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OA Working Group proposes an OA mandate to the Obama transition team The US Open Access Working Group has posted an OA proposal to the Obama transition team's Citizen's Briefing Book. Excerpt:
Comment. Like Obama CTO, which also has an OA proposal, the Citizen's Briefing Book allows you to vote for the posted proposals and add your own comments. Unlike Obama CTO, Citizen's Briefing Book lets you vote for all the proposals you like, not just your highest priorities. Log in, vote for the OA proposal, browse around and check out the other good ideas, and spread the word. Labels: Hot
Heather Joseph defends the NIH policy against the Conyers bill, continued Heather Joseph, the Executive Director or SPARC, has released her December 1 letter to Howard Berman, answering five of his follow-up questions and supplementing her testimony at the September 2008 hearing on OA, the NIH policy, and the Conyers bill ("Fair Copyright in Research Works Act"). Berman is the last chairman of the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, which held the hearing. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has since abolished the subcommittee. Comment. At the time of the hearing, Berman was said to have some doubts about the bill, which would overturn the NIH policy and forbid other federal agencies from adopting similar policies. While his subcommittee is now gone, shifting power to Conyers, the bill's sponsor, Berman remains an influential member of the Judiciary Committee. It's a good sign that he asked for these five follow-up questions and a good sign that he now has these five strong answers. Update. Berman also had follow-up questions for Martin Frank, one of the publisher representatives who opposes the NIH policy and supports the Conyers bill. Frank has also released his December 1 answers to Berman. Last October, Frank submitted another written supplement to his oral testimony, and I commented on it at the time. Labels: Hot Dorothea Salo wrote on Monday:
Paul Ginsparg replied by email (posted with permission):
Update. Here's a follow-up from arXiv's Simeon Warner (posted with permission):
Update (1/8/09). Also see Dorothea's response. Labels: Hot Compliance audit for the Wellcome Trust's OA mandate The Wellcome Trust is taking steps to increase the compliance rate with its OA mandate. From the January issue of its Grantholders Newsletter:
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NSF advisory committee recommends OA At its December 16-17 meeting, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Advisory Committee on Cyberinfrastructure (ACCI) adopted this statement, drafted in its previous meeting:
(Thanks to Tony Hey.) Comment. The NSF should be the next agency after the NIH to adopt an OA mandate. This important recommendation carries special weight because it comes from the ACCI. Kudos to all the ACCI members. Also see our past posts on the NSF's cyberinfrastructure policy deliberations. Labels: Hot
U of Liege OA mandate moves past its experimental phase Universit� de Li�ge has adopted an OA mandate. (Thanks to Stevan Harnad.) Bernard Rentier, the Rector at Li�ge, has posted an English translation of his November memo to the Li�ge faculty on the AmSci OA Forum. Excerpt:
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Update. Also see the license (in French or Google's English) that Liege will use for articles on deposit in the IR.
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I just mailed the January issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter. This issue reviews the notable OA developments from 2008. The round-up section briefly notes 143 OA developments from December. Labels: Hot
Varmus to lead Obama's science advisory council Harold Varmus, co-founder of the Public Library of Science and former director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, has been selected by President-elect Barack Obama to co-chair the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. (Thanks to Heather Joseph.) The other co-chair will be Eric Lander, founding director of the Broad Institute. Lander was also a lead researcher in the Human Genome Project. Coverage here: Comment. This puts a strong voice for OA inside the Executive Office of the President. Varmus is one of the most high-profile advocates of OA, including of the role of government in providing OA, notably as a signatory on the Nobelist letters supporting the NIH policy. Both the Human Genome Project and the Broad Institute are practitioners of open data. See also our past posts:
See also: Labels: Hot
MacArthur Foundation adopts an OA mandate The MacArthur Foundation adopted a research access policy, which took effect on September 18, 2008. (Thanks to Donna Okubo.) Excerpt:
Comment. Kudos to all involved. While the Foundation uses the language of encouragement, the policy operates more like a mandate with case-by-case exceptions. I like the enforcement mechanism: a license for each Grant Work Product, which the Foundation will use when grantees do not provide sufficiently open or early access on their own. I also like the way the policy applies to "Grant Work Products" without restriction --hence, covering data as well as publications. Labels: Hot Moore Foundation adopts an open data mandate The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation adopted an open data policy on September 18, 2008. (Thanks to Donna Okubo.) Excerpt:
Comment. Kudos for this strong policy. Note that it only applies to data, not to peer-reviewed articles (except for the offer to pay publication fees). But I hope the Foundation will consider extending it to cover peer-reviewed articles as well. Note too that it does not require the data to be assigned to the public domain, as Science Commons would. While I support the SC approach, the Moore approach is a reasonable second-best: letting grantees hold whatever IP rights in their data the law allows, but not letting them use those rights to impede effective public access. That may take some refinement in practice. For example, does an attribution license impede effective public access for a collaborative, public dataset with thousands of contributors? Labels: Hot EU funding for OA projects in 2009 The EU's Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) has released its Draft Work Programme 2009. If the EC approves the draft in January, then it should open a call for proposals from January 29 to June 2, 2009. According to the draft, one thread of the new funding program is devoted to OA. Excerpt:
