According the Chronicle of Higher Education “Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted a policy … that requires faculty… Read More »Open Crimson: Harvard’s Arts and Sciences Goes Open Access

There is a very interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal on hospitals’ efforts to assure that their patients understand the consent forms they are signing. Here is a description of the VA’s efforts:

The Department of Veteran’s Affairs, with 153 hospitals, has over the past several years adopted a new electronic informed-consent software program that allows patients to use a digital pad to sign the consent forms, which can then be stored in their medical record. The program, known as iMedConsent, includes a library of anatomical diagrams and explanations written at a sixth-grade reading level for more than 2,000 procedures in more than 30 medical specialties.

This is a laudable effort to use computer technology to make new (and old) medical technologies accessible. Certainly a lot more needs to be done on this front. . . .
Read More »The New Medical Consent

There’s nothing like a juicy fair use lawsuit to get copyright lawyers all wound up. Yesterday, the New York Times… Read More »Does Fair Use Matter?

Google Co-op is a “platform which enables you to use your expertise to help other users find information.” According to… Read More »Tweaking Your Google Experience