[FC-discuss] Free Thesis Project Released Today

[tj at tjolsen.net]

perhaps  Gavin has a point. Perhaps our focuss should be on encouraging 
schools to open up their own depositorys and once we've acomplished that, 
then things like google scholar can truely prove their worth

tj
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gavin Baker" <grbaker at ufl.edu>
To: "Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in 
particular" <discuss at freeculture.org>
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 2:28 AM
Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Free Thesis Project Released Today


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Well, the people who actually implemented the project can tell you why
> they did it that way, but from where I sit, I'm looking at this as a
> pilot project -- to see whether it would be worthwhile to build a
> "universal" open repository for student papers, and how best that would
> be implemented.
>
> My other comment is that institutional repositories are already quite
> common. Lots of schools have an IR for their faculty's research. So the
> "school-specific" model is in many ways the standard operating procedure.
>
> There's various reasons why IRs are SOP, including collective action
> problems: e.g. schools get higher visibility for having an IR (more
> accessible work frequently has a higher citation factor, etc.), so
> they're willing to pay to maintain it, but they're less willing to pay
> to maintain the "big universal repository in the sky," because the
> benefits of that contribution are less apparent (e.g. "my contribution
> doesn't make a difference, so I won't chip in").
>
> More practically, the repositories store their metadata in a
> standardized way, which should make it easy to find stuff, no matter
> whose repository it's in. And if the contents are freely licensed, then
> anyone can mirror the whole repository, which allows for redundancy. So
> I really don't think it makes much practical difference.
>
> Frankly, I find this whole discussion to be akin to suggesting that I
> shouldn't have my own blog, I should just get a MySpace, because that
> way we'll all be on the same site. What's it matter?
>
> Gavin
>
> Chris Morris wrote:
>> I don't understand why it is school specific. What about people that
>> go to a school that has no such project? Or what if the club that is
>> hosting it stops existing? Why not have a universal project? Sure some
>> might have tricky issues involved depending on the school, country,
>> etc..., but I would think most would be easy.
>>
>> Chris
>>
>> On 4/27/07, Elizabeth Stark <emstark at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> To clarify, anyone can access the material in the respository. As of
>>> now, our site is Harvard-specific, in that only people from our school
>>> can upload to it. The scope of the project is currently for theses,
>>> which are written by university students.
>>>
>>> The software is GPLed. http://www.eprints.org/software/
>>>
>>> On 4/27/07, Koh Choon Lin <open07 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Very good idea, but why in schools? why not to everyone in general?
>>>>> public on the internet? many people already out of university likes to 
>>>>> keep
>>>>> studying all their lives, doing research or just curious, or even 
>>>>> better
>>>>> some people may be in third world countries were education is very 
>>>>> expensive
>>>>> any help available on the internet the MIT project is very good for
>>>>> society in general.
>>>> Yes, I about to ask the same question. Why are the papers restricted
>>>> internally rather than share with the rest of the world?
>>>>
>>>> In addition, is the software free as in freedom?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Regards
>>>> Koh Choon Lin
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Discuss mailing list
>>> Discuss at freeculture.org
>>> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> Discuss at freeculture.org
>> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFGOtJ3tLXQdLhFpekRAgVsAJwKuVMUAtiHWgd1+K3uxXTPin9dlACggjFM
> 1OYXcSGS6APn6Z/55RIvrjM=
> =8la3
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at freeculture.org
> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>