Members of Open Access

The U. of Bergen is not a member yet of this great Open Access group of institutions and scholars that have began publishing peer reviewed cientific articles in the Internet. This is a great initiative because it consideres knowledge as an open and public good that should not be merchandised and make for profit.

Professor Elba S. Vázquez from FCEN, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina has this to say about her experience "The ability to submit a paper on the web is extremely important in developing countries, as it reduces the costs of posting and printing manuscripts. Furthermore, and perhaps the most important reason for submitting was the knowledge that open access to scientific information allows the whole scientific community to read our article, achieving an optimal distribution of knowledge."

Bio Med Central has to charge for the publishing costs but it also makes provisions for scholars who do not have the means to make their research work known. For scholars from low-income countries there is a free waiver provision so that in two days they get to know if Bio Med Central will take care of the costs of publishing.

Any researcher or Medicine Doctor can submitt an article for review. So far this great collection of free access journals (on the field of bio-medicine) has succeded in their Open Access goals.

I hope that the Humanities and Social Sciences will soon be able to follow this type of initiative. I am aware that The University of Lund has created a Directory of Open Access Journals where people from many other disciplines like me, can look for articles for free and this is very good. But the stakes at BioMed look higher and should be imitated and perfected.

Failed policy and abuse of prisoners

This is a poweful document. It may be controversial but is worthwhile reading.
It is promoted by the Move on organization and sponsored by MoveOn PAC. In it Al Gore links the Abu Ghraib prison abuses to deep flaws in President Bush’s Iraq policy and calls for the resignation of 6 members of the Bush Administration team responsible for the failed policy and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.
The web address is:
http://www.moveonpac.org/goreremarks052604.html/

Exchange of Faculty and Students

Since I arrived to Bergen I have been particularly interested in developing international relations between University and Schools (especially in the field of Media and film studies). I have worked since 1994 in all kinds of exchanges between the International Film School of San Antonio EICTV (Cuba) and the University of Bergen. Some years later we managed to signed an agreement with Universidad de Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia. Over the years we have had fruitful results from several Faculty and Student exchanges with these institutions.

The invitation that Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla extended me to their annual event Catedra Europa in April this year has strengthen my desire to develop more exchanges with them.

We have talked about it and made some provisory plans but today we had come a step forward in our goals. The visit of Reidar Østbye the Honorary Consul of Norway in Barranquilla, Colombia to the International Relations Office of the U. of Bergen has taken place and it resulted in a very nice and friendly dialog. A letter of invitation to Jesus Ferro, the Rector of UniNorte is going to be written. A pleasant atmosphere of good will and desire to extend our relations over the Atlantic is floating on the air. It is a wonderful sunny day in Bergen. A sail boat crosses the fjord. Things look promising.