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Weekly News Digest
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September 17, 2013 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today.
CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.
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CCC Steps Up Its OA Efforts
Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) joined the U.K.’s Gold Open Access Infrastructure program as the next step in its ongoing efforts to improve open access (OA) standards.Gold Open Access Infrastructure is an offshoot of the Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings, which produced a list of principles to aid the U.K. in embracing OA practices. Participants from publishing, academia, standards organizations, and now CCC are working together to “establish dialogue and, where possible, agreement between all key stakeholders on technical infrastructure challenges,” according to the program website. As a key partner in helping publishers collect APCs (article publishing charges), CCC also works to enhance OA systems, standards, and metadata in journal publishing. Source: Copyright Clearance Center
EBSCO Acquires Harvard Business Review Press Summaries
Harvard Business Review Press is giving EBSCO Information Services exclusive access to its book program. EBSCO signed an agreement with the publisher that allows EBSCO to create summaries of Harvard Business Review Press titles and sell its ebooks directly through EBSCO.These summaries will be available in EBSCO’s Business Book Summaries for Organizations database beginning in January 2014 and will include all newly published titles as well as best-sellers. Business Book Summaries are composed of books’ key concepts and features, related readings, tables of contents, estimated reading times, and links for purchasing. EBSCO subscribers will receive updates about summaries as they are added. “This new partnership expands the reach of Harvard Business Review Press titles and enables professionals across the globe to engage with our content through book summaries and EBSCO’s integrated e-book platform,” according to Sarah McConville, publisher at Harvard Business Review Press. Source: EBSCO Information Services
W3C Launches Website Validation Service
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)’s Validator Suite ended its beta phase and is now ready for action. This premium service checks websites’ public pages against W3C standards to ensure website quality. Users can then access customizable reports to track and prioritize any issues that arise.Before aggregating its tools into one all-inclusive service, the W3C offered free validator tools to developers, designers, and site managers who used them millions of times per day, according to the Validator Suite website. The Validator Suite scans websites for HTML5, CSS (cascading style sheets), and internationalization standards conformance. Upcoming capabilities include checking for accessibility, compatibility, and optimization. Users can view real-time integrated reports of the validation process. Validator Suite is a software-as-a-service product that can be purchased in four different plans depending on the number of webpages users wish to validate. There is also a “One Time” option for immediate validation of a single site. For users who only need occasional website checks, the W3C continues to offer its Markup Validation Service, which scans one page at a time. Source: World Wide Web Consortium
Project MUSE Boosts Search Functionality
Project MUSE customers can now use the new Advanced Search function to conduct searches from any page of the digital content provider’s site. With this enhancement, users can search MUSE books and journals instantly using a host of new parameters.Project MUSE reevaluated its search tools based on customer feedback; users can now define searches by research area, journal title, language, or publication date. The database of 500-plus journal titles is available for combined search alongside MUSE’s more than 22,000 books, and customers can expand their searches to include all relevant results beyond those titles to which they have full-text access. Project MUSE intends to ease the transition for customers who want to use the new features by offering a Quick Search Guide and a tutorial on YouTube. Source: Project MUSE
Precise Biometrics Builds Ecosystem for Mobile Device Security
Precise Biometrics recently integrated its Tactivo products with a global ecosystem of technology partners that create authentication applications.Tactivo products validate the security of mobile devices that employees use at work (the BYOD trend) using a combination of smart card readers and fingerprint scanners to safeguard sensitive company information. With the integration of this ecosystem, Precise Biometrics can now offer applications on users’ iOS or Android devices that enhance Tactivo’s basic features. New apps include email encryption, access to a secure internet browser, government-issued smart card verification, secure intracompany app deployment, and secure information-sharing apps for more streamlined workflow. “We will continue to grow this ecosystem as broadly as possible so that our customers have many options and will recognize a fast return on investment for their mobility initiatives utilizing Tactivo,” says Jeff Scott, vice president of sales–Americas. Precise Biometrics encourages developers outside the official ecosystem to build their own secure apps for Tactivo by requesting a toolkit. Source: Precise Biometrics
ICAR Transitions to OA
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) recently joined the open access (OA) movement. It announced its intentions to implement an academic and research OA policy during the next 3 years. The Directorate of Knowledge Management in Agriculture, India’s technology information agency, will organize workshops and engage with personnel and administrators, editors, and publishers to assist in the OA transition.ICAR is an autonomous organization under the Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. It manages the country’s agricultural research and education initiatives such as horticulture, fisheries, and animal sciences. ICAR has been at the forefront of efforts to increase India’s food production and crops and to promote higher education in agriculture. ICAR publications that will be included in the OA policy range from journals and conference proceedings to annual reports and newsletters. These publications, as well as unpublished materials, may be freely shared in public repositories and on social media sites. As part of the policy instructions, ICAR institutes will set up an OA institutional repository and a central metadata and full-text harvester for all repository records. Authors using ICAR-sponsored research will be required to submit their manuscripts to the OA repository. Source: Indian Council of Agricultural Research
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Brandi Scardilli
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