Archive of Open Views

- Open Views - Matthew Cockerill, BioMedCentral

Sundar Raman — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 04:41:11 -0600

On this episode of Open Views I'm joined by Dr. Matthew Cockerill from BioMedCentral, a commercial Open Access publisher. BioMedCentral has a portfolio of 182 journals, a combination of both general titles such as the Journal of Biology, and much more specialized such as Malaria Journal and Biomedcentral Bioinformatics. All the research published by BioMed Central's journals is open access, but BioMed Central also provides access to various additional products and services that require a subscription. BioMed Central also operates Open Repository, a hosted digital repository solution for institutions.

Matthew Cockerill started off as Biomedcentral's first employee, back in 1999, and has since served in several roles: technical director, operations director, and now Publisher, which is essentially like the managing director. He agreed to a conversation to talk about his work at BiomedCentral, and also the relevance of the Open Access model in an interconnected world.

Music Credits: Saregama, Samadhi

Download Ogg-Vorbis version read more »

- Open Views - Matthew Todd, The Synaptic Leap

Sundar Raman — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 03:57:59 -0600

The Synaptic Leap is a project started by Ginger Taylor aiming to create enabling systems to make open source, collaborative development straightforward for biomedical researchers. The project bills itself as "Open Biomedical Research", and this is the topic of this week's show.

This week on Open Views I'm joined by Dr. Matthew Todd, lecturer in organic chemistry at the University of Sydney in Australia. Dr. Todd's work in drug discovery for tropical diseases such as schistosomiasis is internationally recognized. He is also a proponent of the use of the Free/Open Source model for doing biomedical research in areas such as tropical diseases and biochemistry.

Dr. Matthew Todd is currently a research advisor at The Synaptic Leap, and we'll be talking about what Open Source in bio-medicine really means, how it is implemented, and what the impact of the Free/Open model is in biomedical research. read more »

- Open Views - Joi Ito, Chairman of CreativeCommons.org

Sundar Raman — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 22:35:09 -0600

My guest this week on Open Views is Joichi Ito, Chairman of Creative Commons and Chairman of Six Apart Japan.

Joi has received much recognition for his role as an entrepreneur focused on Internet and technology companies and has founded PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan, and provided the initial venture capital (through his venture firm Neoteny Corp.) to Six Apart, the company that created Movable Type, Typepad and now owns LiveJournal.

He is on the board of Technorati, Digital Garage, WITNESS, Pia Corporation, Socialtext and iCommons. In October of 2004, he was named to the board of ICANN for a three-year term starting December 2004. In August of 2005, he joined the board of the Mozilla Foundation. He also served on the board of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) from March 2005 until April 2007.

As this all makes clear, Joi Ito is a serial entreprenuer and also a prolific Free Culture activist. He joins me on Open Views to talk about his work with Free Culture both in a global and Japanese context. read more »

- Open Views - John Sullivan, Free Software Foundation

Sundar Raman — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 21:39:07 -0600

The Free Software Foundation (FSF), started by Richard Stallman, is an advocacy organization promoting computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute
computer programs. These rights are part of what the FSF considers as the freedoms for users of computer software:

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

John Sullivan is the Campaigns Manager at the FSF, and has been involved with the BadVista, PlayOgg and Defective by Design educational campaigns, aimed at shedding light on the restrictions imposed on consumers of technology. read more »

- Open Views - Heather Ford, iCommons.org

Sundar Raman — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 21:36:41 -0600

Heather Ford is a South African who has worked in the fields of Internet policy, law and management in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. She is the Executive Director of iCommons, a UK private charitable corporation.

Incubated by Creative Commons,
iCommons is an organisation with a broad vision to develop a united
global commons front by collaborating with open education, access to
knowledge, free software, open access publishing and free culture communities around the world.

Heather joins me on Open Views to talk about her work at iCommons, the challenges of leading an international Free Culture organization, and Free Culture in South Africa. read more »

- Open Views - Peter Suber, OpenAccess

Sundar Raman — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 21:34:13 -0600

Professor Peter Suber joins me this week on Open Views for an in-depth look at some of the historical background for Open Access, the current state of OA around the world, and the challenges posed by traditional publishing companies.

Peter Suber is currently Open Access Project Director at Public Knowledge, a Washington DC based public interest group working to defend your rights in the emerging digital culture.

He is also Senior Researcher at The Scholarly Publication and Academic Research Coalition (SPARC), and Research Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at Earlham College in Richmond Indiana.

Suber was the principal drafter of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, and sits on the Steering Committee of the Scientific Information Working Group of the U.N. World Summit on the Information Society, the Advisory Board of American Library Association Information Commons, and the Board of Governors of the International Consortium for the Advancement of Academic Publishing.

He has been active in promoting open access for many years through his research, writing, speaking, and other forms of advocacy.

37 - Open Views - Mike Linksvayer, Vice President, CreativeCommons.org

Sundar Raman — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:00:26 -0500

36 - Open Views - Vera Franz, OSI

Sundar Raman — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:00:17 -0500

Vera Franz is Program Manager of the Open Society Institute's Information Program. In this capacity she leads the Open Information and Intellectual Property Reform programs.

The Information Program supports four initiatives which enable access to knowledge in poorer countries: a project on the reform of intellectual property; the eIFL library consortium; the Open Access Initiative, and an East-East translation program.

Vera Franz talked to me about the detailed problem with the current intellectual property/policy regimes around the world and the OSI's strategy for combatting the issues. Her experience monitoring and working with trade organizations such as the WTO and WIPO provides perspective on how the people drafting these regulations and policies deal with Open Source, Free Culture and transparent processes in general.

38 - Open Views - Sunlight Foundation

Sundar Raman — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:44:54 -0500

The Sunlight Foundation was founded in January 2006 with the goal of using the power of the Internet and new information technology to enable citizens to learn more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing.

Bill Allison is Senior Fellow at the Sunlight foundation, and a veteran investigative reporter. Greg Elin is the chief data architect at Sunlight Labs, the technology wing of the Sunlight Foundation. read more »

24 - Open Views - Sunil Abraham, Mahiti.org

Sundar Raman — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 21:36:59 -0500

In 2002, Sunil Abraham was elected as a Fellow of Ashoka.org, an international organization whose mission is to promote positive social change by investing in social entreperneurs with innovative solutions that are sustainable and replicable.

Mahiti is the for-profit company that Sunil founded in 1998, in order to create simple, effective, and affordable solutions for non-profit and volunteer organizations, so that they could do their work better.

Sunil's work as an activist using free/open-source tools, his projects with organizations such as the Open Society Institute, the International Open Source Network, AsiaSource, and his presentations to a long list of both private, and public orgnizations have made him both an important and admired member of the larger Free and Open Source worlds. In addition to this non-profit he is also a successful social entrepreneur, as the Ashoka.org fellowship recognizes. read more »