Scholarly Communications

Undeclared – A New Open Access Publication

In a post sent in the 2023 Summer Newsletter entitled, “MIT Direct to Open” the Scholarly Communications team described the launch of a new initiative helping authors publish monographs and books open access. This year, Chris Higgins, the Department Chair of Formative Education in the Lynch School, published a book entitled Undeclared: A Philosophy of Formative Higher Education, which discusses the importance for practitioners to remain focused on the development of the whole person – particularly in how that relates to the value of disciplines in the humanities.

Because this book was published using MIT’s Direct to Open model, anyone with an internet connection has access to the full PDFs of each chapter. However, just because it is open access does not mean every version is free – the book is available for purchase if you would like to own the hard copy. Additionally, just because something is made open access does not mean the free version will be the most available – often times, hard copies of books are available to own, but also have an Open Access version. Googling, “Undeclared Chris Higgins” for instance, produces a number of results that link to copies of the book available for purchase, but it is not until the third result – the MIT Press site – where the book is available open access.

A good way to find open access materials is to begin your search in our Boston College Libraries search. While we may not have the particular eBook in our collection, querying the Boston College catalogue can yield results that will direct you to the open access version. If you are interested in checking out a hard copy free of charge, we do have a copy of the book available for check out at the O’Neill library.

Additionally, the Direct to Open page at MIT Press offers a complete, browsable list of open publications, and there is also a regularly updated spreadsheet of books that have been published open access via the model. As the beginning of July, 2024, there are over 4,000 titles that have been published open access.

Controlled Digital Lending, Round 2

On June 28th, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York heard oral arguments in the Controlled Digital Lending case Hachette v. Internet Archive. The judges probed both sides to find weaknesses in their arguments, positing a number of hypotheticals to push how far each side’s theory of the case went. The hearing lasted almost ninety minutes, well more than the scheduled time.

Listening to the hearing, I came away feeling that the Internet Archive’s attorney was pushed a little harder than the Publishers’. Given that the Internet Archive was appealing a negative ruling where they lost on both the nature of the use and the effect on the market fair use factors, I am not surprised.

A few takeaways from the hearing:

We did not get much argument on the issue of “Was the Internet Archive’s use a commercial use or not?” Even if this does not turn out to be determinative in this case, the issue could be very consequential for other non-profit organizations like the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia.

I could not tell if judges were being intentionally vague in making comparisons of CDL to making copies for interlibrary loan, or if they did not fully understand the difference in making copies for interlibrary loan via 17 U.S.C. 108 and lending books, including by interlibrary loan, under 17 U.S.C. 109. I am sure the judge’s law clerks will get very acquainted with those sections while the case is being decided.

ASTM v. PRO, a case from the DC circuit about putting things like building codes that have been incorporated into law by reference, was mentioned as a possible analogy to show the lack of effect on a market for copyrighted material. This case in general is one of the best for Internet Archive, both in looking at lack of market harm, and at how copies can be transformative without adding to a work. The downside is that it is not binding precedent in the Second Circuit.

Keep in mind that oral argument is only part of the case. The judges will also consider briefs filed by both parties, as well as a number of amicus briefs filed by outside groups and scholars. Given the amount of briefing and argument in the case, I would not expect a ruling until fall at the earliest, and possibly not until the first half of next year.

Fall 2024 Electronic Dissertation Workshops

Writing a dissertation takes a lot of work. Submitting a dissertation does not have to! The Libraries’ eTD@BC workshops for graduate students will prepare you to submit thesis or dissertation. Planning now can save so much time later, right at the end of the process when time becomes really valuable. This fall, there will be three sessions, one in-person and two virtual, all covering the same material.

Dates:
Tuesday, October 8, 6:30 – 7:15 pm, on Zoom.
Thursday, October 10, noon – 12:45 pm, O’Neill Library 307.
Thursday, October 17, noon – 12:45, on Zoom.

To register, go to https://libcal.bc.edu/calendar/workshops. Upon registration for an online workshop, you will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link.

Topics to be covered in this workshop include:

The submission website, including a walk-through of the submission process
Important decisions and issues, such as eScholarship@BC, embargoes, copyright, etc.
How to ensure that a published eTD can be discovered and accessed by others
Where to get additional help

Graduate students can contact etd-support@bc.edu with any questions about the workshops. There will be additional workshops in the spring.

Open Access Publishing Fund opens soon!

Applications for grants from Boston College’s Open Access Publishing Fund will open on June 3rd! Faculty, students and staff are encouraged to apply. Open access can be expensive, so the fund assists authors in making their new work available via open access when they do not have other grant funding. Applications can be submitted before an article is accepted, but the intended journal needs to be listed on the application.

Last fiscal year, the fund awarded more than $30,000 of grants for twenty-one publications, including an open access monograph. While open access may be most prevalent in the natural sciences, many different disciplines have taken advantage of the fund. Please contact Elliott Hibbler if you have any questions.

A pie chart showing a fairly even distribution of awards between Biology, Communication, Computer Science, Engineering, Envi Studies, Fine Arts, LSEHD, MCAS Core, Psych and Neuro, and School of Social Work. Biology, LSEHD, Fine Arts, and the School of Social Work have the most.

OSTP Federal Research Funding update

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has received funding from Congress to continue its implementation of the Nelson Memo. This memo requires any federal agency that awards research grants to implement a policy requiring immediate public access to publications resulting from that research, as well as access to data and the use of persistent digital identifiers in article metadata.

During the lengthy Federal appropriations process, the House Appropriations Committee released a bill that specifically defunded any attempt to implement the memo. No individual or lobbying group ever came forward to take any credit for trying to kill the OSTP memo in the budget, nor was there much explanation of why it might have been included.

The final appropriation bill (technically the explanatory statement accompanying the bill) only included a requirement that OSTP produce a financial analysis of the impact of the memo, “including the policy’s anticipated impact on Federal research investments, research integrity, and the peer review process,” within 100 days of the bill passing. In other positive news, this was the only requirement. There is no trigger stopping development of policy depending on what the report says. This likely means that after the report, there would be a round of Congressional hearings before more action is taken. Being an election year, there may not be enough time for a truly adverse legislative action. Overall, this means plans will progress, and there should be some good reading on the state of scholarly publishing sometime in mid-June!