In this podcast I talk with Alma Swan from Key Perspectives. Over the past 5 years in which Open Access publishing has undergone considerable growth, Alma has been a reference point, providing useful and authoritative research and analysis into the progress of the Open Access movement, drawing upon her experience in both scholarly communications and the natural sciences. We begin by talking about trends in the core area of Open Access publishing – namely journal articles – and then extend our view to the potential growth of Open Access e-Books. We also look at the emerging area of open research data, examining both the potential benefits to research and to society as a whole, as well as considering the significant challenges to be overcome. This podcast provides a useful snapshot of the Open Access movement as well as insights into its future.
See also Alma’s blog, OptimalScholarship.

In my latest podcast I talk with John Baker, CEO of Desire2Learn. We discuss the company’s attitude to designing software applications, and consider some of the changes in the Higher Education sector since their first products appeared a decade ago.

During the conversation, we refer to the following resources;

• Commonwealth of Learning
• IEEE
• IMS
• JISC and my podcast with Executive Secretary Malcolm Read
• LORENet
• Moodle
• OAI-PMH and my podcast with Herbert van de Sompel
• Sakai and my podcast with Executive Director Mike Korcuska

This conversation was recorded on Friday 12 June 2009.

For other podcasts in the Xiphos series of Education podcasts see here. To subscribe to updates from all of Talis’ podcast series, see here.

In my latest podcast I talk with John Wilbanks, Creative Commons‘ Vice President with responsibility for the Science Commons project. We discuss Science Commons and efforts to make data created from the conduct of science more widely available.

During the conversation, we refer to the following resources;

• Berkman Center
• Tim Berners-Lee speaks at TED
• Bio2RDF
• CC0 license
• Free Software Foundation
• Linked Data
• Merck’s Human Disease Biology Programme, Sage
• Peter Murray-Rust (and my podcast)
• NCBI
• Neurocommons
• Cameron Neylon
• Open Data Commons
• Open Knowledge Foundation
• OpenStreetMap
• Public Domain Dedication and License (and my podcast with Leigh Dodds)
• PubMed Central
• Science Collaboration Framework
• Science Commons Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data
• Richard Stallman
• Talis blog coverage as Springer acquires BioMed Central
• World Wide Web Consortium

This conversation was recorded on Friday 29 May 2009.

For other podcasts in the Xiphos series of Education podcasts see here. To subscribe to updates from all of Talis’ podcast series, see here.

In my latest podcast I talk with Jan Velterop of Knewco. We discuss the company’s approach to what Jan describes as the ‘Concept Web,’ and look at support from scientists and publishers for the inaugural meeting of a Concept Web Alliance in New York City next week.

During the conversation, we refer to the following resources;

• Concept Web Alliance blog
• Knewco
• Unified Medical Language System (UMLS)

This conversation was recorded on Tuesday 28 April 2009.

For other podcasts in the Xiphos series of Education podcasts see here. To subscribe to updates from all of Talis’ podcast series, see here.

In our latest podcast I talk to Timo Hannay, Publishing Director for nature.com at the Nature Publishing Group. We discuss some of the activities underway across Nature properties to increase audience participation and to raise visibility and use of the data that lie behind so many scholarly papers today.

During the conversation, we refer to the following resources;

• Amazon Public Data Sets
• arxiv.org
• Creative Commons
• Digging into Data Challenge
• Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
• Dublin Core
• Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP)
• Imperial College
• Molecular Systems Biology
• Nature podcast
• Nature Publishing Group
• Nature Precedings
• OpenID
• Open Text Mining Interface
• Tim O’Reilly
• Oxford University
• Papers for OS X
• Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata (PRISM)

This conversation was recorded from a London hotel room on Tuesday 3 February 2009. Unanticipated network problems prevented the call being recorded as I usually do, and I owe my thanks to Charlotte Stoddart at Nature who stepped in and recorded the conversation from their podcast studio. My slightly tinny and distant voice is the fault of the hotel telephone system I ended up having to use…

For other podcasts in the Xiphos series of Education podcasts see here. To subscribe to updates from all of Talis’ podcast series, see here.

In our latest podcast I talk with Bruce Maas, CIO at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. We discuss UWM’s continuing work to apply Cloud Computing ideas to campus infrastructure, including the recent roll-out of Zimbra email and calendaring to 50,000 accounts and evolving plans to virtualise much of the campus IT experience.

