Elias Tzoc blog!

As member of a new Scholarly Communication (SC) group, this semester we’ve been doing some research and work about this topic.  Since I’m leading the website design for this group, I recently proposed a site prototype based on three factors: structure, content, and usability.

Based on the principle “no need to reinvent the wheel” I initially spent some time browsing some other SC websites.  This was helpful, especially in identifying some of the key and consistent sections (e.g. copyright, journal pricing, Open Access, etc.) that other universities are using to communicate with their faculty.

Here is a short summary of the proposal:

• Structure, no more than 4 sections (pages), an appealing and faculty-oriented splash page, a consistent navigation menu, and an easy method for edits/updates.  For the sake of consistency, we’re going to use the Library’s template and probably use Drupal as well.
• Content, four proposed sections: Copyright (including an update for the Author Rights document), Journal Pricing (with some details by discipline), Alternatives for SC (description and links to green/gold models of publishing), and OA (news, facts or policies).
• Usability, information will be provided in clear and concise way in order to avoid scrolling, a prominent box for news and facts and contact information on the main page, and a link from the main library homepage.

In a second phase, it’d be interesting to include a section where faculty can share their opinion about SC -similar to what the University of California is doing.  Which reminds me of a “Faculty Profile” feature currently in progress for the Scholarly Commons project …see you soon!

As a result of an initiative started in 2007, this week (Oct. 19-23 2009) many institutions -around the world- are celebrating Open Access Week.

“Open Access Week is an opportunity to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access to research, including access policies from all types of research funders, within the international higher education community and the general public. The now-annual event has been expanded from a single day to accommodate widespread global interest in the movement toward open, public access to scholarly research results.”
http://www.openaccessweek.org/

There are different types of events going on this week, from blog comments to videoconferences.  A couple of examples:

• A SPARC Open Access 101 - video
  
• International Open Access Week in Germany
• EDUCAUSE videoconference “Throwing Open the Doors: Strategies and Implications for Open Access” scheduled for Friday Oct. 23, 2009
  http://net.educause.edu/live0919
• …and of course some are simply twettering

Last but not least, in developing countries, OA has the -potential- to help reduce the “information-gap”; in some cases, a translation of the original document might be necessary, but I think that’s an area where researchers and language tools will work on.