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Portugal launches central repository to harvest national IRs Portugal's publicly-funded Reposit�rio Cient�fico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP) was officially launched yesterday at the 3� Confer�ncia sobre o Acesso Livre ao Conhecimento (Minho, December 15-16, 2008). RCAAP harvests content from 10 institutional repositories from around the country. For more details, see the RCAAP about page, in Portugues or Google's English, or yesterday's article in Tek, in Portuguese or Google's English. Also see Ricardo Vidal's blog post (in English). Excerpt:
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Norwegian agency adopts an OA mandate Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services (Nasjonalt kunnskapssenter for helsetjenesten, NoKC) adopted an Institutional Policy for Open Access to Scientific Publications, November 25, 2008. Unfortunately the online version of the policy is an image-scan and I don't have time to rekey an excerpt. However, it is in English. Here's the gist of it: All scientific publications by NoKC research staff "must" be deposited at the time of acceptance in Helsebiblioteket's Research Archive (HeRA), the new institutional repository launched by the NoKC health library (Helsebiblioteket). HeRA contents are also retrievable through NORA (Norwegian Open Research Archives) and OAIster, as well as Google and Yahoo. For each deposit, HeRA will release as much as it can as soon as it can. For example, HeRA will respect publisher embargoes, but will release OA metadata during the period when the full-text may be embargoed. For more details, see the HeRA guidelines, which are in English and HTML. The NoKC is an independent agency within Norway's Directorate of Health. Its mission is to research the quality of the Norwegian health services. Comment. Kudos to all involved at NoKC. I applaud the mandatory language, the immediate deposit requirement, and the dual deposit/release strategy. Update (12/15/08). Also see the NoKC press release (in Norwegian). For some reason Google won't translate this doc into English. Update (12/18/08). NoKC signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge on November 25. (Thanks to Anja Lengenfelder.). Labels: Hot
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama this week announced his selection for Secretary of Energy, physicist Steven Chu. Being a physicist, it might come as little surprise that Chu has a number of publications OA in arXiv -- 11, to be specific. (I haven't looked at all the publications naming "Steven Chu" as an author, but most seem to be from the same Chu.) But arXiv isn't Chu's only connection to OA. PubMedCentral also has 14 OA articles with Chu as an author. (See my disclaimer above about possible confusion with names.) Chu has also published in the OA journal Nucleic Acids Research and chosen the OA option in the hybrid PNAS. Finally, Chu's lab at Berkeley has a list of almost 50 publications by the group -- each with a link to an OA copy. On the other hand:
Comment. It's hard to draw the conclusion from this data that Chu is a die-hard OA supporter; for instance, I didn't find a single public statement by Chu in favor of OA. But the pattern suggests Chu has an intimate familiarity, as an author, with OA. In his November newsletter, Peter called for energy research to become the next priority for a federal OA funder mandate. Chu's background might mean OA advocates will have a sympathetic ear at the top of the Department of Energy. See also our past posts on the U.S. Department of Energy. Labels: Hot
NISC adopts a hybrid OA policy According to the December 2008 issue of NISC News (not online), South Africa's NISC has adopted a hybrid OA policy for its 10 TA journals. (Thanks to Barbara Kirsop.) Comment. The policy scores well on my criteria for hybrid journal programs. It allows participating authors to retain copyright, it promises to reduce subscription prices in proportion to author uptake, and it puts no restrictions whatsoever on the author's distribution of the published article. Labels: Hot
The OA mandate at Napier University Napier University adopted an OA mandate in April 2008 to take effect in January 2009. (Thanks to Stevan Harnad.) Excerpt:
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Temple requires OA for all dissertations, from August 2008 onward Temple University has decided to require OA to all its doctoral dissertations, starting with those completed August 2008. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.) From the announcement (December 4, 2008):
Comment. Kudos to Temple. I hope that all universities will consider an OA mandate for ETDs and that Temple will now consider an OA mandate for peer-reviewed journal articles by faculty, for example, like the Harvard policy. Labels: Hot
Japanese and European repository groups will work together Japan's Digital Repository Federation signed a Memorandum of Agreement with DRIVER (Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research). From today's announcement:
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I just mailed the December issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter. In this issue I offer my predictions for the coming year, focusing on what to expect from the Obama administration and the worldwide recession. The round-up section briefly notes 137 OA developments from November. Labels: Hot
JISC report on subject and institutional repositories Catherine Jones and four co-authors, Report of the Subject and Institutional Repositories Interactions Study (SIRIS), from JISC and STFC, November 2008. Excerpt:
