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Knovel adds EMIS Datareviews and Landolt Bornstein to virtual library - 17 Oct 2005
Web-based information services provider Knovel Corporation, US, has announced the addition of Electronic Materials Information Service (EMIS) Datareviews and the Electronic Materials and Semiconductors systems from publisher Springer-Verlag's Landolt Bornstein to the Semiconductors & Electronics category of its Knovel Library. EMIS Datareviews, published by The Institute of Electronic Engineers (IEE), provides appropriate resources for specific applications provided by experts from the industrial and public sectors. Landolt Bornstein enables researchers in the semiconductor industry to cater to the growing demand for small chips and boards and more rapid process time. With the convergence of materials-intensive expertise such as high-density storage, high-speed and displays with nanotechnology and microelectronics, such content additions become imperative. The Knovel Library will also provide information on the development of latest materials to industry professionals, scientists and engineers. Knovel integrates more than 700 references from over 30 publishers into a virtual library embedded with analysis software.
Morphology database to be expanded - 17 Oct 2005
Florida State University (FSU) researchers led by Fredrik Ronquist are set to expand the MorphBank web database with a US$2.25 million grant from the National Science Foundation. MorphBank comprises numerous high-resolution photos and images of plant and animal specimens. Scientists from all over the world can load images of animal or plant specimens on to the database and also view images posted by their contemporaries. With the fresh funds, the FSU team can protect MorphBank by setting up "mirror" databases across the world. It can also create software to offer advanced search capabilities. Further, users can add notes to the images and search comments posted by other researchers. This facilitates better communication of research results. At present, MorphBank contains about 40,000 images, which is expected to increase to more than 1 million in a few years.
BioMed Central rebuts ALPSP report on open access - 17 Oct 2005
Open access publisher BioMed Central, UK, has responded to a report published by the US' Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), pointing out to various "factual inaccuracies" in the report. The report examines the peer review process of BioMed Central journals and criticises the publisher for not performing external peer review. BioMed has refuted this charge, stating that it performs full peer review of all its journals using external reviewers. More than 140 journals of the publisher are archived in the National Institutes of Health's PubMed Central database. The ALPSP report groups BioMed Central with Internet Scientific Publications (ISP), the two major publishers of open access journals. Also, it states that online manuscript submission by BioMed Central and ISP has been rather low. BioMed has refuted this, as well. It also contends that open access journals are currently not profitable only because the movement is in its early stages. Once open access is fully established, it will see enhanced profitability, BioMed says in its response.
International biometrics workshop to be conducted by IEEE - 17 Oct 2005
AutoID 2005, the Fourth Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Workshop on Automatic Identification Advanced Technologies, will be held on October 17-18 at the University at Buffalo. The subject to be covered is biometrics, the science of identifying individuals based on how they walk, look, speak and write. It is hosted by UB's Center for Unified Biometrics and Sensors (CUBS) and sponsored by the Calspan-UB Research Center (CUBRC) and UltraScan Corp. The conference will be chaired by Venu Govindaraju, Director of CUBS. Key speakers include Rama Chellappa, Minta Martin Professor of Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, and Russell W. Bissette, Executive Director of the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR). New research in different biometrics, the replacement of conventional barcodes by electronic tags and combining biometric modalities by way of research on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) will also be addressed in the conference.
Aries Systems and Atypon team up for online submission and publishing - 17 Oct 2005
Online submission system provider Aries Systems and e-publishing platform provider Atypon have teamed up to offer a connecting solution between their respective products. Aries' solution, the Editorial Manager, which has been deployed in over 1,300 online journals, enables manuscripts to be peer reviewed and uploaded online. Subsequent to editorial acceptance, the manuscript can be shifted to the Atypon Literatum e-publishing platform that can be immediately delivered to the readers. The automated interface between the Literatum and the Editorial Manager is slated for release during early 2006.
UK public libraries receive grant for innovative ICT projects - 17 Oct 2005
Forty public libraries in the UK are set to receive a share of the £750,000 Information and Communications Technology (ICT) grant from the nation's online Public Libraries Challenge Fund. The University for Industry (Ufi) and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) granted the funds for the development of ICT in public libraries in regional communities, mainly focusing on excluded groups. Each library will receive between £10,000 and £20,000. The projects cover a variety of novel ICT applications, from portable ICT equipment for use in local communities to wireless 'hotspots', satellite provision on mobile libraries and interactive whiteboards for web-based learning. The funds help in the bringing of Internet access to all public libraries in the UK.
Blackboard to acquire e-learning rival WebCT - 17 Oct 2005
Learning management systems provider Blackboard, Inc. has announced plans to acquire its chief competitor, WebCT, Inc., for US$180 million. The combined entity, which will henceforth operate under the Blackboard name, will cater to around 3,700 clients. Its clientele mainly comprises universities and colleges. As each of the companies has alliances with 40-50 percent of the colleges, the merged entity is expected to control two-thirds of the e-learning market. The remaining market share is likely to be held by eCollege, Moodle and Sakai. Blackboard and WebCT offer interfaces, which educations organisations use to conduct online academic courses.
