[ECOLOG-L] IEMSS-10 call for abstracts
Dear IEMSS present, former and future members: This e-mail is to remind you once again that our next International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software is scheduled for July 5 - 8 2010, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The theme of the conference is "Modelling for Environment's Sake". Please check out the web site of the conference at http://www.iemss.org/iemss2010/ As always the conference will consist of Sessions that will host presentations and Workshops that encourage a more active interchange and discussion aimed at resolving some particular issues and helping build networks. There are currently some 16 exciting Sessions proposed and another 9 workshops organized. One important deadline is Nov.27, when your abstracts need to be uploaded to the Web Conference Management Tool, which is now already active and ready to process your submissions. If you have any questions, please e-mail to conve...@iemss.org Please help us spread the word and send this announcement around to various lists and colleagues who may be interested. We now have less than two months to prepare our abstracts and make our plans for the Conference. Looking forward to meet you all in Ottawa. Alexey Voinov _ President,Int.Envir.Modeling. and Software Soc.,http://www.iemss.org/
[ECOLOG-L] Open Access and Intellectual Imperialism
also Re. "stealing from websites" - I just like the original title more. Here is the test: you are invited to give a prestigious lecture and your options are: (1) deliver the talk to 10 wealthy people behind closed doors and get paid $1000; or (2) talk in an auditorium packed with 5000 people who are eager to hear you but you do it for free. What's your choice? If your choice is (1), read not further and delete this message. We are on different pages and need to spend many more hours discussing to get any closer in our world views. David Duffy hits the nail right on the head: "as scientists we need to think about how to keep the web the subversive place it was, a place to exchange information, not just to make a profit." People are obsessed with profits. Unfortunately that is what we pass on to our students. These days they are much more interested in credits and degrees than in the joy of studying and learning. I've been offering an on-line interactive course on modeling that would teach students system dynamics and modeling, but will not give any university credit, just a certificate from me. Over the past 10 years I've had less than a dozen students who started it and only one (sic!) student who actually completed the course and got his certificate. Several hundreds took the course when it was offered through a university. Learning is no longer for knowledge - it's only for credentials. Teachers used to be respected by students. Now they are service providers. Students in USA are clients, who pay for the service. And the client is always right. Therefore the grade inflation. Knowledge and information is a different kind of capital. Folks from the open source community have already figured that out a long time ago. It's called "gift economy". You prosper and get respect from sharing and giving away. There is a huge difference between downloading an image or paper from a web site and stealing a box of cigars from a shop. 1. Cigars are in a shop and for sale. There is a price tag and a clear procedure for purchasing them. 2. More important, as Jane already noted: When you take that box of cigars from the shop, they are no longer there. You took them and they are gone for anybody else to use. With files it does not matter how many downloads occurred - the files are still there nice and intact for others to use. Information does not get destroyed when it's used. That's the beauty of information. So information is perfect for sharing and giving away. The more you give it away, the more you are left with, since you get feedback and learn yourself from the process. Copyright laws and protectionism are like boulders in the stream. They may be a nuisance, but they are not going to stop the flow. We will always find a good Canadian to send us the file from Canada. Cheers, Alexey -- Alexey Voinov _ !!! please note new e-mail address: aavoi...@gmail.com !!! _ Chesapeake Research Consortium Community Modeling Program & Johns Hopkins University Dept. of Geography and Environm. Engineering 645 Contees Wharf Road, P.O. Box 28, Edgewater, MD 21037 TEL: 410 798-1283; 703 880-1178WWW: http://www.likbez.com/AV Fellow, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics,University of Vermont President,Int.Envir.Modeling. and Software Soc.,http://www.iemss.org/ New book: Systems Science and Modeling for Ecological Economics http://books.elsevier.com/companions/9780123725837
[ECOLOG-L] Open Access and Intellectual Imperialism