Also see the appendix of survey questions and responses. The report and appendix are also available as DOC files. Update (11/30/08). Also see Stevan Harnad's comments:
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Amazon gets into the data hosting business Amazon Web Services has launched Hosted Public Data Sets. (Thanks to ReadWriteWeb.) AWS Hosted Public Data Sets provide a convenient way to share, access, and use public data within your Amazon EC2 [Elastic Compute Cloud] environment. Select public data sets are hosted on AWS for free as an Amazon EBS [Elastic Block Store] snapshot. Any Amazon EC2 customer can access this data by creating their own personal Amazon EBS volume from a publicly shared Amazon EBS public data set snapshot. They can then access, modify, and perform computation on these data sets directly using an Amazon EC2 instance and just pay for the compute and storage resources that they use. Common use cases for these public data sets would include scientific research, academic studies, and market research. Our goal is to provide easy access to commonly used public data sets like the human genome, astronomy data, and the United States census information. As ReadWriteWeb points out: If you have a public data set and hold the rights to the distribution of it, you can submit a request on the AWS Public Hosted Data Sets site to have it included. See also our past posts on Google's entree into the same business: 1, 2, and 3. Labels: Hot
Today the European Digital Library Foundation launched Europeana, the OA digital library of European literature, art, history, and culture. From today's announcement:
PS: For background, see our past posts on Europeana. Labels: Hot Launch of ENCES for OA-friendly copyright laws in Europe A group of OA-supporting researchers from 12 countries launched ENCES (European Network for Copyright in support of Education and Science) at the recent conference, Copyright Regulation in Europe � An Enabling or Disabling Factor for Science Communication (Berlin, November 13-15, 2008). (Thanks to the Informationsplattform Open Access.) Read the founders' press release in German or Google's English. Also see Stefan Krempl's article in yesterday's Heise online, in German or Google's English. ENCES will be an EU-wide counterpart to Germany's Aktionsb�ndnis ,,Urheberrecht f�r Bildung und Wissenschaft" (Coalition for Action "Copyright for Education and Research"), founded by Rainer Kuhlen in 2004. For background, see our past posts on Kuhlen and the coalition. Labels: Hot
Les Carr has launched a new site, Repositories Worldwide, to aggregate news about repositories. See also the announcement email.
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Autism Speaks adopts an OA mandate Autism Speaks (AS) has adopted an OA mandate for AS-funded research. From today�s announcement:
Comment. Kudos to AS. This is not just another funder mandate. AS is primarily a non-profit advocacy organization, not a foundation, but it uses some of the money it raises to fund research on autism. While 29 funding agencies have adopted OA mandates, AS is at the leading edge of a new breed of OA-mandating organizations. As it points out, it's the first U.S.-based non-profit advocacy organization to adopt an OA mandate. If we look beyond the US, it's hard to to know who was the very first in this category, but it might be the Arthritis Research Campaign, a UK non-profit with no public funds which adopted an OA mandate in January 2007. If you know other examples, please drop me a line. Update (11/13/08). Also see Andrew Albanese's story in Library Journal. Excerpt:
Update (11/13/08). For the variety of research grants awarded by Autism Speaks, and their budget lines, see the Annual Report for 2007, p. 10. Update (12/7/08). Also see John Wilbanks' comments. Labels: Hot
New Open Access Archive Focuses on Open Educational Resources Movement, Blog Twidox, November 5, 2008. Excerpt:
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I just mailed the November issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter. This issue includes an open letter to the next President of the United States, arguing that a national policy to require OA for publicly-funded research would serve the national priorities to reduce our carbon footprint, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and create jobs in a burgeoning economic sector devoted to green technology and green energy. The round-up section briefly notes 143 OA developments from October. Labels: Hot
The Open Access Directory (OAD) just opened a list of Author addenda. Excerpt:
The list launches with 15 different addenda, but there are undoubtedly more out there. Remember that OAD is a wiki, and counts on users to keep its lists comprehensive, accurate, and up to date. Labels: Hot
EU strengthens its support for OA EU supports open access to scientific and scholarly information, an announcement from SURF, October 29, 2008. Excerpt:
Comment. As SURF says, the EU announced a pilot OA project in August 2008. What it didn't mention is that the pilot project mandates OA for only 20% of the EU's research budget for 2007-2013. That's why it matters that Poto?nik told Liebrand that "the Commission will encourage all recipients of EU subsidies to make published scientific/scholarly articles available to the public" (emphasis added). The other good sign here is Poto?nik's public statement that "Member States intend formulating joint policy on access to scientific/scholarly information". Labels: Hot
Google and the book publishers who sued to stop the Google library project have reached a settlement. See the AAP's settlement page and press release, as well as Google's settlement page, press release, and blog post. The two press releases use the same text. From the common press release (October 28, 2008):
From the parties' joint FAQ:
From Google's blog post on the settlement:
Comments. I'm still digesting this. But here are some first impressions.
