Open Access research journal launches today

The publisher of The 10 Principles of Open Business,  Palgrave-Macmillan, has launched its open access, online-only research journal today. I'm pleased to say I'm among those on the Editorial Board,

Here's the official blurb and links:

Open Access journal Palgrave Communications publishes first papers.

High quality, multidisciplinary journal across the humanities and social sciences launches today.

Palgrave Communications, the new high quality open access (OA) online-only,
multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary journal will publish its first articles today.
The papers, which are all free to access, span a wide range of disciplines including international studies, political science, theatre and performance studies, and operational research.
The first edition of the journal includes a commentary by Dr W. James Jacob, Institute for International Studies in Education, University of Pittsburgh, on interdisciplinary research trends in higher education. This is the first of several articles that will discuss interdisciplinary research, which is much needed to help tackle global challenges such as migration and water scarcity but can be
difficult within the traditional culture of academia.
Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Head of Data and HSS Publishing, Open Research at Nature Publishing Group/Palgrave Macmillan said: “Palgrave Communications was launched in response to demand from academics in the humanities and social sciences and business for a high quality journal that operates a fully open access publishing model, and which promotes interdisciplinary research.
We believe that this first batch of papers reflects these goals excellently.”
Palgrave Communications was launched after a global survey of academics in the humanities and social sciences, where 82% said that they would publish OA if the best or most appropriate journal were OA. 68% thought that their specific area of interest would benefit from journals that publish peer-reviewed OA.
Dr Michele Acuto, Senior Lecturer in Global Networks & Diplomacy, Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy at University College London said: “As well as being a multi-disciplinary journal, Palgrave Communications is seeking to offer a space for more in-depth and professionalized interdisciplinarity to flourish. The journal offers a venue for different scholarly arenas to connect.
“Developing truly collaborative research takes time and dialogue, but is something we hope Palgrave Communications can help with.”
Palgrave Communications offers immediate, free online dissemination of all published articles via a CC BY license1 and is committed to speedy peer review and publication.
The journal is led by a large international, cross-disciplinary Editorial Board of leading researchers.
The full list of editorial board members can be found here. The in-house Managing Editor, who oversees the editorial process, is Gino D’Oca.
Palgrave Communications offers authors an enhanced digital publishing experience with industryleading features such as article-level metrics, including data from Altmetric, and enhanced article layout and navigation. Palgrave Communications is the first Palgrave Macmillan title to launch on a new publishing platform created by Palgrave Macmillan’s sister company Nature Publishing Group. There are no restrictions on word limits: all articles that conform to the required editorial standards of the journal will be published regardless of length.

Don't let Prism wreck the network - it belongs to you

The row over the ultimate data hoover that is Prism (catch up here with a quick guide of what it is and how legal or otherwise it may be) is, as usual, being characterised as a two-sided affair with battle lines drawn.
On one side we have our Governments - those who would protect us from whatever it is we are expected to live in terror of right now.
On the other are those who feel invaded and violated - that their data is the representation of their sovereign self - the protectors of our privacy.
Now, I'm not too concerned about the privacy thing.
I wrote in 2010:

"Privacy seeks to obscure truth. Often to an individual's personal benefit. Perhaps we are just going to have to get used to living in a state of truth - with the wider - by necessity less personal - benefits that may offer." (... the impact of an information revolution on privacy)

I've long argued that privacy is a relatively new and less-than-normal state for humankind. It's something that emerged when we started sleeping in separate rooms away from the cattle - around about the invention of the fireplace and chimney (read Bill Bryson At Home - A short History of Private Life - for more on that. It's a concept that is only some 500-600 years old. Culturally significant but in no way some kind of human need or even desire.
And I'm not big on kow-towing to terror either. Neither argument does it for me.
What I'm really concerned about in the Prism affair is that the fear of sharing it could generate could deliver a blow to the self-organising, open future we are on course for.
To self organise (the single biggest disruption to the centrally-organised status quo) we must express our meta data. That is, we must share what we think, as widely with each other, as often as possible. This is ultimately how we find each other at time of greatest need - how we find people who are seeking to solve the same problem as we are - right now.
One extra node on your network doubles its value - as I'm keen on repeating. We add each other through discovery.
So, if there's any conspiracy theory at play here that could cause us a collective problem, it's the one that's making you think twice about sharing, the one making you consider disconnecting and stopping sharing.
The centre would love that.
Stand firm. The network needs you.