James M. Donovan
University of Kentucky College of Law Library

Carol A. Watson
University of Georgia Law School

March 4, 2011

Abstract:
To date, there have been no studies focusing exclusively on the impact of open access on legal scholarship. We examine open access articles from three journals at the University of Georgia School of Law and confirm that legal scholarship freely available via open access improves an article’s research impact. Open access legal scholarship – which today appears to account for almost half of the output of law faculties – can expect to receive 50% more citations than non-open access writings of similar age from the same venue.

To access the research paper, go here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1777090

Interesting posting on Boing Boing about Mac software tools for researchers: http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/21/my-essential-mac-res.html

Not strictly research, but telling (and funny, sad and kind of outrageous): http://stuffexpataidworkerslike.com/

This BBC video-clip describes the latest ingenious project from Sugata Mitra, an Indian-born professor at Newcastle University. You’ll most likely know Mitra from his Hole in the Wall computers set into the walls of buildings in India’s poorest slums. Mitra’s new project uses the “UK Granny Cloud” — a large group of British grannies who’ve agreed to volunteer an hour a week to tutor Indian classrooms over Skype video conferences — to supplement education in Indian schools where there is a shortage of teachers. (pulled from Boing Boing)

A very interesting discussion by Michael Barutciski and Catherine Dauvergne on Australian asylum policies. In French and English.

http://globalbrief.ca/blog/2010/10/13/asylum-the-tamil-boat-and-the-australian-way/

An absolutely extraordinary thread where you can read the real time efforts of a community of bloggers to save 2 women from being trafficked in New York City. Internet activism at its best.

http://ask.metafilter.com/154334/Help-me-help-my-friend-in-DC

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year’s TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.

Our Mission: Spreading ideas.

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.

(excerpted from www.ted.com)

While the entire site is fascinating, the section on “The Rise of Collaboration” (http://www.ted.com/themes/the_rise_of_collaboration.html) has interesting perspectives on technology-enabled collaboration.

Quite an interesting list of books, sent to me from Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights

http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/series/PSHR.html

“Open Access provides the means to maximise the visibility, and thus the uptake and use, of research outputs. Open Access is the immediate, online, free availability of research outputs without the severe restrictions on use commonly imposed by publisher copyright agreements. It is definitely not vanity publishing or self-publishing, nor about the literature that scholars might normally expect to be paid for, such as books for which they hope to earn royalty payments. It concerns the outputs that scholars normally give away free to be published – peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers and datasets of various kinds.”

– Taken from Open Access: What is it and why should we have it? , posted on http://www.openoasis.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=130&Itemid=390

This website is a great resource for more information on the Open Access Movement

Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook – http://www.openoasis.org/

Author’s Rights

Author’s Rights, Tout de Suite gives journal article authors a quick introduction to key aspects of author’s rights. The guide includes references to online documents and links to pertinent Web sites to foster further exploration of this topic.

http://www.archive.org/details/AuthorsRightsToutDeSuite