From owner-comp-bio@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Sat May 26 20:14:59 2001 Return-Path: Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0F32117AB8 for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 20:14:58 +0100 (BST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1CAFA17AD1 for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 20:14:54 +0100 (BST) Received: by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix, from userid 6023) id E5D9B17B32; Sat, 26 May 2001 20:14:03 +0100 (BST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id DBB2717AC9 for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 15:32:13 +0100 (BST) Received: from chx400.switch.ch (chx400.switch.ch [130.59.10.2]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id B724517AB6 for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 15:31:59 +0100 (BST) Received: from serv2.aus1.datafoundry.net ([216.166.60.42]) by chx400.switch.ch with esmtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 153f6l-0006Y5-00 for bionet-biology-computational@moderators.isc.org; Sat, 26 May 2001 16:31:59 +0200 Received: from news6.aus1.giganews.com (news6.aus1.giganews.com [216.166.61.16]) by serv2.aus1.datafoundry.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 348E11987BB for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 09:31:47 -0500 (CDT) Received: (from news@localhost) by news6.aus1.giganews.com (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) id JAA07547; Sat, 26 May 2001 09:31:46 -0500 (CDT) To: bionet-biology-computational@moderators.isc.org Message-ID: <3B0FC014.69A5C067@bioinformatics.org> From: "J.W. Bizzaro" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.6 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.14-5.0 i586) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: bionet.biology.computational Subject: CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: Biological Research with Open-Access Publications Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 09:31:46 CDT Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing X-Trace: sv3-CY2HwbJcrTPYXYte4COGUVGPXKJkJayG54l5E1XfgV9OBpOjA10z08GbkMgMF1Bi1F/BIbnTsoA7dF7!orVnjRkmjTkTRcNb/hZyJ+/d9RanIXrsMczG9RMjZSgC+z+tzZcsp67XbMa1iNyyNRPGGDhKeRmb X-Complaints-To: abuse@GigaNews.Com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 20:14:03 +0100 (BST) Sender: owner-comp-bio@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Precedence: bulk CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Biological Research with Open-Access Publications (OAP) Part of the joint conference on Text in Biology: Biological Research with Information Extraction & Open-Access Publications (BRIE & OAP) 2001 A satellite event at the ISMB'01 conference Copenhagen, Denmark Tivoli Gardens July 26, 2001 9 AM to 5 PM ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BACKGROUND * Copyright on scientific communications (published articles and so forth) belongs to publishing companies and not to authors, for most publications. Scientists wishing to share relevant communications, even their own in some cases, face legal challenges from publishers. * Publishing companies charge expensive subscriptions to access scientific communications. Scientists in developing countries and poorly-endowed institutions, although intellectually on par with their peers, are severely hindered by this. * These two problems have prevented scientists from gaining any access, even for simple searches, to the full text of these communications. * Scientific communications are published in journals according to topic. This has resulted in confusion as to the best place to publish, retrieve or extract information (e.g., mathematical biology communications could be published in either a mathematical journal or a biological one). * Communications are also published in journals differing by publisher. This has caused the segregation of communications by the prestige of the journal (e.g., how difficult it is to be published in the journal and the composition of the readership). This has also allowed room for personal politics in scientific communication. * These two problems are compounded by the first two: with a limited budget, to which journals should one subscribe? What we are left with is an artificial selection, by publishers, of which communications are best suited to a scientist's field of study. * This may be the result of a competitive marketplace for readership, but is there an alternative to profit-based publications? Should there be? Can an alternative publication model be profitable for a publisher? * Additionally, even with the advent of computers, databases, and the World Wide Web, scientific communications are published as they were 100 years ago: as linear, printable text. And they are archived this way. While this makes good reading, it is not the best format for information retrieval or extraction. * All of these problems restrict information retrieval, extraction, and scientific inquiry. How do we resolve them? As the ultimate solution, should future communications be published in an "open-access, global knowledge-base"? Before or after information extraction techniques are applied? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AIMS * We identify several obstacles to information retrieval and extraction: copyright restrictions, costly subscriptions, artificial segregation of communications, and archival of information in a manner not suited for information retrieval and extraction. And we seek to discuss the concept of "open-access publications" and if it is a viable solution to these problems. * OAP also serves as a "Birds of a Feather" (BoF) meeting for Bioinformatics.org, an organization committed to freedom and openness in the field of bioinformatics. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SCOPE * We are seeking several speakers who can address how the above problems might be solved. Topics may include author-owned copyrights, free or inexpensive subscriptions, uniform and multiple categories for communications, and archival of information in a manner suited for information retrieval and extraction, for example, knowledge bases. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUBMISSION * Platform presentations only * Submit abstracts by: June 15, 2001 * Decisions by: June 30, 2001 * Submissions to: brie-oap-01@bioinformatics.org * Acceptable formats: PDF, postscript, RTF, MS Word * Length: one page maximum * PLEASE: include name, contact details, affiliation ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WEBSITE * http://bioinformatics.org/bof/brie-oap-01/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .