Acquiring a New Style of Argument — Clay Shirky on Github
Can the Internet create a new and more cooperative way of arguing?
The Google/AAP Settlement: Less Than Meets the Eye?
AAP and Google have reached a confidential settlement over Google Books. But the larger Authors Guild case remains.
The Financial Burdens of the CC-BY License for Scholarly Literature
By allowing free commercial use of OA articles, current CC licenses may shift costs to researchers, presage an unsustainable information economy, and ultimately work against their stated goals. A commercially viable option might actually prove more sustainable.
Why Restrictions on Reuse Are Sometimes Important
“How Open Is It?” offers a useful set of parameters for defining “open,” but some fundamental questions remain, including the commercial and social consequences of free distribution.
Responsive Web Design Comes to Scholarly Publishing
JSTOR recently announced that it has reconfigured its user interface using responsive design techniques. While nascent in STM and scholarly publishing, the user interface design world has been abuzz with the potential of responsive web design for some time and a number of sites using responsive web design techniques are now appearing.
Wikipedia's Writing — Tests Show It's Too Sophisticated for Its Audience
Wikipedia aims to be an encyclopedia for everyone, but its core version is too difficult for most readers, and even its Simple English offshoot falls short of its readability goals.
Curiosity About the Breathtaking "Mars Curiosity Descent" Video?
An impressive video of the Mars Curiosity Rover’s landing — from the Rover’s perspective — has been circulating. Now, a “how it was made” video reveals some of what it took to make it.
Online Isn't Cheap, We Know — But An Environmentally Problematic Energy Hog?!
A new analysis suggests that energy costs and carbon footprints for online could surpass those of older media types. Oddly, copyright might be part of the solution.
Attacking PowerPoint and Prezi — Is This Just Shooting the Messenger?
Perhaps poor presentations aren’t caused by the tools, but the content and delivery. PowerPoint or Prezi can’t cover for those problems.
(Re)Defining the Library, Part 1: Why?
With changes in the scholarly communications world, many old questions for the library are unsettled once again, and many news ones arise. In this first part of a two-part post, we’ll ask the questions.
Udacity Redux: And Then There Was Credit
Udacity students can now transfer credits to Colorado State. Is this the start of something big?
Amazon Will Even Read the Book for You
Amazon’s new X-ray technology creates books that are automatically annotated. In doing this, the machine is beginning to preempt some aspects of the act of reading.
Insane in the Chromatophores — Squids and Disco Lights
Want disco lights? Squids might be on your path to dance club heaven.
Dictionaries, Maps, and Waste — Thoughts on Publishing Economics, Digital Economics, and Human Frailty
“Waste” is hard to define, and therefore hard to eliminate. And it’s not just a print phenomenon. Perhaps we need more than the minimum because the world is unpredictable, our abilities are finite and fleeting, and intellectual work is fairly extravagant.
"Patenterprise" — Jean Luc Picard, Apple, and Androids
In space, nobody can hear you litigate.