Public Opportunities Research Articles

Journal prospects and formation of the new advisory board

One hundred years later, dearly missed Arnaldo Vieira de Carvalho’s advice continues to serve as an encouragement for the current generations to pursue with competence, dedication and passion the perpetuation of Revista de Medicina as a dissemination vehicle of scientific results obtained by the students of USP School of Medicine (Faculdade de Medicina da USP – FMUSP) and all over the country, seeking to adapt it to the innovation and modernities of our Era. In this article, I will not focus on historical aspects, so brilliantly addressed by Gustavo Gameiro in the Editorial as well as by Cyro Festa and Andre Mota in the previous article, but I will aim to demonstrate, using the recent advances of Revista de Medicina in scientific and management terms, the reasons for my optimism regarding the future of this journal and its prospects. From the scientific point of view, Revista de Medicina aims to provide the dissemination of medical students’ results and scientific activities, giving them visibility in the medical literature. Throughout these 100 years, many current researchers had their first papers published by Revista de Medicina while they were still students. Through periodic and thematic issues, the journal features not only articles written primarily by medical students, but also systematic reviews conducted by renowned Researchers, who are invited to write for special issues of the journal. This quality policy associated to the availability of digital versions of the journal, reducing its cost of publication and distribution also allowed the journal to be even more distributed. A unique data revealing the relevance and scope of this space is the fact that Revista de Medicina is in the leading position of scientific papers downloads among the journals listed in the USP Portal of Journals (Portal de Revistas da USP), the largest in Latin America. Combining the opportunity of publishing for students still in college with the search for quality and scientific standards is a delicate and balanced work, performed by the journal’s Board of Directors with the support of the scientific editorial board, responsible for the “peer review”of the papers. This Editorial Board, formerly comprising exclusively FMUSP full Professors and Professors Emeriti, was considerably redesigned and started performing the Advisory Board function since 2014, featuring now 31 members, Including USP faculty and Researchers connected to the Hospital das

Vietnam: Challenges and Opportunities for Publishers

Little is known about the publishing industry and the cultural complexities of Vietnam and, therefore, this article provides a summary of the essential information and related data on the demographics of the country. The development of the publishing industry is traced from 1945 before the unification of North and South Vietnam in 1975 to the present status. The role of the book publishing industry is examined in relation to television and radio media. A review of the reading culture is presented to understand the current status and potential for printed books as well as E-books in Vietnam.

The Formation of a Self-Funded Global Health Fellowship within a Department of Family Medicine

Introduction: The need for global health training for early-career family medicine physicians is greater than the supply. This paper details the formation of a one-year, self-funded global health fellowship for early-career family medicine physicians. Methods: In August of 2012, the University of Washington Department of Family Medicine established a self-funded, non-ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education)-accredited fellowship in global health. The fellowship is targeted at early-career family medicine physicians. During the one-year fellowship, the global health fellow rotates through a variety of clinics in the greater Seattle area, including HIV, TB, STD, and other infectious disease clinics. Other activities include selected global health courses at the University of Washington, practice in a continuity clinic seeing both family medicine and pre- and post-travel patients, and a variety of teaching, speaking, and publishing opportunities. The fellow may spent up to two months overseas engaged in clinical practice and/or research; one option for fellows is to work and teach at the district hospital in Naivasha, Kenya, at which the University of Washington has established an ongoing teaching and practice program. The majority of the fellow’s salary and benefits is funded by the fellow’s clinical activities. This funding mechanism allowed the fellowship to be launched with a minimum of institutional financial support. Results: Of the first three graduating fellows, two now practice primarily in the US and one works in Malawi with Seed Global Health. The fifth fellow will begin in August 2016. The robust and increasing number of applications suggest that this fellowship is meeting an ongoing need. Conclusion: This fellowship demonstrates that the need for global health training of early-career, family medicine physicians can at least be met in part by self-funded fellowships of this nature.

