How do early career researchers (ECRs) use Sci-Hub and why? In this post David Nicholas assesses early career researcher attitudes towards the journal pirating site, finding a strong preference for Sci-Hub amongst French ECRs. He raises the question, will Sci-Hub prove the ultimate disruptor and bring down the existing status quo in scholarly communications? When we started the Harbingers Project […]
Category: Copyright
A librarian perspective on Sci-Hub: the true solution to the scholarly communication crisis is in the hands of the academic community, not librarians
Sci-Hub is a pirate website that provides free access to millions of research papers otherwise locked behind paywalls. Widespread dissatisfaction with scholarly communications has led many to overlook or dismiss concerns over the site’s legality, praising its disruptive technology and seeing justification in the free access it affords people all over the world. Ruth Harrison, Yvonne Nobis and Charles Oppenheim […]
PhD theses – drawing attention to the often overlooked articles in open access repositories
Earlier this Open Access Week, university library staff throughout the UK celebrated #ThesisThursday, a day of focused attention on the less talked-about articles in open access repositories, PhD theses. Camilla Griffiths and Nancy Graham describe the work the LSE Library has led to digitise the theses of the School’s doctoral alumni, outlining the benefits of greater visibility, widespread indexing, and […]
Conflicting academic attitudes to copyright are slowing the move to open access
Where previously authors would typically assign rights in a scholarly work to an academic publisher, the open access movement has prompted a shift towards retention of rights and the use of creative commons licenses to control how works are used by publishers. This shift has the support of research funders, whose policies seek to ensure the widest possible readership. Francis […]
Five lessons for researchers who want to collaborate with governments and development organisations but avoid the common pitfalls
The appeal of collaborating with a government agency, or an organisation funded by one, seems obvious. It provides researchers with much needed resources and information, while also offering practitioners and policymakers a way of generating the evidence needed to design better programmes. In practice, however, it’s not always easy to make collaborative research work well. Susan Dodsworth and Nic Cheeseman […]
The Publishing Trap! A game of scholarly communication
In a complex, evolving scholarly communications environment, it is more important than ever for researchers to have access to information and support resources relating to copyright and intellectual property rights. However, many among the academic community continue to view copyright as something of a problem and difficult to engage with. Experimenting with new ways to communicate and critically examine the […]
It’s time for “pushmi-pullyu” open access: servicing the distinct needs of readers and authors
The open access movement has failed. Self-archiving and open-access journals are struggling to deliver 100% open access and probably never will. Moreover, readers, the curious minds it was hoped research would be opened to, have been marginalised from the debate. Toby Green suggests an unbundling of the often disparate, distinct services required by readers and authors; a new model for […]
Post-publication blues: how getting published can be the beginning and not the end of your publication woes
To many authors, the point of publication can feel like the culmination of a process; the moment one’s troubles are over. But for many others, it can mark the start of a new set of wholly unanticipated problems. Elizabeth Gadd discusses some of the challenges she has faced after having her own papers published; from a lack of certainty about rights […]
Book Review: Copyright and E-learning: A Guide for Practitioners, 2nd ed. by Jane Secker with Chris Morrison
In Copyright and E-Learning, A Guide for Practitioners, Jane Secker and Chris Morrison provide guidance to educational practitioners working with copyright content. While the book is particularly of use to those in the HE sector, this guide offers a holistic, timely and useful overview of the most pertinent copyright issues affecting education today, writes Emily Stannard. This review originally appeared on LSE […]
Making Decisions About Your Data
I ran across this lovely video by UMN copyright librarian Nancy Sims on making decisions about your research data and found it so helpful that I had to share it here. She gives an excellent overview of how copyright (see my … Continue reading →