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The Personal Repositories Online Wiki Environment (PROWE) Project
Contributed by: The Personal Repositories Online Wiki Environment project (PROWE) is a JISC-funded Digital Repositories project (http://www.jisc.ac.uk). It focuses on the potential of repositories at the informal and individual levels. These repositories use software tools such as wikis and blogs which encourage the open exchange of ideas, and offer users the possibility of collaborative authoring and other shared endeavours. PROWE aims to understand how these new technologies can be used to support communities of practice amongst part time distance instructors who, without the security of a single or permanent institutional 'home', often lack the opportunity to interact with colleagues or benefit from the kind of ongoing support and informal development enjoyed by colleagues on campus. In particular the project is investigating the role that individual and group repositories play, or could play, in informing professional practice of, and facilitating continuing professional development for, part-time distance education instructors. Two universities, The Open University (OU) and University of Leicester (UoL), are involved in the project; both make extensive use of part-time instructors although duties, and thus associated professional development needs, vary quite widely between the two contexts. The project began with face-to-face focus group consultation with staff from both institutions. Simultaneously an analysis was undertaken of wiki/blog/bliki solutions currently available. This had to take account of the requirement that any environment developed must have the potential to be widely implemented across a variety of institutional contexts within the higher education sector. It had also to be compatible across different VLE platforms and accessible via different internet browsers. Presently UoL are testing a pure wiki environment Zwiki (http://zwiki.org) within a PLONE (http://plone.org/) content management system 'seeded' with core materials which instructors can use and further develop for themselves. The OU is testing elgg (http://www.elgg.net), a blog-based 'learning landscape' with file storage capabilities. A number of issues have arisen. Firstly, potential users are very diverse with equally diverse needs. Secondly, solutions need to offer enough security (i.e. respect access and the integrity of inputs) to inspire the trust and confidence of users so that they contribute. Options must be flexible enough to encourage the uptake needed to ensure that they endure as stable, secure and supportive resources over time. Finally, deposited resources must be linked to individuals, not just to the institutions in which they are presently teaching. This ensures sustainability by offering an incentive to contribute over a career which may span multiple institutional affiliations. In addition to evaluations of the software solutions tested during the project, PROWE outcomes will include matrices of user and system requirements and a possible generic model; a matrix of barriers to use; a toolkit for guiding implementation of personal repositories by other institutions; guidelines on IP and copyright issues, and digest-form literature reviews of potential software tools and solutions, and of the metadata/folksonomy issues involved in using them. Materials are posted on the project website (http://www.prowe.ac.uk) as and when available. Further details can be found there too, or from <info@prowe.ac.uk> or the Project Officer <a.hewling@open.ac.uk>. The Credibility Commons
Contributed by: The credibility of Internet information is a problem. While the credibility of Information in general is an issue, the Internet presents a new set of challenges. Today the public is expected to book their own airline tickets, decide on their own retirement plan, even decide on life and death medical treatments with the tools and information on the web. With a disappearing paper trail in voting, with no one official copy of government documents, with a lack of common criteria in presenting and consuming credible information there is a great need to research and develop real tools to help the citizen. Addressing these issues now, as tools are being developed and more critical information is becoming exclusively Internet information, will prevent larger and more dire consequences in the near and long-term future. The MacArthur Foundation is funding the University of Washington's Information School and Syracuse University's School of Information Studies to create the Credibility Commons to address these issues, and further an agenda of addressing the credibility of Internet information. The Commons is seen as a locus of a much wider and diffuse effort. It seeks to create awareness of the issue, an empirical basis for action in the area of credibility, and tools to improve a users ability to determine the credibility of information in their given context. The commons has three primary components:
The Commons is envisioned as an open effort task. In "open effort" not only are tools and products made widely available through Creative Commons licensing, but the very process of idea generation is open and transparent as well. The process shall be supported by community contributions of time, money and other in-kind efforts. The boundaries of the organization must become porous with team members coming from multiple agencies, and means of support. The point of this approach is to maximize reputation and impact over short-term market advantage that can create the impression of bias, and proprietary competition. Software, findings and other means of intellectual property while retained by the Commons, are made freely available to causes directly in-line with the mission of the Commons, and used to support the greater activities through monetary license to commercial entities. In the NewsExcerpts from Recent Press Releases and AnnouncementsRLG membership approves move to combine with OCLCJune 9, 2006 - "RLG member institutions have approved a proposal to combine operations with OCLC, clearing the way for two of the world's largest membership-based information organizations to become one beginning July 1." "RLG's online products and services are being integrated with OCLC's, and RLG's program initiatives are being continued as RLG-Programs, a membership-based organization that operates as a new division of OCLC Programs and Research to support architecture, standards development and best practices." "The RLG Board of Directors and the OCLC Board of Trustees announced the proposal to combine organizations May 3. The agreement was approved by the required two-thirds of voting RLG member institutions. Voting concluded this week." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.oclc.org/news/releases/200625.htm>. Nature focuses on peer reviewJune 9, 2006 - "Two new initiatives launched by Nature this week are set to explore a bedrock of scientific publishing. A web debate on peer review and a limited trial of open peer review launched on Monday 5 June 2006." "The peer review process requires constant scrutiny by those who administer it. Even publishers with new business models have been reluctant to change the traditional model, which functions well. Nature however, believes the shift to online publishing makes new approaches possible and the online debate and trial reflect this thinking. " "The web debate will bring together overviews and opinions on peer review: its quality, value, ethics and alternatives. The debate is published at <http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview>." "The trial will allow open comments on those submitted manuscripts selected for peer review. This trial, voluntary for authors, will run alongside the usual, confidential peer review process, and will close as this is completed for each submission. From 5 June, authors may opt for their submitted manuscript to be posted publicly for comment. Anyone in the field may post comments, provided they are prepared to identify themselves. The trial will allow Nature's editors to assess the value of including these open comments in their decision-making." For more information, please see <http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview>. Susan Perry Appinted CLIR Interim PresidentJune 8, 2006 - "The Board of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) today announced the appointment of Susan Perry as interim president, effective July 1." "'We feel very fortunate that Ms. Perry has agreed to lead CLIR as the Board continues its search for a permanent president,' said Chairman Charles Phelps. 'Her energy, ability, and years of experience with CLIR, as well as her reputation in the field, will serve the organization well in the months ahead.'" "Susan Perry will succeed Nancy Davenport, who steps down June 30." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.clir.org/news/pressrelease/06perrypr.html>. Library, Archives Associations file federal appeals court brief on copyright infringement caseJune 7, 2006 - "Today the American Library Association (ALA), American Association of Law Libraries, Association of Research Libraries, Medical Library Association, Society of American Archivists, and Special Libraries Association filed a friend of the court brief in support of the National Geographic Society's (NGS) right to re-publish works in a digital format without seeking permission of authors or other contributors. The associations have a long history with the case, Greenberg v. National Geographic Society, which involves an allegation by photographers and authors that NGS violated copyright when it published past issues of its magazine on CD-ROM without first seeking permission. The brief was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. " "The six organizations, which have filed briefs supporting NGS since the case was first appealed in 2001, agree with the NGS contention that as long as digital versions place photographs and articles in the same context as the print original, there is no infringement of copyright. The CD-ROM in question in the case contains photo-scanned images of the entire print version of the National Geographic magazine from 1888 to 1996 in a searchable format. The U.S. Supreme Court and the federal appeals court for the Second Circuit also have considered this point of copyright law. Their decisions, the associations believe, support the right of scholars and researchers to combine pre-existing works with the necessary software to provide a searching