Anglophone Cameroon literature 1959–90: A brief overview

This article examines modern Anglophone Cameroon literature from 1959 to 1990. The article argues that like most literature emanating from the continent a proper understanding of Anglophone Cameroon literature must be predicated on an analysis of its specific socio-historical determinants. A careful analysis of the corpus of Anglophone Cameroon literature from its inception to the 1990s reveals two broad phases. The first phase covers the period from 1959 to about 1984. In the Republic of Cameroon, this period begins shortly before ‘the end’ of colonialism to the rise of Paul Biya as the second president of Cameroon. The writers during this period like their counterparts elsewhere in Africa, critique the ‘othering’ of formerly colonized people in texts written by the colonizers. To counteract this marginalization, and as a vital part of the process of decolonization, these texts seek to give voice to the ‘subaltern’ in order to expose the misrepresentation and ‘negativization’ so rampant in colonial writings. The second phase of Anglophone Cameroon literature started in the mid-eighties and reached its apex in the 1990s. The literature of this period is an imaginative response to the political, social, and economic climate of this time. The article concludes that the 1980s and 1990s were pivotal decades for Anglophone Cameroon literature. The lack of publishing opportunities abroad and at home led authors to be very industrious and ingenuous. They tailored their literary style and genre to the taste of their home audience. The result was an engaging literature that responded directly to the political, social and economic climate of the time.

Demonstration of an Inline Publication Image Viewer: The Future of Radiological Publishing.

Publications containing multidimensional image content have traditionally been confined to present information in a static 2-dimensional format. Inclusion of videos within a publication provides enhanced opportunities to present multidimensional image views rather than relying on static images to communicate findings. However, a significant advance is presented, in which an image viewer can be integrated into a digital publication format, allowing for user-manipulated and interactive multidimensional viewing of published image data directly inline with the manuscript. This technological advancement allows for user manipulation and interrogation of multidimensional published image data directly within the scientific article. This capability opens up many new and exciting opportunities for publishing in the field of radiological sciences and beyond.

Increasing Importance of Open Access Publishing

As Editor-in-Chief, International Surgery, I dedicate this editorial letter to highlighting the rapidly increasing importance of open access publishing.One of our very basic obligations is to serve the authors of submitted manuscripts to International Surgery as best we can. In so doing, we also serve the advancement of scientific medical research around the world.Open access publishing is free online access, unrestricted, to the results of scientific medical research. Open access publishing was, in part, stimulated by the use of governmental funds for scientific medical research, with one requirement being the immediate sharing of research results to all other researchers and other persons of interest. This governmental requirement has stimulated increased open access publishing.Studies now indicate that open access manuscripts are referenced more often over a longer period of time than nonopen access manuscripts. This aspect is a major advantage to any author who wishes to gain recognition for his/her work. In comparison to embargoed manuscripts, a much larger number of scientific medical researchers see the research results much earlier.An increased awareness of scientific results leads to more collaboration with other researchers. The principle that more can be done by working and collaborating with other persons and other institutions, as compared to working alone, certainly applies in terms of open access publishing stimulating collaboration and thereby advancing scientific medical research. In reference to the several surgical specialties now in existence, open access publishing enhances the understanding amongst researchers in various surgical specialty research endeavors.The viewing of research results, on an enlarged scale in terms of the number of researchers in a larger number of research venues, is clearly to the advantage of any author. My intention, as Editor-in-Chief of International Surgery, is to offer each and every author the very best opportunity to gain awareness of their research results in the shortest period of time. The publishing staff of International Surgery will increasingly in 2017 give attention to open access publishing opportunities, with the goal of steadily increasing the number of open access manuscripts published in each issue of International Surgery.I welcome any questions or comments that you may have.Sincerely,Professor Cristopher ChenEditor-in-ChiefInternational Surgery

The American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT)--A Rich Heritage En Route to an Exciting Future.

The American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT)--A Rich Heritage En Route to an Exciting Future.

