Submission fees, a viable option for OA journals?

Knowledge Exchange has just released a report bearing the title ‘Submission fees – A tool in the transition to Open Access?. The general conclusion is that there are benefits to publishers in certain cases to switch to a model in which an author pays a fee when submitting an article. Especially journals with a high rejection rate might be interested in combining submission fees with article processing charges in order to make the transition to open access easier. In certain disciplines, notably economic and finance journals and in some areas of the experi¬men¬tal life sciences, submission fees are already common.

The report has also sparked a discussion for example on the Scholarly Kitchen blog on whether this might be a viable option for OA journals in the future.

Upheaval on student thesis in Utrecht

A Dutch news site mentioned that a student´s master thesis was being withheld by the Utrecht city council as it would contain critical information on a Youth scheme in Utrecht. According to the thesis youths with a criminal background would have collected funds for internships without actually doing any work.

See: http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/2371071/gemeente-utrecht-hield-kritische-scriptie-tegen.html and http://www.dub.uu.nl/content/omstreden-scriptie-vrijdag-terug-op-uu-site

The thesis is now available on the University library website and I was really chuffed as it was a student from social sciences, so it has been included in the collection I have helped to set up years ago together with the university library.
It is now scoring as best downloaded thesis: http://studenttheses.library.uu.nl/topten.php?language=nl

For the tweets on this see: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23scriptie%20%23utrecht

Video on Enhanced Publications

Just in case you were wondering what all those SURF projects were about which took place on Enhanced Publications, a video has been made explaining not only what they are, but also how they have taken shape in different disciplines.

I especially like the animation at the end of the film as it shows how this fits in to linked data.
The video is only available in Dutch at present, will be available with English subtitles soon.

Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IT3T9IuNA0

Digiman wins again!

Sadly not with an embed. The Planets have just produced another brilliant cartoon movie encouraging institutions to follow six steps to ensure materials are saved safely. Enjoy at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGFOZLecjTc

Workshop on creating enhanced publications

Just a quick plug from my work. On the first of April (no, this is not a joke) we will be organising a workshop on creating enhanced publications (EPs). Participants will learn a little background on what enhanced publications are and hear some first hand experiences from projects done in 2009 on EPs.
And after lunch they will be able to get stuck in creating their very own EP. They will get a crack at using the EP editor developed in the ESCAPE project to create a map linking various objects and entities. We will also show some alternative editors which are in development or should be out soon. These are the LORE editor and the Word ontology add in.
There are still a limited number of places available. Please note that the workshop will be in Dutch and will take place in Tilburg.
Further information

New NARCIS is online

The new interface for the Dutch portal to research output from all research libraries is online: www.narcis.nl

The interface is improved so it is now much easier to narrow down your search when searching through the over 200.000 Open Access publications available.

Idea management, an interesting tool

A tip from my colleague Maurice Vanderfeesten: if you are looking for a platform to collect, share, rate and manage ideas: perhaps Spigit? It isn't free but does seem to offer some very interesting and quite possibly valuable tools. Of course there are polls and voting, but you can also keep up 'stocks and shares' of ideas...
Reminded me of a face to face session I had at the computing department at Utrecht University. They have a decision making room with facilities to support just this sort of activity. See the webpage on 'beleidslab' (in Dutch). You can also rent this room with a moderator.

Evaluation of a year of Weblectures

I left Utrecht University almost a year ago and I was very interested to hear that they had evaluated the first year of the more widely available Weblectures service at Utrecht University. The report (in Dutch) can be found here.
A very quick and dirty interpretation: Students and staff do not all fill in surveys ;-) response rate was 33%. Students are enthousiastic, teachers slightly less but they are too. Teachers are not changing their teaching to adapt to the new possibilities. They are interested in learning more about the opportunities on offer.