The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is entering its third decade. Like any project that has been around this long, PKP is facing the substantial responsibilities of maturity, seeking ways that will enable it to best serve the thousands of people who utilize our software to operate and index the journals and presses with which they work.
The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is pleased to share our reflections on a community consultation process that saw us receive feedback from a wide range of stakeholders, including scholarly communications experts and past, present, and potential users of PKP software and services.
The Developing A Curriculum to Advance Library-Based Publishing project will host a pair of in-person workshops based on the first two curriculum modules released this spring, Content and Impact . Both will take place on Thursday, May 24 (the day after the Library Publishing Forum) at the University of Minnesota.
Canada’s three federal research funding agencies – the Canadian Institutes of Health ($1 billion annual budget in 2016-17), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada ($1.1 billion), the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada ($380 million) – instituted an intellectual property law exception in 2014. It effects the publication of research and scholarship resulting from grants which they have awarded.
Our second PKP School course — on the OJS 3 editorial workflow — is now available! This course compliments Setting Up a Journal with OJS 3, released late last year, which covered the basic setup steps to get up and running. Like all PKP School courses, this one is also offered completely free of charge, but does require registration on the site.
We are very pleased to be sponsoring the outstanding work of the Library Publishing Coalition, whose efforts are doing so much to build a community of practice in this area, as well as helping library-based publishers gain a better sense of themselves and their unique role in the broader scholarly publishing environment.
Journals frequently look for ways to make their content and websites more interactive, and the most common way to accomplish this is using Javascript to link the site with outside services. We’ve recently released a general-purpose plugin called the “Custom Header Plugin” to help accomplish this. It’ll replace a variety of single-purpose plugins and allow for rich, flexible integration without requiring any skill in coding.
PKP and the Heidelberg University Library are pleased to announce the next PKP Sprint will be taking place in Heidelberg, Germany on Sept 20 and 21, 2018. PKP sprints run “unconference” style, typically focusing on rapid code development for our open source publishing applications, with small, self-organized teams working together to solve common software issues or making enhancements that will benefit everyone.
In case you missed it, the Society for Scholarly Publishing has two upcoming programs that will be of interest: SSP Mentorship Program The SSP Mentorship program connects professionals at all career levels and provides both mentors and mentees opportunities to develop new relationships, share experiences, and learn from others outside their organizations.
Last summer, York University declared that it will appeal the July 12, 2017 ruling of the Federal Court of Canada that was made in favor of Access Copyright, whose tariff on course materials, approved by Copyright Board of Canada, the university refused to pay. Instead of paying a set fee per student, York had relied on its interpretation of fair dealing to guide its faculty’s use of course readings.
In case you didn’t know, PKP isn’t just about software. We originated as a research project, and continue to do original research. Here are a few recent publications from our team, including an OA copy of PKP Director John Willinsky’s latest book! Shu, F., Mongeon, P., Haustein, S., Siler, K., Alperin, J.P., Larivière, V. (2017) Is it such a big deal? On the cost of journal use in the digital era. College & Research Libraries.