capability. " For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleases2006/june2006/ngsamicus.htm>. Online Publishers Association Media Usage Study Shows the Web Now Rivals TV in Reach and Extends the Impact of All MediaJune 6, 2006 - "The Online Publishers Association (OPA) today announced the results of a new research project, 'A Day in the Life: An Ethnographic Study of Media Consumption.' The observational media usage study is being discussed throughout the OPA's 2006 Eyes on the Internet Tour, which will visit Atlanta, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Dallas, and San Francisco." "The unprecedented observational research tracked the real-time media use of 350 people, recording their actual activities every 15 seconds. The results show that the Web is now clearly a mass media – ranking right alongside other major media when it comes to reach and duration of use. And when it comes to at-work media use, the study found that the Web clearly dominates (with 54.6% reach, compared to television's 21.1%), and is the only medium that ranks among the top two at both work and home." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.online-publishers.org/?pg=press&dt=060606>. Competition aims to showcase innovative uses of data in, from, or about librariesJune 5, 2006, announcement from Paul Miller, Talis - "I am pleased to announce news of a competition intended to encourage innovation in the display, use, and reuse of data from and about libraries. The competition is open to all, and includes a first prize of £1,000 for the best entry." "From Jon Udell's early work with LibraryLookup to the current spate of Greasemonkey plug-ins and the structured exposure of web services by Talis, Amazon, Google and others, there are significant advances being made in the ways in which libraries offer their services to the outside world. At least as important is the revolution occurring outside the library, as those beyond the walls take and manipulate library data on their own." "This competition is intended to celebrate and showcase all that is best in these efforts to push library information out to existing audiences in new ways, or to reach totally new audiences with compelling and captivating applications." "The competition is open to anyone, anywhere. Entrants do not need to work in a library, and entries do NOT need to make use any Talis product or service. Entrants simply need to have an idea for a way to make better use of existing information from or about libraries, and an ability to turn that idea into a 'mash up' or other application that shows it off to good effect." "The competition closes on 18 August 2006, and I invite you to visit the web site at <http://www.talis.com/tdn/competition> for more details." New ALPSP survey shows 90% of journals are now online – a rise from 73% in 2003June 2, 2006 - "ALPSP has carried out a second major study of the policies and practices of 400 international academic journal publishers, both not-for-profit and commercial, drawn from the memberships of ALPSP and other major publishing associations. A response rate of 55% was achieved (including all the major publishers), providing hard evidence of the significant changes in publishing policy and practice that have been made since the first survey was undertaken in 2003." "The survey (Scholarly Publishing Practice: Academic journal publishers' policies and practices in online publishing) by John Cox of John Cox Associates Ltd and Laura Cox of Frontline Global Marketing Services Ltd was carried out at the end of 2005. Of the 174 publishers who responded, 123 also publish books and 33 publish databases." "A summary of the main conclusions can be found at <http://www.alpsp.org>." Over Half a Million Book DOIs Now Registered in CrossRefJune 1, 2006 - "CrossRef, the reference-linking service for scholarly and professional content, announced today that it had surpassed the half-million mark in the number of book title and chapter DOIs registered in its database. By virtue of being in CrossRef, these books and chapters are readily inter-linkable with the 20 million-plus other content items (mainly journal articles) publishers have registered. This enables the reader of online works to go directly from a journal article to a cited book chapter, or vice versa, just by clicking on a reference. " "CrossRef has been adding books and major reference works (MRWs) to its cross-publisher linking network since 2004. Any scholarly or professional book can be registered at the title or chapter level, and registration of works with multiple chapters is steeply discounted. OUP's Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB, at http://www.oxforddnb.com) is one example of an MRW containing DOIs assigned at the granular entry level; the ODNB alone contains over 65,000 DOIs. Other publishers actively registering books with CrossRef include Springer-Verlag, Taylor & Francis, Elsevier, the American Psychological Association, Humana Press, Karger, and John Wiley & Sons." "According to Craig Van Dyck, Vice President of STM Operations at Wiley, 'CrossRef has a done great job of enhancing the online journal literature with reference linking and other important functionality. Now CrossRef is making significant progress with the scholarly book literature