Leveraging the potential of cloud computing, mobile computing and social media is critical to survive competition, it was observed at the recently concluded CIO Executive Leadership Roundtable held in Chicago. The invitation-only event was attended by 120 Chicago-area CIOs and IT executives. Produced by HMG Strategy, the event sought to provide a high-level, private venue for sharing crucial knowledge, exploring new strategies, and envisioning new revenue streams through innovative use of information technology. The event was hosted by the Chicago Chapter of SIM (Society for Information Management).
Cloud computing is a concept of renting computing power. It is seen to have become the latest sensation in the technology world. The most common examples of cloud computing are web-based applications such as Google Docs and Gmail. Given concerns about security and reliability, few big companies are ready to entrust their IT operations to publicly shared infrastructure, even if it is cheaper. Those companies increasingly have another alternative, the private cloud.
Large companies are creating private clouds by moving their internal computer power and applications off the PC desktop and onto shared infrastructure. Here employees use it only as needed. Unlike the public clouds, the resources of the private cloud are shared only within the corporate community. They are controlled by the corporation, not a third-party vendor that has the ability to lease them to anyone it chooses.
Massachusetts recently passed new data protection laws that require companies to place information of its residents behind a firewall monitored by an IT worker at all times. The law, which applies to all organisations, requires those that use cloud computing to monitor their security and that of any cloud computing vendor they use.
According to the Digital Due Process Coalition (DDPC), the growth of cloud computing has made updates even more pressing as companies store e-mail archives and other communication data in multiple jurisdictions. The coalition recently announced that it will discuss changes to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to account for growing digital communication and cloud computing's popularity surge. The ECPA became law in 1986 and formalised privacy expectations and the seizure of digital correspondence in criminal and civil litigation. According to DDPC, the law has become outdated as instant messaging, e-mail and other forms of digital communication have become preferred methods.
The UKSG and the National Information Standards Organisation (NISO) have announced that the American Institute of Physics, Ex Libris, OCLC and Serials Solutions are the first organisations to publicly endorse the Phase I recommendations of the KBART (Knowledge Bases And Related Tools) Working Group, a joint initiative that is exploring data problems within the OpenURL supply chain. KBART's Phase I Recommended Practice, published in January 2010, contains practical recommendations for the timely exchange of accurate metadata between content providers and knowledge base developers.
A number of other major organisations in the scholarly information supply chain are also working towards KBART endorsement. All content providers - from major databases to small publishers - are encouraged to publicly endorse the KBART Recommended Practice by submitting a sample file to the KBART working group. Once the file's format and content has been reviewed and approved, and the provider has made it publicly available (in line with the recommendations), the provider will be added to a public list of endorsing providers.
Knowledge base developers can endorse the KBART Recommended Practice by confirming that their systems can process KBART formatted files. In addition, a contacts registry is now available on the KBART Information Hub at www.uksg.org/kbart where content providers and knowledge base developers can register their organisation's information for downloading holdings metadata.
The KBART working group is now progressing to Phase II, which will build on the foundation phase to address more complex data issues, including different types of content, emerging business models and customised licensing. Sarah Pearson, E-Resources & Serials Coordinator at the University of Birmingham, and Andreas Biedenbach, Manager of eProduct Operations for Springer, will take on the roles of UKSG co-chair and NISO co-chair respectively for KBART’s Phase II.
KBART was set up following the 2007 publication of the UKSG research report ‘Link Resolvers and the Serials Supply Chain’. Central to the efficient operation of the OpenURL is the knowledge base, which consists of data supplied by content providers including publishers. The report found that a lack of awareness of the OpenURLs capabilities and requirements is impacting the quality and timeliness of data provided to populate knowledge bases, and thus undermining the potential of the sophisticated OpenURL technology.
UKSG partnered with NISO to commission the KBART Working Group to develop guidelines for best practice and provide educational materials. The core NISO/UKSG Working Group consists of representatives from libraries, knowledge base developers, publishers, intermediaries and other content providers, and is supported by a monitoring group of interested parties.
Researchers connected to the UK's national grid service can now carry out long term collaborative research with peers across Europe through an improved network. Scientists in the UK can tap into the new grid initiative, called EGI.eu, to access computing power, data, software and storage space in over 50 countries.
EGI.eu does not own or operate any computers, but co-ordinates thousands of clusters of computers hosted in university departments and data centers, national hubs and even desktop PCs. The UK, along with the other nations, will contribute resources and make contributions of funding each year to a common pot to ensure that the initiative is sustainable. By creating this improved network, the Europe-wide research community hopes to make significant breakthroughs in data-intensive scientific research, previously considered too time consuming to consider.
The UK's national grid initiative is made up of the National Grid Service and GridPP projects funded by JISC, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
Amazon.com, Inc., a US-based multinational e-commerce company, has announced that its Kindle App for iPad is now available in all countries where the iPad is offered. The app lets users select from hundreds of thousands of books available in the Kindle Store on iPad and features Amazon Whispersync technology that saves and synchronises customers' last page read, bookmarks, notes and highlights across their Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, iPad and more.
Customers in the US can choose from over 550,000 books available in the Kindle Store, including new releases and bestsellers. The Kindle Store claims to be the only place to find tens of thousands of books added to the Kindle Store by authors and publishers using Kindle's self-service platform. Customers can search for a specific book or browse by genre or author, and can take advantage of all the features that customers enjoy in the Kindle Store, including Amazon.com customer reviews, personalised recommendations and editorial reviews.
The Kindle App user interface is tailored to the large size, look and feel of iPad. According to the company, the new user interface with bold colours, animation and seamless user experience make Kindle on iPad a unique reading experience. In addition, Kindle App for iPad offers an interactive experience with page turn animation designed to replicate the look of a page turning in a book. Customers who prefer a simpler, unadorned reading experience can choose the 'Basic Reading Mode' option and turn off animation.