Books and Reading are Powerful with Kids, but Content Discovery is Challenging

An international survey of families about media and technology, play and learning, finds that kids love to read, and prefer print over ebooks. As content proliferates on physical and digital platforms, however, finding content they want to read gets more challenging. This article addresses challenges and opportunities for print and publishing in a world where young people’s attention increasingly focuses on all-media-in-one tablets.

Pathways to Advancing Aging Policy-Relevant Research in Academic Settings

Policy-level changes have a significant influence on the health and well-being of aging populations. Yet there is often a gap between scientific knowledge and policy action. Although previous research has identified barriers and facilitators to effective knowledge translation, little attention has been given to the role of academic institutions in knowledge generation. This exploratory focus group study examines barriers and pathways to developing and maintaining an aging policy-relevant research agenda in academic settings, and additional challenges associated with minority group membership in this pursuit. Participants were personally committed to conducting policy-relevant research despite institutional barriers such as fewer funding opportunities and less value attributed to their research, particularly in the context of tenure and promotion. Although many viewed their research as an opportunity to make a difference, especially for underserved older adult populations, a number of minority group participants expressed that their policy research interests were marginalized. Participants offer individual and institutional-level strategies for addressing barriers, including collaborating with community members and colleagues and engaging mentors within and outside of their academic institutions. Reframing the valuation of policy research through the diversification of funding and publishing opportunities can better support scholars engaged in aging policy-relevant research.

A Review on Organic Materials for Optical Phase Conjugation & All-optical Switches

Nonlinear optical materials with optimum properties are essential in continuous development of photonic and electro-optical devices, used in optical communications, networking, optical computation for signal processing, and data storage equipments. The changing trend is to use organic materials/dyes that exhibit exceptional nonlinear optical properties instead of conventional materials which have comparatively low nonlinear properties. These organic materials/dyes are easy to prepare in solution or solid form. The resulting organic material has a low dielectric constant, eliminating the need for poling while maintaining the refractive index. However, these organic materials have few of the drawbacks inherent in the processing of comparable inorganic materials like of intense light induced degradation or bleaching and aggregation at higher dye concentration. In order to overcome these drawbacks and for effective use of highly nonlinear dyes, the dye molecules are doped in polymer matrix. This idea of dye-doped polymer material matrix may increase the concentration of absorptive or fluorescence centers as well as the opto-chemical and opto-physical stability. In this paper, we have discussed the strategic advantages of dye-doped polymer nonlinear materials in comparison with organic and inorganic nonlinear materials for optical phase conjugation and all optical switches in future photonics technology. This was done by studying the linear optical properties and nonlinear optical Phase Conjugation properties of two azo dye-doped polymer films by considering organic dyes disperse orange (DO-25) and disperse yellow (DY-7) doped in a polymer matrix Polymethyl methacrylate methacrylic acid (PMMA-MA). The nonlinear optical phase conjugation properties are studied using Degenerate Four Wave Mixing set-up using 532 nm wavelength CW laser beam. The effect of dye concentration, intensity of backward, forward pump, and inter beam angle between IJMIE Volume 6, Issue 1 ISSN: 2249‐0558 ________________________________________________________ A Monthly Double‐Blind Peer Reviewed Refereed Open Access International e‐Journal ‐ Included in the International Serial Directories Indexed & Listed at: Ulrich's Periodicals Directory ©, U.S.A., Open J-Gage as well as in Cabell’s Directories of Publishing Opportunities, U.S.A. International Journal of Management, IT and Engineering http://www.ijmra.us