as well. Books are more complex and so will require commitment by CrossRef members to provide users with the linking functionality that they desire and that CrossRef can enable. Multiple Resolution, with DOIs pointing to a variety of relevant resources and linking options, is especially important for books.'" For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.crossref.org/01company/pr/press060106.htm>. Laura Bush Announces $1.5 Million in Additional Aid from Institute of Museum and Library ServicesAid to Help Beleaguered Museums and Libraries in Federally Declared Disaster Areas June 1, 2006 - "At a conference yesterday on the Tulane University campus, First Lady Laura Bush announced additional aid from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services to help libraries and museums in major disaster areas recover. The Institute, an independent United States government agency, is the primary source of federal support for the nation's 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. " "'In March, the Institute of Museum and Library Services announced more than $670,000 in grants to help seven museums recover their collections and re-open to the public,' said Mrs. Bush. 'And today, I'm happy to announce that the Institute is reserving $1.5 million of the grant money it will award over the next year for projects related to the Gulf Coast and other areas that have suffered major disasters.' " For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.imls.gov/news/2006/060106.shtm>. Library of Congress Launches Web Site Devoted to Effort to Capture Web Sites for PreservationMay 26, 2006, announcement by Laura Gottsman, Library of Congress - "The Library of Congress has just launched a Web site devoted to information about its program to capture and preserve historically important Web sites so that they can be accessed by future generations of users." "The site is available at <http://www.loc.gov/webcapture>. " "The Library of Congress and libraries and archives around the world are interested in collecting and preserving content on the Web because an ever-increasing amount of the world's cultural and intellectual output is created in digital formats and does not exist in any physical form. Creating an archives of Web sites supports the goals of the Library's Digital Strategic Plan, announced in March 2003, which focuses on the collection and management of digital content." "The Web Capture Program is directly related to the Library's larger digital preservation program, called the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (http://www.digitalpreservation.gov)." Please contact Guy Lamolinara with any questions: <glam@loc.gov>. Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) Launches New Culture of Enterprise InitiativeOver $100,000 to be awarded to outstanding scholars May 25, 2006 - "The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), a national educational organization headquartered in Wilmington, DE, is pleased to announce the launching of one of its most exciting and innovative programs to date – The Culture of Enterprise Initiative (COE) – made possible by a generous grant from The Templeton Foundation. This initial five-year program intends to explore the cultural underpinnings, institutional prerequisites and societal achievements of the free-market economy worldwide, and how the establishment and maintenance of such "humane" market systems may be impacted by the unprecedented changes wrought by the forces of globalization. " "To realize this vision, ISI plans to promote path-breaking and interdisciplinary scholarship by conducting a set of international yearly Templeton Enterprise Awards and Undergraduate Essay Contest that are designed to elicit nominations and submissions from the best young minds around the globe. ISI intends to make these COE awards some of the most highly sought-after prizes in the scholarly community, with the top book award totaling $50,000; the top article award $25,000; and the top essay winner $10,000. Winners of the Book and Article awards must be 39 years or younger at the time of publication to qualify for consideration. Along with these academic contests, the COE Initiative will feature a Book Series under ISI's imprint ISI Books, and hopes to attract manuscripts from a wide variety of fields, approaches, and cultures. With its unique ability to tap into a vast and diverse network of international scholars and thinkers, ISI is ready to unite its intellectual prowess with Templeton's global resources to form a dynamic partnership destined to foster substantial, creative research in economics and culture. " For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.isi.org/media/content/coe_5-25-06.pdf>. Vice President Cheney Swears-In Dr. Anne-Imelda M. Radice as New Director of Institute of Museum and Library ServicesMay 19, 2006 - "Vice President Dick Cheney administered a ceremonial oath of office to Dr. Anne-Imelda M. Radice, the new Director of the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, at a ceremony with First Lady Laura Bush this morning in the Vice President's Ceremonial Office. The Institute, an independent United States government agency, is the primary source of federal support for the nation's 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. Directors