During the conversation, we refer to the following resources;

• Eucalyptus
• IIBA
• Peoplesoft
• VMWare
• Wall Street Journal piece on UWM
• Xythos
• Zimbra

This conversation was conducted on Tuesday 3 March 2009.

For other podcasts in the Xiphos series of Education podcasts see here. To subscribe to updates from all of Talis’ podcast series, see here.

Continuing this special series of podcasts with authors from Educause’s recent book, The Tower and the Cloud, I speak with Professor Paul Courant, Librarian at the University of Michigan. Paul’s paper, ‘Scholarship: The Wave of the Future in the Digital Age,’ is freely available in HTML or PDF, as well as in print when you buy the book.

We discuss Paul’s role at Michigan, and consider his views on the changing nature of academic libraries.

During the conversation, we refer to the following resources;

• The Book of Kells
• British Library
• Nick Carr on results of research published in Science, and my response
• Google
• Google Book Search
• LibraryThing
• University of Michigan

This conversation was conducted on Friday 6 February 2009.

For other podcasts with The Tower and the Cloud’s authors see here, and for all episodes in the Xiphos series of Education podcasts see here. To subscribe to updates from all of Talis’ podcast series, see here.

Continuing this special series of podcasts with authors from Educause’s recent book, The Tower and the Cloud, I speak with Jim Davis, CIO of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Jim’s paper, ‘Beyond the False Dichotomy of Centralized and Decentralized IT Deployment,’ is freely available in HTML or PDF, as well as in print when you buy the book.

We discuss Jim’s experience of ensuring that IT deployment across an institution the size of UCLA is locally responsive whilst remaining aligned to broader institutional objectives. We extrapolate from this to consider the role of regional and national infrastructure in meeting changing needs.

During the conversation, we refer to the following resources;

• CalTech
• Common Collaboration and Learning Environment Initiative
• Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC)
• Jim Davis
• ‘Educause statistics suggest we still have a long way to go with the Educational Cloud‘ post in response to Educause Core Data Service results
• Moodle
• Ohio State University
• Stanford
• UCLA
• UCLA Grid
• University of Southern California

This conversation was conducted on Wednesday 28 January 2009.

For other podcasts with The Tower and the Cloud’s authors see here, and for all episodes in the Xiphos series of Education podcasts see here. To subscribe to updates from all of Talis’ podcast series, see here.

Continuing this special series of podcasts with authors from Educause’s recent book, The Tower and the Cloud, I speak with Cliff Lynch, Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI). Cliff’s paper, ‘A Matter of Mission: Information Technology and the Future of Higher Education,’ is freely available in HTML or PDF, as well as in print when you buy the book.

We discuss Cliff’s views on the roles that institutions could – and should – play in ensuring widespread dissemination of the results of their scholarship, their rather different obligations with respect to stewardship of the scholarly resource, and the role that technology plays in both.

During the conversation, we refer to the following resources;

• Association of Research Libraries
• Brandeis University’s plan to close the Rose Art Museum
• Lynn Brindley’s article in The Observer
• Coalition for Networked Information
• Educause
• GenBank
• The Huntington Library
• Internet Archive
• MIT
• National Archives and Records Administration
• National Institutes of Health
• National Science Foundation
• New York Public Library
• New York Times
• OpenCourseWare Consortium
• United Kingdom Research Data Service proposal
• University of California System
• University of Michigan

This conversation was conducted on Sunday 1 February 2009.

For other podcasts with The Tower and the Cloud’s authors see here, and for all episodes in the Xiphos series of Education podcasts see here. To subscribe to updates from all of Talis’ podcast series, see here.

In our latest podcast I talk with Stephen Downes of the Canadian National Research Council (NRC). Stephen is perhaps best known for his work compiling the OLDaily newsletter, and for his wide-ranging views on the role of online learning. We discuss OLDaily, before turning to explore Stephen’s current research interests in such diverse areas as the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) and ‘connectivism.’

During the conversation, we refer to the following resources;

• Athabasca University
• Connectivism and Connective Knowledge course
• National Research Council of Canada
• George Siemens
• University of Alberta
• University of Manitoba

This conversation was conducted on Wednesday 28 January 2009.

For other podcasts in the Xiphos series of Education podcasts see here. To subscribe to updates from all of Talis’ podcast series, see here.