US lawmakers have reportedly strengthened their enquiry into the privacy practices of two Internet companies - Google, Inc. and Facebook, Inc.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee recently asked Facebook and Google to cooperate with investigations into privacy practices at both companies. Representative John Conyers Jr. has also sent mails expressing concern on whether the two companies are doing enough to protect users' privacy.
Google came under fire for capturing online activities over Wi-Fi networks in over 30 countries while it was photographing neighbourhoods for its Street View feature. Facebook rolled out privacy fixes this week after being critisised for pressing users to publicly share more personal information.
Conyers has asked Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Chief Executive, to explain his company's privacy practices. Also, he wanted Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, to retain the data and records related to the Wi-Fi data collection and to cooperate with state and federal agencies. The House Judiciary Committee is considering hearings and legislation.
The Library of Congress and Columbia University have announced an agreement to create a web-based clearinghouse of information about best practices for preserving significant geospatial data. The Library of Congress's National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) will fund development of the clearinghouse at the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia's Earth Institute. CIESIN will launch a beta version of the clearinghouse later this year.
The clearinghouse is a direct outcome of a meeting held at the Library with representatives of the geospatial stewardship community in November 2009. At the meeting, experts discussed ways to frame a national preservation and access strategy for geospatial data that is at high risk of loss. Discussions centered on ideas for practical steps that could be undertaken quickly and would have broad impact on capabilities for long-term data management.
A recurrent topic was the limited ability to learn about data-stewardship advances, including new tools, methods and services that have potential for broad adoption. Participants were in agreement that leveraging best practices was essential to cope with explosive data growth in a cost-effective manner. There was also consensus that a web-based information service would be the best way to address the need.
NDIIPP is pursuing a national strategy to collect, preserve and make available significant digital content, especially information that is created in digital form only, for current and future generations.
The American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) has announced that it is now part of the National Library of Medicine Information Rx programme. The partnership was formally launched at the 2010 AAPA annual conference.
With the Information Rx programme, physician assistants now have a new tool to help their patients find quality health information on the Internet. They can order special, free 'prescription pads' and use them during office visits to 'prescribe' information from NLM's consumer health Website, MedlinePlus.gov. The site includes more than 800 health topics; interactive tutorials for people with low literacy; a medical dictionary; an illustrated medical encyclopaedia; directories of hospitals and providers; surgical videos; and information in English and Spanish, with selected materials in nearly 50 other languages.
NLM initiated its Information Rx programme to help people better understand health information; enhance conversations between healthcare providers and patients; and to encourage the use of evidence-based health information on the Internet. In addition to the AAPA, three other healthcare associations have partnered with NLM on Information Rx. They are the American College of Physicians Foundation, the National Medical Association, and the American Osteopathic Association.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced that it has joined the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The consortium is an international organisation that develops protocols, standards and guidelines to ensure universal Web access.
According to Chris Kemp, chief technology officer for Information Technology at NASA Headquarters in Washington, standards will play a key role in making NASA's content more accessible on the Internet and in the implementation of the Open Government plan. He expressed special interest in participating in those areas where NASA's ongoing technical requirements overlap with the W3C's standardisation efforts.
W3C's staff works with member organisations and the public to enhance long-term growth for the Web. The organisation has more than 350 members. It is run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics in France, and Keio University in Japan.
The Scientific and Technical Information Exchange (STIX) Fonts, after more than 10 years in development, are now available for free download at www.stixfonts.org. These Unicode-based OpenType fonts have been designed to support the full range of characters and symbols needed in STM publishing, for both print and online formats. The fonts include more than 8,000 glyphs in multiple weights, sizes, and slants and support the complete range of Latin alphabets, as well as Greek and Cyrillic. The largest component of the fonts is devoted to the thousands of mathematical operators and technical symbols necessary to report research.
The STIX Fonts project is an activity of the STI Pub companies. STI Pub is a consortium of publishers of mathematical, scientific, and technical books and journals. These organisations have come together to promote their common interests in the area of scientific and technical publishing, including the development of pre-competitive publishing standards and technologies.
The initial release (version 1.0) provides the STIX Fonts as a set of 23 OpenType fonts, a format suitable for use by most dedicated STM typesetting programmes, equation editors, and other applications. A second release (version 1.1) containing advanced OpenType support required by applications like Microsoft Office will follow by the end of 2010. The third release (version 1.2) will be a set of Type 1 fonts suitable for use with LaTeX, a standard tool in the mathematics and science communities and is expected to be completed in 2011.
The STIX Fonts are released under the SIL Open Font License (OFL), a license designed specifically for collaborative font projects and to provide a free and open framework in which fonts may be shared and improved in partnership with others.
The latest edition of Blogspeak is now online. Featured are: Kent Anderson (Blogs, Twitter, and YouTube: Just Amplifiers of Traditional Media, or a New Set of Filters?); Kathleen Fitzpatrick (Open Access Publishing and Scholarly Values); Roy Tennant (Survey Finds Dedicated E-Readers to be "Toast"); Brendan Rapple (Publishing in Open Access Education Journals: The Authors' Perspectives); and Michael Clarke (Trade Publishing and Ebooks: W(h)ither the Supply Chain?). Blogspeak includes blog posts relevant to the publishing industry, particularly STM publishing. Subscribers are invited to participate in the latest edition of Blogspeak Here
Privacy laws being revamped as cloud computing takes centre stage
AIP, Ex Libris, OCLC and Serials Solutions become first to endorse KBART Recommended Practice
Latest edition of Blogspeak now online