are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for four-year terms. The position alternates between library and museum professionals." "The Vice President remarked during the ceremony that Dr. Radice has a great record of experience in culture and education and noted that she is well qualified for this position. He also said that she is an expert in fine arts and knows her way around the federal bureaucracy." "Dr. Radice was most recently Acting Assistant Chairman for Programs at the National Endowment for the Humanities. Before joining the National Endowment for the Humanities, she served as Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. In the early 1990s she was Acting Chairman and Senior Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. From 1989 to 1991 Dr. Radice served as Chief of the Creative Arts Division of the United States Information Agency (USIA). And she was the first Director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (1983-1989). Dr. Radice also has been Curator and Architectural Historian for the Architect of the Capitol and an Assistant Curator at the National Gallery of Art." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.imls.gov/news/2006/051906.shtm>. Oxford Journals digital archive launch completeMay 15, 2006 - "Over 135 years of research is now available online in the Oxford Journals Digital Archive. The collection, officially launched last month, now provides access to all content from volume one, issue one, for nearly 140 journals." "Over three million article pages are included in the collection, which includes content dating back to 1849. With powerful search tools, cross-linking to similar articles, and a host of additional online material, the archive offers convenient, permanent access to a wealth of historical content." For a full list of journals included in the collection, a list of key features, and further information on the complete archive and subject archives, please visit: <http://www.oxfordjournals.org/collections/archives>. APA Releases PsycARTICLE® Historical Content to VendorsCollection of Nearly a Century of Articles Will Be Provided to Licensees at No Additional Charge May 15, 2006 - "The American Psychological Association has released the 1894-1984 historical collection of APA journal articles to seven vendor partners. The collection of nearly 73,000 articles will more than double the size of the database, adding coverage of APA-published journals to Volume 1, Issue 1, and creating the largest full-text database in psychology...." "...The seven vendor partners – CSA, EBSCO, Hogrefe Publishing Group, OCLC, Ovid, ProQuest, and ScienceDirect – will begin the process of loading the historical content into their PsycARTICLES implementations. As vendors announce their progress and expected dates for releasing the historical file to existing PsycARTICLES license sites, APA will post that information on the APA Librarian's Resource Center (http://www.apa.org/librarians)." Institute of Museum and Library Services Announces ReorganizationMay 12, 2006 - "Dr. Anne-Imelda M. Radice, director of the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, announced a reorganization of the agency's staff today. The reorganization will enable the Institute to align management and program efforts to more effectively demonstrate results and meet national needs." "'Lifelong learning is essential to success in a knowledge age and lifelong learning is what libraries and museums are all about,' noted Dr. Radice. 'The Institute of Museum and Library Services has a big mission: to build the capacity of libraries and museums to create and sustain a nation of learners. The agency has the imagination, the leadership and the resources to bring together its constituents and partners to realize this vision. We need an efficient, effective, results oriented management structure at the Institute to support this big idea.'" For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.imls.gov/news/2006/051206.shtm>. CARLI debuts its digital library serviceMay 12, 2006 - "The Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) announces the launch of the CARLI Digital Collections, a digital library powered by CONTENTdm." "The first offering of the CARLI Digital Collections is the Saskia digital image archive from Scholars Resource. This archive is available to the 180 consortium member libraries at no direct cost to the library." "CARLI's Saskia collection contains 30,000 digital images of paintings, sculpture and architecture, including images from many important collections: the Prado, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Uffizi, and the Louvre as well as archaeological sites in Greece, Italy, Turkey and Egypt. The images are displayed in both high resolution and thumbnail format. Additionally, the descriptive data about the images includes references to the occurrences of these images in 19 major art history texts." CARLI, a new academic library consortium in its first year of operation, was formed by the consolidation of three Illinois academic library consortia. For more details about CARLI's programs and services see: <http://www.carli.illinois.edu/>. Copyright 2006 © Corporation for National Research InitiativesTop |
Contents doi:10.1045/june2006-inbrief |
