Archiv für den Monat: Juli 2012

Open access, yes, open publishing, no.

Thoughts on „Open Access“ proposed by the UK and backed by the European Commission.

Taken from the article:
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/07/uk-research-funders-announce-liberated-open-access-policy.html

From April 2013, science papers must be made free to access within six months of publication if they come from work paid for by one of the United Kingdom’s seven government-funded grant agencies,

Science journals have two ways of complying with the policy. They can allow the final peer-reviewed version of a paper to be put into an online repository within six months (green access). Alternatively, publishers may *charge authors* to make research papers open-access up front (gold access).

For ‘gold’ open access, RCUK will pay institutions an annual block grant to support the charges. (…) That might mean that universities and researchers will begin to discuss where they can afford to publish.“

And from this article on the same subject
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Open-Access-Freier-Zugang-zur-britischen-Forschung-1643649.html

„Bis 2014 soll das wissenschaftliche Publikationswesen vom System „subscriber pays“ auf „author pays“ umgestellt werden. “ (by 2014 the system changes from „subscriber pays“ to „author pays“.

„Verlage von den Autoren typischerweise etwa 2000 Pfund Bearbeitungs- und Veröffentlichungskosten zur Freischaltung eines Artikels im Internet erheben“
(About 2000 Pounds per paper to be paid by the author, for the entire process, from receiving the submission, over peer-reviewing, editing, proof-reading, publishsing.)

This approach was proposed by the „Finch Study“.
http://www.researchinfonet.org/publish/finch/

And here goes an interesting comment on it. Mind the reference to „the collaborative, subsidised model“.
http://www.researchinfonet.org/publish/finch/#comment-2121

Professor Tom Wilson says:
11/07/2012 at 10:24

I find two issues in the report that are of concern. The first is that the Working Party seems to have given no attention at all to the model of open access publishing that delivers maximum social benefit; that is, the collaborative, subsidised model, which involves neither subscription nor author charges. This model is now used extensively by new open access journals as may be seen from the contents of the Directory of Open Access Journals. It delivers maximum social benefit, precisely because publication and access are both free – this is the only true open access, or more properly, open publishing. The costs of production are borne either by voluntary labour, or by the academic institution subsidising the work of editors and copy-editors: at present, the true costs of commercial publishing to academic institutions are unknown, since, as far as I am aware no one has carried out the research to determine how much institutions are already paying to support the work of journal editors (some have secretarial support provided by their institution, for example), members of editorial boards, and referees. If these costs were known and set against the costs of creating true openly published journals, the economic benefits of the latter would become even more obvious.

The second issue of concern is related. Why was this model not thoroughly investigated? An examination of the constitution of the Working Party might provide an answer – it contained three member of the commercial publishing industry but no one with experience of open publishing – open access, yes, open publishing, no. When the chief beneficiaries of the present system, who make profits considerably in excess of current business benchmarks, are participants in an examination of their industry, can in be wondered that no really radical model is explored? The publishing industry is the only business I know of that receives its raw material free of charge, receives financial subsidy in the editorial process from the institutions providing that raw material, and then charges excessive subscription costs to the same institutions. The technology now available renders the commercial publisher redundant in the scholarly publishing process and it is only the timidity of government and the academic institutions that prevents the development of radical alternatives.

eTOM Fulfilment

Empirical evaluation of eTOM Fullfillment implementation by China Telecom

Service

  • Provider: China Telecom
  • Location: Guangzhou, Panyu district, Clifford Estate, Watermark
  • Service: ADSL
  • Service Level Agreement (SLA): Maximum Service Activation time = 10800s

Definition of eTOM Fulfilment Process, Service Configuration and Activation module (Full eTOM Map by Amdocs).

  • Allocate Specific Service Parameters to Services
  • Track & Manage Service Provisioning
  • Implement & Configure & Activate Service
  • Test Service End-to-End
  • Issue Service Orders
  • Report Service Provisioning
  • Close Service Order
  • Recover Service

Evaluation Context

  • Simplified and opportunistic
  • Time frame 2010-2012
  • Sample size N=4
  • RV := T_SA in seconds (SA := Service Activation)

Results

  • MAX(T_SA_SLA)=10800s
  • P_T_SA less or equal to 10800s = 1 (P := Probability)
  • P_T_SA less or equal to 600s = 1 (!)

By no means …

… must this be ignored.
Convulsive article in the Time magazine, July 23, 2012 | Vol. 180 No. 4. Title WoS, by By NANCY GIBBS; MARK THOMPSON.

wos-stats

P.S. The Editor of the Time magazine may forgive me for copying / publishing the picture above, which is an excerpt of the article.

ICCLab Presented at /ch/open

The ICCLab team presented gave a live demo of our OpenStack cluster at the /ch/open Open Cloud Day. It was an excellent day with many view points from governmental all the way down to Infrastructure as a Service and automation. We also announced the Swiss OpenStack User Group and we’re looking forward to the inaugural event.

This event is particularly important given that Cloud Computing is as ever becoming more and more important. To get the full power of clouds, in the view of /ch/open and the ICCLab, these clouds should be open according to the open cloud initiative principles. The goal is to foster open clouds and interoperability of clouds. Especially taking into account the requirements of public administrations.

Title: The OpenStack Cloud Computing Framework and Eco-System
Authors: Thomas M. Bohnert, Andy Edmonds, Christof Marti, Fabrice Mannhart
Presentation link

Abstract:
OpenStack is a global collaboration of developers and cloud computing technologists producing the ubiquitous open source cloud computing platform for public and private clouds. The project aims to deliver solutions for all types of clouds by being simple to implement, massively scalable, and feature rich. The technology consists of a series of interrelated projects delivering various components for a cloud infrastructure solution.

The InIT Cloud Computing Lab (ICCLab) of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences is researching the full cloud computing stack. Much of this work happens in the context of the OpenStack framework and the ICCLab is official coordinator of the “OpenStack Community Switzerland”.

In this talk we’ll present evolution, objectives, scope, and status of the the OpenStack project. Attendees will be briefed from an technological and eco-system perspective, thus learning what defines Cloud Computing, how OpenStack implements Cloud Computing, and how to engage with the OpenStack community. The talk will close with a short overview of research activities and services provided by the ICClab.