International Surgery ICS Member Benefits

For each and every Fellow of the International College of Surgeons (ICS), a number of major benefits are associated with International Surgery, the official Journal of the ICS.A major advantage of publishing in International Surgery is that all manuscripts that are submitted to the Editorial Staff undergo review by a very prestigious Editorial Review Board. Should a submitted manuscript not receive complete approval, every opportunity is provided to the author(s) to make changes and to resubmit. Professional, experienced reviewers perform reviews with the goal of achieving the highest standards of medical and scientific research in publishing research results, and, in doing so, provide the opportunity to the author(s) to enhance communication of their research results.Understanding the value of having new medical and surgical research data available to global readers at the earliest possible time, an “online first” option is available for authors to present research data to readers following approval of the Editorial Review Board of International Surgery and before editing and formal publishing. Given the importance of having research data available to readers as early as possible, this is an important advantage.Open access (OA) publishing opportunities are available with International Surgery. It is sincerely hoped that persons who wish to publish will submit their open access manuscripts to the Editorial Staff of International Surgery.For ICS readers, every ICS Fellow is entitled to receive International Surgery without any incremental fee or charge to the ICS Fellow. To receive International Surgery, each Fellow must provide a correct, accurate, up-to-date email address to the Managing Director of International Surgery, Max Downham, at max@icsglobal.org. Without an up-to-date email address, receipt of the Journal is not possible. As much as staff desires to assist every Fellow, the responsibility for providing a current email address to staff is that of each Fellow.I welcome any questions or comments that you may have. I remain dedicated to serving all of you in the very best manner possible.

Disquieted relations: West meeting East in contemporary sociological research

The history of the past 25 years of collaboration between ‘Westerners’ and ‘Easterners’ in social science research has been accompanied by a good deal of ambivalence. While the collapse of state-socialism suddenly opened a spacious terrain for such collaborations with acknowledgeable gains in their academic contacts, professional outlook and income, old and new Eastern entrants experience the degradation of their expertise and a forceful new positioning into acting as service providers instead of being regarded as equal intellectual partners. Many go as far as labelling the new forms of collaboration as outright ‘colonisation’. Their sharp critique embraces the new experiences of Western domination in setting the concepts and methods of research and it also addresses the exploitative structures of the academia that serve this domination with a highly unequal distribution of funding. The secondary positions and peripheral roles that ‘Easterners’ occupy in access to opportunities for publishing comes in addition, together with the complains about their marginalisation in participating in the influential areas of policy-making where the role of respected advisors with readily acknowledged knowledge and expertise is regularly awarded only to ‘Westerners’.

Predatory Publishing: How Not To Fall Prey

The number of gold open access journals, freely available journals sometimes supported by article processing charges, has steadily increased over the past decade. According to a recent report roughly eight percent of journals with impact factors are open access. With hundreds of identified existing predatory publishing companies, it is difficult to fault our teaching partners and/or students if they fall for a predatory publisher’s solicitation. Academic librarians are arguably any campus’ best-suited guides to the quickly changing academic publishing landscape and have much to gain from leading the discussion. Library sponsored workshops on open access publishing opportunities and hazards provide an excellent opportunity to further strengthen outreach to both faculty and graduate students. While open access publishing opportunities cannot be described as a simple duality, there are definite indicators that an opportunity may not be what it claims. Librarians must consider the nuance and grey area of academic publishing as the models of publishing continue to evolve. This article will (re)familiarize librarians with helpful tools that empower us to serve as effective advocates for members of our campus communities as they evaluate options for publishing their research.

The Evolving Challenges and Opportunities in Global Publishing

An essay discussing the challenges and opportunities in global publishing and in particular the are addressing many of the big questions publishers are facing today which arise from the marriage of content and technology. Includes examination of three major verticals (STM, Education and Trade publishing) and considers the possibilities offered by cross-industry collaboration to evolve global standards.

Using one’s own professional activities to promote research and publishing

This paper explores issues related to teacher educators publishing in journals. They do so for obvious reasons such as tenure, career advancement, personal satisfaction and university prestige. In order to offer an extra means of helping teacher educators achieve these publishing goals, the paper explores how using one’s own professional experiences in a number of spheres may offer substantial opportunities for publishing. Using a Grounded Theory analysis, the author presents an analysis of his own publications. These are laid out in five categories in which his professional pursuits with teacher trainees have led to a considerable number of publications, 34 of which have appeared in international journals, 25 of them in international Grade A and B journals. The author calls for academics to examine their own practices, suggesting that there is much in one’s own professional experiences that can be of worth to the international community.

