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12.09

Today, even with technology and the “information age,” many people of the world, particularly in impoverished regions, are not benefiting. Access to scholarly and other levels of information for many, even for those in the developed world, is difficult because access is restricted and/or purchasing access may be prohibitively expensive. It is correct that publishers have a right to receive a financial return for their enterprise. On the other hand it is also correct that, particularly in the case of scholarly research, the work has been funded in the most part by the public through taxation and therefore should be freely available without charge to the public. The right to know and the right to be known are linked and unrestricted access is important to the future of knowledge and global wellness. What do you think? Is there a case for open access as a public good?

For further information:

• The Alliance for Taxpayer Access is a coalition of patient groups, physicians, researchers, educational institutions, publishers, and health promotion organizations that support barrier-free access to taxpayer-funded research.

•  The Budapest open access initiative was formed to accelerate progress in the international effort to make research articles in all academic fields freely available on the internet.

• The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system.

• Bioline International is a not-for-profit scholarly publishing cooperative committed to providing open access to quality research journals published in developing countries.

• Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook is intended to provide training and resources for anyone or institutions who wish to provide open access to their research publications.

• Willinsky, John, The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship, ISBN 10:0-262-51266-1 MIT Press, 2009.

Best Wishes for the festive season and for 2010 from World Bytes

Other Bytes

Here are some of the things going on in and around the engineering community:

• Many believe that there is a shortage of leadership expertise. James Bolt and Bonnie Hagemann discuss their findings examining the experiences of line leaders to discover what worked in the “real world” of the line manager when identifying leadership potential, developing these individuals, and spotting and preventing trouble along the way. The results of this investigation are reported in: “Harvesting Tomorrow’s Leaders: How do line leaders grow the best talent?” (Training and Development, 63(7):52-57, July 2009, www.astd.org/TD ). The most important factors are identified and the reader-friendly information provides valuable strategies for developing leaders.

• More and more employees are working remotely and this requires companies to find ways to ensure that these workers will succeed in providing value to the company. Jay Mulki, et al., discuss their research on the pros and cons of remote working, finding the right work-life balance, and dealing with workplace isolation, compensating for the lack of face-to-face communication, and compensating for the lack of visibility in: “Set Up Remote Workers to Thrive” (MIT Sloan Management Review, 51(1):63-69, Fall 2009, www.sloanreview.mit.edu).

• Mark Johnson and Josh Suskewicz propose a framework for thinking about clean technology consisting of four interdependent components. These include; an enabling technology, an innovative business model, a careful market-adoption strategy, and favorable government policy. Their ideas as well as two case studies showing how their framework can be applied are provided in: “How to Jump Start the Clean Tech Economy”. Harvard Business Review. 87(11):52-60. November, 2009 (www.hbr.org).

• The 3-9 October 2009 issue of The Economist (Volume 393 Issue 8651, www.economist.com) provides a special report on the world economy “After the Storm: How to make the best of the recovery.” A series of in-depth articles discuss topics of interest including: a new era of thrift, stimulus packages, entrenched unemployment, banking and investment, industrial design, and predictions for the future.

• Paul Harris discuses how some businesses are partnering with academic institutions to develop versatile workers with an expanded set of marketable skills for service-related industries, (“Help Wanted: T-Shaped Skills to Meet 21^st Century Needs,” Training and Development, 63(9):42-47, September 2009, www.astd.org/TD). Topics discussed include the curriculum shared by the business and engineering schools at San Jose State University in California which provides learning on how information technologies can be used to create innovations within all types of service companies.

• Effective decision making in organizations is always difficult and becoming more and more difficult with the increasing complexity of the business environment, despite a wealth of information on decision making. Thomas Davenport believes that it is important that organizations focus on their decision making process. “Make Better Decisions” (Harvard Business Review, 87(11):117-123, November 2009, www.hbr.org). Davenport proposes a multifaceted four step framework for improved decision-making.

• Two articles on innovation were published recently in Training and Development (www.astd.org/TD). Michael Laff, in “Roots of Innovation” (63(7):34-39, July 2009), discusses the importance of market demand and customer need as the real source of innovation. An interesting article that will stimulate your thinking about enhancing innovation in organizations. Michael Moscynski, in “3-2-1 Innovate!” (63(7):40-45, July 2009), discusses his belief that learning professionals can train people to be innovative.

Terrance Malkinson is a communications specialist, business analyst and futurist. He is Vice-Chair of the IEEE-USA Communications Committee, an international correspondent for IEEE-USA Today's Engineer Online, editor-in-chief of IEEE-USA Today's Engineer Digest, and associate editor for IEEE Canadian Review. He was an elected Senator of the University of Calgary and an elected Governor of the IEEE Engineering Management Society as well as an elected Administrative Committee member of the IEEE Professional Communication Society. He has been the editor of several IEEE conference proceedings, and past editor of IEEE Engineering Management. He is the author of more than 360 publications, and is an accomplished triathlete. His career path includes being an accomplished technical supervisor and medical researcher at the University of Calgary a business proposal manager for the General Electric Company, and an associate for Sears Canada Inc. Currently, he is with the School of Health and Public Safety/Applied Research and Innovation Services at SAIT Polytechnic in Calgary Canada.

The author is grateful to the professional support of the Haskayne School of Business Library at the University of Calgary. He can be reached at todaysengineer@ieee.org.