To All: I just want to make sure that this excellent link does not get buried in the discussion. Mendeley offers some really cool services to share your papers. It's not as good as the peer-to-peer exchange, but supposedly safer in terms of copyright. Please take a look at http://www.mendeley.com/ Mendeley Desktop is free academic software for managing and sharing research papers. It is pretty cool to keep track of all the papers that you have downloaded to your hard disk and works like iTunes for music. Mendeley Web lets you manage your papers online, discover research trends and connect to like-minded researchers. The more of us join, the larger the WWW library that we will get access to. Please consider joining. The article that was sent earlier is at http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/05/12/mendeleys-klingon-battle-cruiser-de-cloaks-in-london-with-the-lastfm-for-academia/ and gives some background about the company. If we could all subscribe and upload our publications to Mendeley we would already solve a lot of problems with access to our publications. To Gavin and likeminded: Thanks for the warnings, your points are well taken. Each and everyone has their own level of risk tolerance and sets of justifications for what we choose to do. Here are mine: - It has been shown in numerous research that existing patent and copyright law is stifling progress. Those who were initially supposed to be benefiting from these laws are in fact among the losers. Most of the profits are reaped by those who have nothing to do with research. - Since we don't have the lobbying power and skills to change the existing laws (at least for now), some level of civil disobedience (thanks Bill, I really liked that) should be only expected. - Unlike musicians, we are not even paid by the publishers to do our research. In fact we volunteer to edit and review papers for them to benefit. I think it's very unlikely that the publishers will go after scientists, since they are smart enough not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs for them. They are in fact the pirates, which was very elegantly described in the article that I've already sent earlier. (http://eaves.ca/2009/04/28/education-where-copyrighters-and-publishers-are-the-pirates/) - Most of our work is funded by tax money and should be in public domain by definition. If the taxpayers paid for the work, then they own the results. Publications are the results. To Jim and others who are easily pissed: Don't put your work on the web. If you post it on the web in open access - then it is open access. You can't at the same time use the web to show off and expect that nobody will want to use your photos (especially if they are good). If you wish to restrict the use of your photos - then make it clear and restrict access. We all work hard but some of us actually feel good when others find our work good enough to use and our ideas smart enough to further disseminate for the common good. Cheers, Alexey -- Alexey Voinov _ !!! please note new e-mail address: aavoi...@gmail.com !!! _ Chesapeake Research Consortium Community Modeling Program & Johns Hopkins University Dept. of Geography and Environm. Engineering 645 Contees Wharf Road, P.O. Box 28, Edgewater, MD 21037 TEL: 410 798-1283; 703 880-1178WWW: http://www.likbez.com/AV
[ECOLOG-L] Open Access and Intellectual Imperialism Approval required
Instead of or in addition to boycotting and protesting, I think there is a much simpler and effective solution. Ask your kids. If they can share their music, why can't we share our papers? It's called peer-to-peer technology and requires just a little bit of good will from ourselves. All we need is to assemble our collections of pdf articles that I bet each and everyone of us has on our hard disks, and make them available for sharing. Students are already doing this. See this article: http://eaves.ca/2009/04/28/education-where-copyrighters-and-publishers-are-the-pirates/ Unfortunately these efforts seem to be sharing the fate of Napster, attacked by lawsuits. However this can and will still develop without any centralized services on a peer-to-peer basis as supported by bit-torrent and other software. So it's really up to us to make it happen. -- Alexey Voinov _ !!! please note new e-mail address: aavoi...@gmail.com !!! _ Chesapeake Research Consortium Community Modeling Program & Johns Hopkins University Dept. of Geography and Environm. Engineering 645 Contees Wharf Road, P.O. Box 28, Edgewater, MD 21037 TEL: 410 798-1283; 703 880-1178WWW: http://www.likbez.com/AV Fellow, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics,University of Vermont President,Int.Envir.Modeling. and Software Soc.,http://www.iemss.org/ New book: Systems Science and Modeling for Ecological Economics http://books.elsevier.com/companions/9780123725837 -- Date:Sat, 9 May 2009 16:56:12 -0700 From:Wayne Tyson Subject: Re: Open Access and Intellectual Imperialism Approval required Re: [ECOLOG-L] Teaching Biostatistics !!! (Suggested replacement post) Ecolog: "In my university I do not have access to literature sources like = Biological Abstracts for example to reach the authors and articles . . = ." This is an excellent example, unfortunately, of how pricing = intellectual resources out of range for "outsiders" is a moral = indictment of much of academia. This man--or any man or woman or child = (especially) should never have to hit a university firewall, be required = to pay tens of dollars ($30, $40, and more) to download a pdf file, ad = nauseam. Think of the burdensome expense and effort required on the part = of so many even to gain the privilege of Internet access in the first = place!