A petition calling for Public Access to Federally Funded Research Results was posted May 21 on the White House’s “We the People” site – to require free access over the Internet to scientific journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research. If the petition garners 25,000 signatures within 30 days, it will be reviewed by White House staff, and considered for action. The response so far has been phenomenal. Qualified signatories may be from inside or outside the United States. Thanks in advance for your support for this effort – it is truly a critical time, and action now *can* make a difference!

Why should Queen’s researchers wish to sign the petition? A number of research initiatives at Queen’s are part of NIH and NSF funding through various partnerships. In any case, American public policy is a formidable force that also has impact beyond its borders.

The petition is available at: http://wh.gov/6TH.

What else can we do to help? To reach the required number of signatures, scholars need to sign the petition and to do all that they can to activate their networks to spread the word. They could consider a blog post, an email to constituencies, a tweet, a Facebook share, an action in their library – anything that tells as many people as possible “I support this petition, I’m signing this petition, and I thought you should know about it too.” This is the kind of action that can have real consequences if they can reach the 25,000 signature goal – the White House takes this petition site very seriously, and is particularly cognizant of public opinion as the Presidential election draws closer.

The Obama Administration has been actively considering the issue of Public Access to the results of Federally Funded research this year. There is a brief, critical window of opportunity to demonstrate the strong commitment, of the research community, to expanding the NIH Public Access Policy across all U.S. Federal Science Agencies. The Administration is currently considering which policy actions are priorities that they will act on before the 2012 Presidential Election season swings into high gear. The goal of this initiative is to ensure that Public Access is one of those priorities.

“Researchers from Queen’s University and Kingston General Hospital are part of an international team that designed a new state-of the-art prosthetic foot that could help landmine victims” … read more (Kingston Whig Standard, May 29, 2012).

Natural Standard provides high-quality, evidence-based information about complementary and alternative therapies, diets, exercise and nutrition.  The new recipe database features a wide range of healthy recipes in such categories as Beans & Legumes, Rice & Grains, Nuts, Fats & Oils etc.

Each recipe provides details on preparation time, difficulty, diet and nutrition, as well as direct links to Natural Standard evidence-based systematic reviews for studied ingredients.

Natural Standard also welcomes submissions of non-copyrighted healthy recipes for inclusion in the Recipe Database.  To explore this feature go to www.naturalstandard.com then Tools and select Recipes from the pull-down menu.

Happy eating!

- (2012, May). Natural Standard newsletter. Natural Standard.

http://www.queensu.ca/news/articles/engineering-and-commerce-students-collaborate-through-innovative-program (Queen’s News Centre)

Via the Queen’s News Centre:

Queen’s will be signing a letter of intent to accept the model licence agreed on between the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada and Access Copyright. The non-binding letter of intent, due by May 15, 2012, will allow the university more time to consider whether to accept the model licence.

Queen’s, as well as many other Canadian universities, has operated without a licence since the end of December 2010. In its place, Access Copyright proposed to the Copyright Board of Canada a tariff that is still under consideration. In August 2011 Queen’s opted out of an interim tariff imposed by the Copyright Board.

“The tariff proposed by Access Copyright raised many concerns that Queen’s shared with other universities. Our concerns included issues relating to scope, cost and privacy,” says Alan Harrison, Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic).

Universities have been reviewing the new model licence with those concerns in mind. Signing the licence would protect the university community from the imposition of a tariff and associated monitoring practices, which are likely to be more onerous than what will occur under the model licence.

Any survey of an institution’s copying under the provision of this licence would respect the principles of academic freedom, would not extend to faculty emails or interactive portions of learning management systems, and would acknowledge each institution’s collective agreements.

The university has received contingent approval from the Board of Trustees to charge a fee of up to $22.50 per full-time equivalent (FTE) student, in the event the university does sign the agreement. The university will pay the difference between the licence’s proposed $26 per FTE charge and any student fee imposed.

A copy of the model licence is posted here.

For assistance with any copyright related issues, contact the Copyright Advisory Office atcopy.right@queensu.ca.

The Bracken Health Sciences Library elevator will be out of service May 14 – June 8. Please contact a library staff member for assistance.

PubMed Health specializes in reviews of clinical effectiveness research, with easy-to-read summaries for consumers as well as full technical reports. Clinical effectiveness research finds answers to the question “What works?” in medical and health care.

PubMed Health is based on systematic reviews of clinical trials. These clinical effectiveness reviews can show what treatments and prevention methods have been proven to work—and what remains unknown.

PubMed Health provides summaries and full texts of selected systematic reviews in one place. The reviews were generally published or updated from 2003. There is also information for consumers and clinicians based on those reviews.

PubMed Health is a service provided by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).

“PARTEQ Innovations enjoyed a successful year in 2011-12 as 20 patents were issued for innovations being commercialized by the Queen’s University technology transfer office” … read more (Queen’s News Centre)

Science: Why deny? Science is the best way to dig out the truth of the natural world, but that doesn’t prevent many people from denying truths that are inconvenient or contrary to their preconceptions or faith … read more (from The Why Files)

Stauffer Library is now operating on summer hours. For details of the May – August hours please visit http://library.queensu.ca/slcirc/hours.htm.