Apophthegmata, Collected Works of Erasmus , vols. 37 and 38 by Desiderius Erasmus, and: Apophthegmatum Libri I-IV , Erasmi Opera Omnia IV-4 by Desiderius Erasmus (review)

Reviewed by: Apophthegmata, Collected Works of Erasmus, vols. 37 and 38 by Desiderius Erasmus, and: Apophthegmatum Libri I-IV, Erasmi Opera Omnia IV-4 by Desiderius Erasmus Willis G. Regier Desiderius Erasmus. Apophthegmata, Collected Works of Erasmus, vols. 37 and 38. Translated and edited by Betty I. Knott and Elaine Fantham. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2014. xxxii, 1012 pages. Desiderius Erasmus. Apophthegmatum Libri I-IV, Erasmi Opera Omnia IV-4. Edited by Tinke L. ter Meer. Leiden: Brill, 2010. x, 399 pages. Collections of sayings, or apophthegmata, have a distinguished history, descending to our era through gnomologia, chrestomathies, proverbia, florilegia, golden treasuries, table talk, quotation collections, and the multiple wit-and-wisdoms of celebrated figures. Tinke L. ter Meer describes apophthegms as “pointed remarks which characterized the person who expressed them.” For example: Quum accepisset esse quondam qui conuiciis ipsum impeteret, “Regium est,” inquit, “quum facias bene, audire male.” (ASD IV-4.302) When Alexander found out that someone was assailing him with abuse he said, “It is a king’s lot to act kindly and be spoken of unkindly.” (CWE 37.357) If a minor genre, apophthegms have immense prestige. In his Institutio principis christiani (1516), Erasmus recommended that the first secular book a prince should read is Plutarch’s Apophthegmata. Erasmus’s Apophthegmata is largely drawn from Plutarch, supplemented with pieces from Quintilian, Suetonius, Athenaeus, Valerius Maximus, Diogenes Laertius, Philostratus, Macrobius, Stobaeus, and others. In the dedicatory letter prefacing his collection, Erasmus proposed several uses for apophthegms. As statements they “let us see the mind of person truly reflected.” As extracts that represent larger works they save time. When gathered as Plutarch gathered them they reveal the character of nations. Arranged chronologically, as Plutarch arranged them, they sketch a nation’s history. While their primary use is education (his editions were used for that purpose for years) they are also entertaining. A sprinkling of playful apophthegms “relaxes tired spirits,” “cheers and enlivens the minds of the young, make life more civilized, our speaking more attractive.” These are the same rationales offered in modern quotation collections, which add another: they enable people to locate sources for famous quotations. Yet Erasmus was already suspicious of sources. Often enough he provides them, while recognizing that even in antiquity it was common practice to attribute a quotation to whomever it seemed most suited. “We find the same remark attributed to different speakers in different authorities” (37.12). His Apophthegmata proves the point. A saying attributed to Archidamus is also attributed to Lysander (37.79 and 135); a remark of Agis is also attributed to Theopompus and Panthoidas (37.61, 98, and 140); an anecdote of Philip of Macedon is identical to one of Hadrian (37.346 and 38.627); a saying of Demosthenes is said also by Zeno (37.453 and 38.844); and so on. Despite its original purpose, his collection can hardly be expected to show up in current curricula. Instead, it has aged into an artefact of the late Renaissance, [End Page 1248] testifying to its appetite for classical learning. It played some role in the rediscovery of Plutarch and built another bridge between Renaissance Latin and classical Greek. It was a project Erasmus could complete while working on Ecclesiastes, his book on preaching, and on new editions of his Adagia and Novum Testamentum. He was in his sixties, infirm, battling adversaries, defending his reputation as the Prince of Humanists, and still hard at work keeping printers busy. His Apophthegmata was a publishing opportunity. Erasmus met it with his usual haste, publishing three editions with Froben in Basel in 1531, 1532, and 1535. The first edition was promptly reprinted in Paris, Venice, and Lyons; nearly fifty reprints followed in the 16th century. The first edition included only six books. Following its success, Erasmus added two more books for the 1532 edition. He amplified the text in 1535 and moved some apophthegms from one book to another. Although most of his apophthegms were taken from Plutarch, Erasmus made them his own. “My own policy has been, for several reasons, to take my cue from Plutarch rather than translate him.” His apophthegms combine details from other classical sources and...

