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Category: Open Knowledge
Colombian Court Acquits Diego Gómez of Criminal Charges for Sharing a Research Paper Online
by Timothy Vollmer Open AccessDiego Gómez, the Colombian student who for the last three years has been prosecuted for sharing an academic paper online, has been cleared of criminal charges. The decision was delivered today by a judge in the Bogotá Circuit Criminal Court. In 2014 Diego was a student in conservation and wildlife management, with poor access to…
Bipartisan Legislation Would Ensure Open Access to Government Data
by Timothy Vollmer Copyright, Open DataIn the United States, there are two bills making their way through Congress that would require all government data to be made available in open and machine readable formats by default. The OPEN Government Data Act has been introduced in both the House of Representatives (H.R. 1770) and the Senate (S. 760). The bill would…
Mainstreaming OER in Latin America and The Caribbean
by Werner Westermann Open EducationThe fifth Regional OER Consultation for the Latin America and Caribbean region was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil on 3rd-4th April. The event was in preparation for the 2nd OER World Congress that will be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia in September of this year. The meeting was organized by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), alongside partners UNESCO,…
Sharing a lost city: An innovative collaboration with re:3d and the New Palmyra project
by Jennie Rose Halperin Events, Open AccessTogether with re:3d, an Austin-based 3D printing company, and the #NEWPALMYRA project, a community platform dedicated to the virtual remodeling and creative use of architecture from the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, Creative Commons has produced a 200 pound, 7.5 feet tall 3D rendering of one of the Palmyra Tetrapylons.
March for Science on Earth Day
by Timothy Vollmer Copyright, Open ScienceOn April 22, 2017 (Earth Day) tens of thousands of people will join the March for Science and stand together “to acknowledge and voice the critical role that science plays in each of our lives.” Marches will take place in Washington, D.C. and over 500 other cities. The mission of the March for Science is…
Global Coalition Pushes for Unrestricted Sharing of Scholarly Citation Data
by Timothy Vollmer Open Access, Open DataThis week a coalition of scholarly publishers, researchers, and nonprofit organizations launched the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC), a project to promote the unrestricted open access to scholarly citation data. From the website: Citations are the links that knit together our scientific and cultural knowledge. They are primary data that provide both provenance and an…
Balancing the budget: How a commons-based project is revolutionizing budget reporting in India
by Jennie Rose Halperin Open DataWorking to demystify this process is at the root of the Open Budgets India project, which is fighting for a more free and open approach to budgets in India.
“Publish and Prosper” with a new model for academic publishing
by Jennie Rose Halperin Open AccessGlasstree is a new platform built on “healing academic publishing” to provide a range of Open Access options that allow academics to quickly and inexpensively self-publish their monographs, returning 70% of the royalties to the author. The company was launched in November by a number of publishing veterans with the goal of directly addressing the…
European Space Agency announces new Open Access Policy for Images and Data
by Jennie Rose Halperin Open AccessYesterday, the European Space Agency announced an Open Access policy for images and data under a Creative Commons BY-SA license. ESA has made various moves toward making data and images more open in the past, but this announcement is a major milestone for the organization’s commitment to openness. Previously, ESA released individual images under Creative…
Compartir no es delito: Sharing is not a crime
by Timothy Vollmer Copyright, Open AccessWhy are students criminalized for sharing knowledge? Over the last two years several organizations have been highlighting the situation of Colombian graduate student Diego Gomez, who is being criminally prosecuted for sharing a research article online. Gomez is a student in conservation and wildlife management, and for the most part has poor access to many…