Post Tagged with: "cihr"

Swartz’s Death Places Spotlight on More Open Access To Information

The Internet community has been reeling for the past week as it grapples with the suicide of Aaron Swartz, a prominent digital rights activist who left a remarkable legacy for a 26-year old. Swartz’s contributions are used by millions of people every day as he played a key role in developing the specifications for RSS (which makes it easy to syndicate online content), Creative Commons licences (which makes is easy to make creative works freely available), and the popular website Reddit.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that while much of the immediate focus has centered on mental health issues, draconian computer crime laws, and the bewildering prosecution of Swartz for downloading millions of academic articles – a U.S. prosecutor was seeking as much as 35 years in jail despite the fact that Swartz did not benefit from the downloads and the source of the articles did not want to pursue legal action – the more notable legacy was his effort to make information more openly and freely available.

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January 22, 2013 9 comments Columns

Swartz’s Death Places Spotlight on More Open Access To Information

Appeared in the Toronto Star on January 20, 2013 as Internet Activist Death Places Spotlight on More Open Access to Information The Internet community has been reeling for the past week as it grapples with the suicide of Aaron Swartz, a prominent digital rights activist who left a remarkable legacy […]

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January 22, 2013 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive

New CIHR Open Access Policy Takes Effect

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research have launched a new open access policy that took effect on January 1st.  The new policy requires CIHR funded researchers to make their peer-reviewed publications freely available within 12 months of publication. Moreover, researchers are now required to deposit certain data immediately upon publication […]

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January 2, 2013 9 comments News

What Happened to the CIHR’s Trial Transparency Policy?

In a series of important posts (1, 2, 3, 4), the Social Justice Librarian blog points to changes at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research on a trial transparency policy.

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May 24, 2011 Comments are Disabled News

Canada Risks Missing Out on Open Access Momentum

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) focuses on open access in Canada. Last week, Liberal leader Stephane Dion committed to substantial increases to Canada's federal research funding in a major speech on education and research at the University of Western Ontario.  The Liberal promise – which comes on the heels of increased Conservative support for the federal research granting councils in the 2008 budget – reflects a growing all-party emphasis on the link between research support and economic performance. While the research and business communities will undoubtedly welcome the increased financial commitment, it is worth contrasting the Canadian emphasis on more spending, with the Australian approach on greater access to the research itself. Australian Senator Kim Carr, who serves as the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, recently committed to "promote the freest possible flow of information domestically and globally." 

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September 24, 2008 Comments are Disabled Columns