Editorial

This is the twelfth issue of Transfers, and perhaps it is time to stop calling it a “new” journal! Our “baby” is growing up, thriving in an expanding landscape of interdisciplinary mobilities research. Transfers is maturing into a robust vehicle for global conversations.Our rather ambitious mission has been both conceptual and empirical: to “rethink mobilities” and provide publishing opportunities for innovative research. For us, that has been exemplified in our commitment in several areas. Most importantly, we fly the flag for the new theoretical approaches that continue to move the field beyond the social sciences, where the “new mobilities paradigm” was first articulated. We position ourselves as part of a vibrant intellectual project that bridges theoretical developments and research agendas in the humanities and the social sciences.

From Freshman to Graduate: Making the Case for Student-Centric Institutional Repositories

INTRODUCTION Institutional repositories provide an opportunity to enhance the undergraduate education experience by developing student-centric collections. This article highlights five IR collections focusing on undergraduate student work at a medium size university. LITERATURE REVIEW Students benefit when they actively participate in undergraduate research activities that are tied to high-impact educational practices. However, there are limited options for undergraduate students to publish and share their work. Academic librarians are well-positioned to develop a student-centric institutional repository supporting undergraduate student research while working at instilling better information literacy standards and practices. DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT Western Oregon University’s Hamersly Library developed an institutional repository with an initial collection development strategy around undergraduate student collections based on the university’s strong identity and emphasis on undergraduate education. While traditional academic publishing opportunities are represented, there is also space and encouragement for publication of other types of student created material including presentations and creative works. There is an emphasis on representing student work from all grade levels. By connecting the student scholarship collections to high-impact educational practices, the library can advocate and demonstrate additional types of value that resonate with faculty and university administrators. NEXT STEPS The library will explore student publishing opportunities that originate in existing classes and new courses taught by librarians. Library faculty will continue to educate university administration and faculty on scholarly communication initiatives and their concerns of plagiarism and quality of work.

How do we measure the success of operational research?