Update. Read the full-length settlement document or Google's three page summary. Update (10/31/08). I just heard from Derek Slater, a policy analyst at Google. (Thanks, Derek.)
Update (11/6/08). I add some second thoughts to my first impressions in a new post. Labels: Hot
RAND Europe study of IRs in the UK Stijn Hoorens, Lidia Villalba van Dijk, and Christian van Stolk, Embracing the future: Embedding digital repositories in the University of London, RAND Europe, October 2008. A report prepared for the SHERPA-LEAP Consortium. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.) From the blurb:
From the body of the report:
Also see Table 2 (p. 16) for the authors' sense of which stakeholder groups (lecturers, researchers, heads of departments, publishers, librarians, IT department, senior HEI management, and external relations) are motivated by which of these seven incentives. Comment. I've only had time to skim, but it seems very well done. One exception is that in Section 2.1.4 the authors assume that all OA journals charge publication fees when in fact most do not. Labels: Hot Survey of UK authors and institutions on OA publication fees JISC has released its Open Access Publication Charge Surveys. The report is undated but was apparently completed in September and released this week. Excerpt:
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Journals that converted from TA to OA The Open Access Directory (OAD) has launched a list of Journals that converted from TA to OA. It already identifies 104. OAD is a wiki and counts on users to keep its lists comprehensive, accurate, and up to date.Labels: Hot
BMJ converted to OA on Open Access Day. From the announcement:
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Update (10/21/08). A colleague points out that the article I examined for licensing info yesterday has been deposited in PMC, and that the PMC copy has a CC-BY license. (The whole BMJ backfile, from 1840 to July 2008, is on deposit in PMC.) This suggests that BMJ intends to make its OA research articles libre OA, not merely gratis OA, and that it hasn't yet added the licensing info to the journal copy of the article. As long as I'm writing an update, let me add that in the first version of my post I mistakenly said that BMJ was making all its articles OA, when in fact it's only making its research articles OA. I noticed and corrected the error a couple of hours later. But I've since heard from several correspondents responding to the original version. I'm glad to take this opportunity to draw attention to the error and its correction. Labels: Hot
ETH Z�rich adopts an OA mandate Switzerland's ETH Z�rich (Eidgen�ssische Technische Hochschule Z�rich) has adopted an OA mandate. Thanks to Stevan Harnad for the alert and these details:
The policy statement (September 29, 2008) adds that:
The policy FAQ adds that:
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Labels: Hot Proposed OA policy for publicly-funded research in Hong Kong John Bacon-Shone and five co-authors, The Open Access Advantage, a preprint dated October 3, 2008 and self-archived today. The six authors compose the Hong Kong Open Access Committee and represent four research institutions in the Hong Kong area: Hong Kong Baptist University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and the University of Hong Kong. Excerpt:
Also see the authors' announcement of their paper:
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Mellon helps nine society publishers study their OA options The American Anthropological Association (AAA) and eight other society publishers in the social sciences and humanities have received Mellon grants to explore OA options for their journals. From the AAA announcement (October 13, 2008):
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Launch of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) picked Open Access Day for its official launch. From today's announcement:
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Update. Also see the blog post by Gunther Eysenbach, one of the OASPA co-founders. Labels: Hot
The Open Access Directory (OAD) just opened a list of Audio about OA for community editing and enlargement. Like the lists of Video about OA, Educational materials about OA, and the official list of Events celebrating Open Access Day, this one is timed to support Open Access Day (October 14, 2008) and capture the many new resources now under development for it. The first version of the list is short, just enough to justify a launch. If you know of audio recordings about OA (not just recordings which happen to be OA), please take a moment to add them. OAD contributors must register, but registration is free and easy. Labels: Hot Microsoft's repository platform now in beta Microsoft Research has released Beta 1 of its Research-Output Repository Platform. (Thanks to Charles Bailey.) From the site:
Microsoft is releasing the source code under the Microsoft Research License Agreement, which allows essentially all uses except commercial use and has a share-alike clause. PS: For background, see our past posts on the Microsoft repository platform. Labels: Hot U of Glasgow adopts an OA mandate The University of Glasgow has adopted an OA mandate. The proposal to the University Senate is dated June 5, 2008, and was apparently approved in time to take effect at the start of the current (08-09) academic year. The policy was announced late last week. From the policy proposal:
