biological activity of the ABA analogues in detached epidermis of A. thaliana was (+)-ABA > (+/-)-ABA > (-)-ABA > PBI-63. PBI-51 and (+/-)-trans, trans-ABA had no effect on stomatal opening or CDeT6-19/GUS activity in guard cells of A. thaliana. Interestingly, a differential effect of 10 -5 M (-)-ABA on the two ABA-induced responses in A. thaliana was observed; 10 -5 M (-)-ABA enhanced CDeT6-J9/GUS activity in guard cells but had no effect on stomatal opening. Preliminary measurements of guard cell cytosolic free calcium ([Ca2+]i) showed that (-)-ABA induced oscillations in [Ca2+]i in guard cells of C. communis. In addition, these studies demonstrate the possibility of microinjecting guard cells of A. thaliana with fura-2 and provide a measure of resting [Ca2+]i in this species. The data presented in this thesis from A. thaliana suggest that the "receptor" utilized in the signalling pathway by which ABA inhibits stomatal opening is similar but not identical to that by which ABA enhances CDeT6-19/GUS activity in guard cells

Understanding Open Knowledge in China: A Chinese Approach to Openness?

This paper examines the development of open knowledge in China through two case studies: the development of Chinese open access (OA) journals, and national-level OA repositories. Open access and open knowledge are emerging as a site of both grass-roots activism, and top-down intervention in the practices of scholarship and scholarly publishing in China. Although the language, vision and strategies of the global open knowledge movement are undoubtedly present, so too are the messy realities of open access and open knowledge innovation in a local context. In attempting to position open access developments in China within a diverse and contested global landscape of open knowledge innovation we draw on Moore’s (2017) conception of open access as a boundary object: an object that is understood differently within individual communities but which maintains enough structure to be understood between communities (Moore 2017; Star and Griesemer 1989). Viewed as a boundary object, the concept of open knowledge is making it possible for China to engage with the global open knowledge movement, as a beneficiary of the innovation of others, and as an open knowledge innovator in its own right