A number of training initiatives are aimed at expanding operational research (OR) in health. The Operational Research Assistance Project (ORAP) implemented by the Desmond Tutu TB Centre (DTTC) aimed to strengthen the capacity of South African professionals to conduct operational research (OR) as an integral component of health programmes in order to contribute to the improved quality and performance of the health system. The project was undertaken in partnership with the TREAT TB team of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) and in collaboration with the South African National Department of Health (DoH) and the US-AID Mission to South Africa. Research teams established in each of the nine provinces in South Africa consisted of a health service provider from the DoH and an academic researcher from a local academic/research organisation. In addition, young researchers from the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Stellenbosch University, could also enrol. Research topics were selected from the National Health Research Priorities list that is developed by the National DoH in collaboration with key stakeholders. Over an 18-month period, teams were guided through the process of developing ethically approved OR protocols, undertaking the research (with funding provided to support implementation), managing and analysing the data, disseminating the results and writing a manuscript for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. A senior DTTC staff member was assigned to mentor each team throughout the process. There were many measurable successes: 103 health service providers and medical researchers from all nine provinces of South Africa were trained, and a manual ‘Operational research to improve health services: a guide for proposal development’1 was developed, distributed at The Union World Conferences on Lung Health and translated into Spanish for broader distribution by TREAT TB. To date, 36 research studies have been undertaken and 20 posters and 14 oral presentations have been presented at conferences. Thirteen manuscripts have been submitted and/or published, 16 are being prepared and eight projects are still underway. Interviews conducted during an external qualitative evaluation with a range of project stakeholders, including project partners, mentors, project participants and DoH managers, highlight the range of benefits that participants gained from ORAP. Key benefits included improved knowledge and understanding of OR, skills gained in designing and implementing OR, improved time and project management, budgeting and problem-solving skills. Participants from academic institutions said that ORAP provided them with an opportunity to gain understanding of the DoH tuberculosis programme and that publishing opportunities helped to develop their careers. Participants from the DoH reported that they had greater insight into their work when evaluating tuberculosis data and that they could better identify problems existing in the health service. They also felt that ORAP built an improved relationship between academic institutions and the DoH. ORAP has presented several challenges. The mentorship needs of the participants were far greater than anticipated, and the limited pool of experienced mentors could not always meet the needs of the research teams. The differing skill levels within the research teams, time constraints, different research interests and lack of physical proximity between team members created tensions that sometimes prevented effective collaboration. Although several published manuscripts have made recommendations for health service improvements, none have been implemented to date. The involvement of service providers has not yet facilitated the process of research translation. The question of whose responsibility it is to ensure that action is taken in response to the findings needs to be addressed and the role of academic researchers in this process clarified. The allocation of financial resources is an important measure of the priority placed on OR. Despite positive feedback from the DoH, no resources have been allocated to fund future similar OR activities. Although the cost of OR is lower than for other research activities, OR must be appropriately costed and resources allocated to ensure sustainability. We recognise that OR initiatives need to be measured against multiple outcomes. While the number of published manuscripts is an important measure, this does not suffice on its own. The contribution and value of capacity building and skills improvement have the potential for a broader effect beyond OR, but these, too, are difficult to measure. Ultimately, the impact on policy and or practice is important, and when and how to measure this remains a challenge.

The open source dynamics in geospatial research and education

Peer reviewing is one of the core processes of science. While the typical blind system helps to improve original submissions, there are opportunities for academic publishing to learn from open source practices (commits, bug reports, feature requests, documentation, etc.), which are entirely open and done in public view. But beyond, with greater significance, peer reviewing offers a good opportunity to illustrate how the characteristics of the open source model can favor simultaneously the acknowledgment of programming efforts, a high quality evaluation standard, but also reproducibility and transparency. Code has to be considered as a full research object in geospatial development. It should be made available in full and examined as part of any contribution, like the article going with it. A good example is the Journal of Statistical Software. Created in 1996, it publishes articles and code on statistics and algorithms. The contents are freely available on-line, code snippets and source code being published along with the paper. An advantage of this approach is to prevent the propagation of “black boxes”. The approach clearly also adds value to code by acknowledging programming efforts as scientific contributions. But publishing code along with a paper also results in the ability of subsequent research projects to build on this basis. This ability is even becoming a requirement for publicly funded research projects. In addition, we may notice that code malleability provides the researcher with the opportunity to adapt the software to the scientific questions, instead of being constrained by the limiting functionalities of the software. As regards education, there are two key freedoms inherent to open source software and practices that offer potential pedagogical wins for geospatial education. First, “free as in beer” allows students to indefinitely install software on computers without license limitations. A consequence of this unconstrained context is a greater degree of exploration and discovery by the students working by themselves and at their own pace. But there is still a long way to go before all the benefits are fully realized. Indeed, current demands and offerings are focusing on “buttonology”, which consists of learning how to use tools constrained by software licenses carefully negotiated over the years by universities. It raises then some important questions regarding the role of geospatial education. Is it not to train students to equip them with the skill sets and knowledge so that they are ready for, and can create, the future geospatial labor market? Therein, we can consider the second freedom, “free as in speech,” as able to empower the students by revealing the logic of particular algorithms and computational concepts. Open source code—as text—is available for reading, manipulating, and understanding. The expected advantage is that students’ engagement with fundamental concepts is deepened in a way that is per se not possible with closed source software. In other words, students come to see geospatial methods not only as tools they can use in their own research, but as possible subjects for research.