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The participants in the Open Access and Research Conference 2008 (Brisbane, September 24-25, 2008) have issued the Brisbane Declaration. Here it is in full:
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Update (10/9/08). Also see Stevan Harnad's comments:
And see the comments of Arthur Sale, one of the declaration drafters, quoted by Harnad:
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AAA adopts 35 year embargo on OA backfile AAA Creates "Open Access" to Anthropological Research, a press release from the American Anthropological Association, October 6, 2008. Excerpt:
Update (10/7/08). Here are a few comments from the blogosphere and press. From Alex Golub on Open Access Anthropology:
From Chris Kelty on Savage Minds:
From Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed:
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Labels: Hot Scientific American has the scoop: Open access publisher BioMed Central sold to Springer, October 7, 2008. Excerpt:
PS: I'll post more details when I have them. Update (10/7/08). Also see the joint Springer/BMC press release. Excerpt:
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Update (10/7/08). Also see Andrew Albanese's story in Library Journal. Excerpt:
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NIH responses to public comments on its OA policy The NIH has released its Analysis of Comments and Implementation of the NIH Public Access Policy, 2008. The document doesn't include a month and date, but it was apparently released in the last day or two. Excerpt:
The body of the report summarizes the individual comments, including objections to the policy (without attribution), along with the NIH's responses. For example:
PS: For background, see our blog post on the NIH's March 2008 meeting and call for comments, our post on the subsequent RFI, a 2 hour 40 minute video of the March meeting, the full-text comments received by the NIH (with attribution), and various slide presentations from the NIH on the comments, including a preliminary version of the new document. Update. The document is still undated, but the NIH had added a date to the link on the comments page, September 30, 2008. Labels: Hot I just mailed the October issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter. This issue takes a close look at the bill to overturn the NIH public access policy, the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (H.R. 6845), and the publishing lobby's arguments in support of it. The round-up section briefly notes 149 OA developments from September. Labels: Hot
The National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC) has adopted an OA mandate. (Thanks to Jim Till.) Excerpt:
Also see the NCIC's Open Access FAQs. Excerpt:
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ACS will accommodate more funder OA mandates, for a fee Fred Campbell, ACS open access agreement, Chemistry World, September 2008. Excerpt:
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Update and correction (9/27/08). The ACS currently offers NIH-funded authors three options, one of which requires no fee and no ACS membership. The problem it is trying to fix with its forthcoming revision is to make the fee-based AuthorChoice option compatible with the requirements of the Wellcome Trust and MRC. Those funders will pay fees on behalf of authors, but only for publishers who go beyond gratis to libre OA. If the ACS does start to offer libre OA for its AuthorChoice fees, that would be a step forward, especially if it continues to offer a no-fee option for NIH-funded authors. Labels: Hot More on the OA commitment of the German science alliance If you remember, in June 2008 a group of important German research institutions and funding agencies launched the Allianz der deutschen Wissenschaftsorganisationen (Alliance of German Science Organizations), which committed itself to support green and gold OA, among other goals. The Alliance's founding document from June 11, 2008, is now available in English. (Thanks to Neil Beagrie.) Excerpt:
PS: The founding members of the Alliance are the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD, German Academic Exchange Service), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), the Fraunhofer Society, the Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren (Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers), the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK, German Rectors Conference), the Leibniz Society, the Max Planck Society, and the Wissenschaftsrat (WR, German Council of Science and Humanities). Apparently the Alliance still doesn't have a web site. But if I'm wrong, I'd love to be corrected. Labels: Hot
Zerhouni will step down from the NIH next month Elias A. Zerhouni to End Tenure as Director of the National Institutes of Health, a press release from the NIH, September 24, 2008. Excerpt:
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Update (9/25/08). Here's some background, especially to the "why now?" question. From Jeffrey Young at The Hill:
From Jocelyn Kaiser at Science Magazine:
Update (9/27/08). Also see the statement from Genetic Alliance. Excerpt:
Update (10/9/08). Also see Andrew Albanese's story in Library Journal. Labels: Hot
OAD list of educational materials about OA The latest list from the Open Access Directory (OAD) is devoted to Educational materials about OA. Dorothea Salo has seeded the list, and it's now open for community editing. It's launching this week in order to support Open Access Day (October 14, 2008), and to capture the many teaching and learning materials currently under development for it. The list is looking especially for materials that other users can mine for ideas, and use with attribution, when preparing their own talks, slide shows, brochures, posters, videos, podcasts, and workshops. (OAD merely links to these materials; it doesn't host its own copies.) OAD is a wiki and appreciates your help in keeping its lists comprehensive, accurate, and up to date. Labels: Hot The University of Toronto is scheduled to cut its funding for Bioline International at the end of this month. For details, see two comments recently posted to Richard Poynder's interview with Leslie Chan, a professor at Toronto and Associate Director of Bioline. From the comment by Marla Miller:
Comment. Bioline is an OA pioneer and success story, directly helping researchers in developing countries and reflecting well on the U of Toronto. See our 33 past posts on it. Just yesterday Michael Geist highlighted it in his column in the Toronto Star:
Labels: Hot Rockefeller UP disavows AAUP support for Conyers bill Mike Rossner, Executive Director of the Rockefeller University Press, has released his letter to the American Association of University Presses (AAUP), protesting its support for the Conyers bill. He sent the letter today. Excerpt:
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Update (9/24/08). Also see Peter Givler's response to Mike Rossner's letter. Givler is the Executive Director of the Association of American University Presses (AAUP). Excerpt:
I have three quick comments on Givler's response to Rossner:
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Americans: Don't forget to contact Congress American citizens who support the NIH policy and oppose the Conyers bill: Please don't forget to notify your Representative and Senators by end of business on Wednesday, September 24, the day after tomorrow. Congress adjourns on Friday and members have to hear from you before they leave town. Even if the Conyers bill doesn't move, the language may be attached to another bill that is moving. For details and a draft letter you can adapt, see the ATA's call to action I blogged last Thursday. Labels: Hot
NIH to work toward policies to "encourage or require investigators to share data"
The U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Center for Research Resources released its strategic plan for 2009-2013 on September 16, 2008. (Thanks to Heather Piwowar.)
Strategic Initiative IV (Informatics Approaches to Support Research) contains the following action item under "Strategy 1: Facilitate information sharing among biomedical researchers": Action Items: NCRR will: Labels: Hot
An OA mandate from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Germany's Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft adopted an OA mandate in July 2008. (Thanks to the Informationsplattform Open Access.) Unfortunately, both the German and English versions of the policy are locked PDFs which block cutting/pasting (why?) and I don't have time to rekey the important passages. But here are a few highlights:
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Keep the pressure on Congress to support the NIH policy It's not over yet. The Alliance for Taxpayer Action is calling on US citizens to keep the pressure on Congress to support the NIH policy and defeat the Conyers bill. From today's call to action:
Comment. Although we have heard reports that the bill has been shelved for this year, the language could move forward without the bill. For example, even if the sponsors plan no further action on the bill in this session, they could insert the language into another piece of legislation moving toward a vote. We must keep the pressure on between and now and the scheduled adjournment, on September 26, to discourage any last-minute movement. Labels: Hot
33 Nobel laureates write to Congress in support of the NIH policy Thirty-three US Nobel laureates in science have written an open letter to Congress defending the NIH policy against the Conyers bill (September 9, 2008). Excerpt:
Comment. This is the third time that US Nobel laureates in science have written to Congress in support of the NIH policy. Also see the first letter (25 signatures, August 26, 2004) and the second letter (26 signatures, July 8, 2007). Labels: Hot
Conyers bill on ice until at least 2009 After Hearing, Sweeping Anti-NIH Bill To Be Shelved �for Now, Library Journal Academic Newswire, September 16, 2008.
Labels: Hot The Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) has released a Statement on Alternative Publishing Models & Open Access. It was approved by the CRKN Board of Directors on September 9, 2008, and will be presented to the Annual General Meeting on September 23, 2008, for discussion and ratification. (Thanks to Leslie Chan.) Excerpt:
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Update. Here's some related information from Heather Morrison, by email. (Thanks, Heather.)