=20 Those truly concerned about the future of the earth and its life, even = civilization, should realize that the history of intellectual = development is one of free exchange of ideas and information, not its = conversion into profit centers. It is not the struggling who should pay = the comfortable, it is the comfortable who benefit from free = intellectual synergy that compounds like a breeder-reactor, who should = pay forward and backwards to ensure rather than obstruct such exchange.=20 At long last, hath academia no sense of decency? Are there no = institutions out there sufficiently well endowed and clearly = beneficiaries of the wealth of intellectual struggle handed down from = people like Dr. Voltolini throughout history (and still do--Copernicus, = Darwin . . .) who will turn this embarrassing state of arrogant = possessiveness around? Can you imagine having to make this kind of request at every stage of = your own process of intellectual enquiry?=20 How is it possible that, this many years into one of the most = transformational achievements of human society, that Dr. Voltolini = should still be barred from journal access that costs zero to provide?=20 Why not, at the individual level, that academics simply boycott = journals which charge for access and publish in open access journals? = While these may not be perfect at the moment, might not such a = second-stage transformation accelerate their development and foster = rather than retard intellectual synergy?=20 WT PS: David has suggested that I explain "how journals (e.g. those of = the Ecological Society) are supposed to pay to publish papers if nobody = has to pay to read them." This email is intended to illuminate the = problem and hear from others before deigning to suggest how all of the = complexities of this issue should be resolved. The first step, of = course, is in recognizing the problem or refuting the assertion that = there is a problem. I do not pretend, in as brief an email as possible = and still state my position unequivocally, to cover every aspect of the = subject. I do, however, know of institutions that have cancelled journal = subscriptions. I believe that very large institutions (e.g. the = University of California Library may have negotiated price reductions = from some journals; I am not up-to-date on this case, but the UC Library = did raise the iss
[ECOLOG-L] ecological modeling
If "country is not an issue", you are always welcome to check out the web course at http://www.likbez.com/AV/Simmod.html. It's asynchronous learning, so it can be taken any time, including summer. The level of intensity is also very much up to the student. See http://www.likbez.com/AV/EDU/Vision.html for some background info. Regards, Alexey -- Date:Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:59:40 -0500 From:John Claydon Subject: ecologcal modeling I was interested if there were any intensive courses on ecological modeling available during this summer. Country is not an issue. I would be grateful for any advice. Thanks John Claydon -- Center Director SFS - Center for Marine Resource Studies South Caicos, Turks & Caicos Islands British West Indies Tel: +1 649 9463666 Fax: +1 649 9463246 HYPERLINK "http://www.fieldstudies.org/"www.fieldstudies.org Mailing address: School for Field Studies 10 Federal Street, Suite 24 Salem, MA 01970-3876 U.S.A. -- Alexey Voinov _ Chesapeake Research Consortium Community Modeling Program & Johns Hopkins University Dept. of Geography and Environm. Engineering 645 Contees Wharf Road, P.O. Box 28, Edgewater, MD 21037 TEL: 410 798-1283; 703 880-1178WWW: http://www.likbez.com/AV Fellow, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics,University of Vermont President,Int.Envir.Modeling. and Software Soc.,http://www.iemss.org/ New book: Systems Science and Modeling for Ecological Economics http://books.elsevier.com/companions/9780123725837
[ECOLOG-L] IMACS-MODSIM World Congress , Cairns, Australia, July 13-17, 2009
The 18th IMACS and MODSIM Congress will be in tropical Cairns from July 13-17, 2009. Streams (and their Coordinators) include Water Resources (Shahbaz Khan and Rob Argent) Participatory Decision Making and Modelling Social Systems (Claudia Pahl-Wostl and Blair Nancarrow) Global Change (Mark Howden) Environment and Ecology (Alexey Voinov and David Pullar) Computer Sciences (Andrea Rizzoli and Dave Swayne) Economic and Financial Systems ( Mike McAleer and Les Oxley). There will be sessions in all streams and volunteers for session organising are welcome, as are suggestions for books (see below). Abstracts are due Nov 28. Full papers are required by March 13, 2009. There will also be an accompanying workshop to the Congress on "Innovative and integrative methods for Water Resource Management." Workshop participants will have published their papers in the Congress Proceedings so that the workshop can focus on the planning of an associated book. Early Career Researchers and students are especially welcome. *Session and workshop inquiries to* [EMAIL PROTECTED] and/or visit http://mssanz.org.au/modsim09. Regards Alexey Voinov, Environmental Modelling and Software President
