I really like the new format, especially with a cover and professional looking table of contents. My definite compliments to the journal and its new editorial team.

December issue

SCRIPT-ed homepage

Among the many (great) articles, be sure to check out:

Emerging Global Networks for Free Access to Law: WorldLII’s Strategies
Graham Greenleaf, Philip Chung and Andrew Mowbray, pp.319-366
Those who value free access to law need to respond to the increasingly global nature of legal research, and the fact that most countries still do not have effective facilities for free access to law. The free access to law movement, centred around University-based Legal Information Institutes (LIIs), is assisting and encouraging the development of free access law facilities in many countries in the developing world. While doing so, it is also creating a global network of interconnected free-access legal research facilities on the Internet. This network is becoming comparable to the global legal research facilities provided by the multinational legal publishers.

My loyal reader will know that I’ve been trying to build up some momentum on open access to legal journals here in the UK, and would (very much) like to see an event in 2008 related to open access.

As speed geeking is, well, geeky, we should consult the ultimate web geek source Wikipedia for a definition:

A large room is selected as the speed geeking venue. All the presenters are arranged in a large circle along the edge of the room. The remaining members of the audience stand at the center of the room. Ideally there are about 6-7 audience members for each presenter. One person acts as the facilitator.

The facilitator rings a bell to start proceedings. Once proceedings start, the audience splits up into groups and each group goes to one of the presenters. Presenters have a short duration, usually 5 minutes, to give their presentation and answer questions. At the end of the five minutes, the facilitator rings a bell. At this point, each group moves over to the presenter to their right and the timer starts once more. The session ends when every group has attended all the presentations.

One of the presentations that I would like to see — either at a speed geek for open access to law or for another event — is someone describing Open Journal Systems. OJS is an open source software platform for journals created and maintained by the Public Knowledge Project.

It isn’t just a website for your journal:

OJS Features

1. OJS is installed locally and locally controlled.
2. Editors configure requirements, sections, review process, etc.
3. Online submission and management of all content.
4. Subscription module with delayed open access options.
5. Comprehensive indexing of content part of global system.
6. Reading Tools for content, based on field and editors’ choice.
7. Email notification and commenting ability for readers.
8. Complete context-sensitive online Help support.

This is the kind of think that can greatly improve open access to law in the UK. There are many open access law journals that use home grown software and spend time reinventing the wheel. This kind of effort can be saved and spent where it matters — high quality content available under an open access policy.

I’d also like to see speed geek booths on:

• Open content licensing — making sure that the journal doesn’t maintain restrictive copyright policies.
• User reps — people from outwith the legal profession and the academe that want access to law articles.
• Open access — someone to discuss the benefits of open access policies.
• Roll your own open access — someone discussing self archiving and sites like SSRN.
• Successful open access journals — success stories from current open access UK law journals.

I’m sure that you can think of some others. Interested? Leave a comment or contact me.

Knowledge Politics Quarterly

The journal describes itself as:

Knowledge Politics Quarterly (KPQ) is an academic journal produced by the think-tank Knowledge Politics. It is edited by Craig Berry (Department of Politics, University of Sheffield). KPQ publishes original articles by established scholars, graduate students and non-academic practitioners. The topics covered by KPQ include the media, the internet, broadcasting, technological development, the social, political and economic implications of ICTs – in terms of theory, policy or practice

They accept “anything ranging from 3000-word ‘opinion’ pieces and 10,000-word+ empirically-based articles” with 8000 words generally recommended.

Though it doesn’t appear that they have a journal policy on publishing under an open content licence, their copyright policy does allow for its use:

Authors retain all copyrights at all times, and as such are free to publish their articles in other fora. KPQ also accommodates the use of ‘Creative Commons’ licenses.

The one article I downloaded (see below) Fred Flagg, “The Academic Library and the Commons” (no mention of Creative Commons or copyright issues) merely had the (c) symbol and no use of an open content licence. Thus readers can only expect to exercise their fair dealing rights and whatever rights may be implied by being in a webjournal.

Based on their first issue, they appear to only offer the articles as PDF files and not as webpages, which is a little curious because this makes the journal that much less accessible to its readers (and to search engines).

The first issue (October 2007) contains:

_____

Editorial

Notes on contributors

ARTICLES:

Robert Hassan PhD
Temporalized Democracy and a Future Politics

Laura Kyrke-Smith
Information Intervention and the Case of Kosovo: Realising the Responsibility to Protect

Claudia Magallanes-Blanco PhD and Leandro Rodriguez Medina
A Feminist-Dialogical Analysis of Independent Video-Makers on the Indigenous Zapatista Rebellion

Alberto Masetti-Zannini
Web 2.0 and International Development NGOs

OPINION:

Fred Flagg
The Academic Library and the Commons

BOOK REVIEW:

Laura White
Information and Communication Technologies for Development and Poverty Reduction edited by Maximo Torero and Joachim von Braun (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2006)