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Unintended consequences of the publishers' anti-OA bill Michael Carroll, Attacking Public Access Through the Copyright Act, Carrollogos, September 12, 2008. Carroll is a Visiting Professor of Law at the American University, Washington College of Law, and a member of the Board of Creative Commons. Excerpt:
Comment. This is very helpful. But it raises some new questions. Did the Judiciary Committee intend to amend public procurement law or any other federal law unrelated to public access for publicly-funded research? Who will gain and who will lose by the amendment to procurement law, and do the losers know about this bill? Labels: Hot Turf politics and the fate of the NIH policy Andrew Noyes, House Judiciary chairman slams Appropriations panel over jurisdiction, Government Executive, September 12, 2008. Excerpt:
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Update. Not only has Berman not endorsed the Conyers bill, but he publicly opposes it. See Andrea Gawrylewski in TheScientist (September 12, 2008):
Labels: Hot AAUP also wants to overturn the NIH policy The American Association of University Presses has released its September 10 letter to the Congressional sponsors of the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act. Excerpt:
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Labels: Hot More on the arguments to overturn the NIH policy Jocelyn Kaiser, Congressional Committee Moves to Block NIH Public Access Policy, Science Magazine, September 11, 2008. Excerpt:
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Labels: Hot The ACS supports the bill to overturn the NIH policy The American Chemical Society also supports the Conyers bill to overturn the NIH policy. No surprise there. Susan R. Morrissey has details in the September 11 issue of Chemical & Engineering News:
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Labels: Hot More on the publishing lobby's rejection of compromise Jennifer Howard, Congressional Hearing Over Public Access Filled With High Drama, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 12, 2008 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt:
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Update. Here's an OA version of the article. Labels: Hot APA finalizes its no-fee green policy The American Psychological Association has finalized its self-archiving policy after a two-month re-examination. If you remember, on July 15, 2008, the APA announced a policy to charge NIH-funded authors $2,500 to deposit their articles in PubMed Central, and to prohibit authors from depositing manuscripts on their own in PMC or any other repository. Even after paying the fee, the APA would not deposit the published version of the article, would not allow OA release for 12 months, would not not allow authors to deposit in any other OA repository, and would not allow authors to retain copyright. After immediate and widespread protest, the APA announced an interim policy on July 19, rescinding the fee, reaffirming the APA's long-standing green policy, and promising to re-examine the policy before making it final. The key paragraph of the final policy is identical to the corresponding paragraph of the interim policy of July 19:
Comment. The new policy is very conservative, but much better than the July 15 original. I'm happy to repeat my response to the July 19 interim policy: "I applaud the APA for reaffirming its green policy for all APA authors, including NIH-funded authors, and I applaud it for dropping the deposit fee." Labels: Hot
Australian govt report recommends OA, CC
The Australian government on September 9 released the final report of its Review of the National Innovation System. (Thanks to Creative Commons.) The official title is VenturousAustralia but most Australians are calling it the Cutler Report. The report includes this recommendation:
... Australian governments should adopt international standards of open publishing as far as possible. Material released for public information by Australian governments should be released under a creative commons licence. ...See also this article about the report from Australian Life Scientist. See also our past posts on Senator Kim Carr, Australia's Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, who commissioned the report. Update. See also Stevan Harnad's comments. Update (PS). See these specific recommendations from the report (thanks to Glen Newton):
And some of these reflections:
Also see the transcript of a speech given by Kim Carr on September 9. Excerpt:
Also see coverage and comment by Michael Geist, Michael Jubb, and Kate McDonald. Labels: Hot Two public statements from the anti-OA lobby The DC Principles Coalition (DCPC) and the Professional/Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) released their joint letter to the House sponsors of the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (FCRWA), September 10, 2008. This came out before today's hearing on the bill. One of the letter's co-authors, Martin Frank, was a witness at the hearing. Excerpt:
Also see the Statement on the FCRWA from Patrick Ross, Executive Director of the Copyright Alliance, September 10, 2008. Excerpt:
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Update. Also see the AAP/PSP press release on the new bill, and the DCPC press release on Martin Frank's testimony, both September 11, 2008. Update (9/19/08). The American Institute of Physics also supports the Conyers bill. See the summary of its position, its arguments, and its September 11 letter to the Judiciary Committee. Labels: Hot More on attempts to undo the NIH policy
Today, the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property held a hearing on the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, H.R. 6845. The text of the legislation was introduced on September 9. The legislation would overturn the National Institutes of Health's mandatory public access policy.
The witness' written testimony is now available:
Comment.
Labels: Hot
Publishers go to Congress to undo the NIH policy Andrew Albanese, NIH Public Access Policy To Face Copyright Challenge in Congress? Library Journal, September 5, 2008. Excerpt:
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Update. Alert to US Citizens: If your representative is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, please contact him/her before the end of business on Tuesday, September 9, and express your support for the NIH policy. There are committee members from AL, AZ, CA, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, MA, MI, MN, NC, NY, OH, TN, TX, UT, WI, and VA. Some members know nothing about the policy but what the publishing lobby has told them. Explain why the policy matters to you and make it personal. Send copies of your message to the committee leadership (John Conyers, Chairman, D-MI, and Lamar Smith, Ranking Member, R-TX). If your representative is not a member of the committee, then you can send a message to the committee leadership alone. For the contact info on any member, see Congress Merge. If you can address copyright issues, do. This committee has jurisdiction over copyright issues, and copyright is the hook publishers used to get the committee's attention. It's tiring to mobilize all over again, but it's necessary. Please write and spread the word. Keep a copy of your message. You may need it again. Update. Also see: Is NIH Public Access Mandate In Danger? Library Journal Academic Newswire, September 9, 2008. Labels: Hot How Ireland will provide OA to its publicly-funded research Ireland is launching a national OA platform or portal which will harvest the contents of the country's new network of institutional repositories. See the announcement by Dublin City University (undated but this week):
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Update. Also see the comments of Garret McMahon, not only on the news but also on the presentations at the meeting where the news was announced. Labels: Hot
I just mailed the September issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter. This issue takes a close look at the ways in which journal quality and journal prestige overlap, the ways in which they diverge, and how their complex relationship affects the prospects for OA. The round-up section briefly notes 96 OA developments from August. Update. Here's a story without a strong enough OA connection to blog on its own. But because it connects well with my article in the September SOAN, I'll note it here. The British Academy is criticizing the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH) for its attempt to rate journals by their prestige. That's right: prestige, not quality or impact. Journal editors in the history of science, technology, and medicine (HSTM) are circulating an editorial against the practice and asking ERIH to remove them from the index. The copy of the editorial I received by email, forwarded from the EJournals mailing list, was signed by the editors of 45 journals. (I can't link to it because the online version is in a closed archive.) I've seen several OA copies of the editorial, but none has all 45 signatures, for example, 1, 2, 3, 4. I support the journals' criticism of ERIH. The prestige rankings will have the effect of cementing a journal's current level of prestige, nourishing the benign circle for high-prestige journals and the vicious circle for low-prestige journals. Update. For ERIH's response to the criticism, see Michael Whorton's letter to the editor in the Times Higher Education Supplement for November 27, 2008. Whorton is a member of the ERIH steering committee. Labels: Hot
OA data repository for UK social science data The UK Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) has launched UKDA-store, an OA repository for data in the social sciences. (Thanks to DataShare.) From the July 24 announcement:
Also see the UKDA-store FAQ and user guide. Comments
Labels: Hot
An OA policy for Macquarie University Macquarie University has adopted an OA policy. From today's announcement:
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Update (8/29/08). There's a short article on the Macquarie policy in today's issue of The Australian. It's notable mainly for describing the policy as a mandate. "Macquarie University has joined the small club of Australian institutions that require academics to make their research papers freely available over the Internet." Update (8/29/08). It's a mandate. Thanks to Steven Schwartz, here is the language adopted by the University Senate and Council:
Schwartz adds that "there is no opt out. Deposit is mandatory and access can only be restricted during embargo periods and not beyond." Labels: Hot
Ireland's Higher Education Authority adopts an OA mandate Ireland's Higher Education Authority (HEA) has adopted an OA mandate. (Thanks to Niamh Brennan.) From its August 19, 2008, announcement:
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Labels: Hot EC launches an experimental OA mandate The European Commission has launched an experimental OA mandate for 20% of its 2007-2013 research budget. From the EC press release (August 20, 2008):
Also see the pilot project FAQ. Excerpt:
The new OA clause in grant agreement makes clear that the embargo period
Also see the full text EC decision (August 20, 2008) and its Annex 1. Comments
Update. I was wrong in my second bullet point above. The EC has expressed a preference for institutional repositories. From the FAQ:
Update. As part of a separate but related policy, the EC will pay publication fees at fee-based OA journals. (Thanks to Matthew Cockerill.) From the FAQ:
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QUT creates experimental OA journal fund Queensland University of Technology has created an experimental $10,000 fund to pay the publication fees at PLoS journals during 2008. Comment. I applaud this step. When other universities launch funds to pay publication fees at fee-based OA journals, I applaud them too, but I wonder why they haven't already taken steps to provide green OA for their entire output of peer-reviewed research articles. Fortunately, that question is unnecessary here. QUT has had a green OA mandate in place since January 1, 2004. It was the first university anywhere to adopt one, and now it's the first university to launch an OA journal fund to supplement an existing green OA mandate. Labels: Hot
The US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has launched the Health Care Innovations Exchange. (Thanks to Ted Eytan.) From the about page:
From the page on submissions, Share Your Innovations:
From the page of criteria, How Innovations Are Selected:
Labels: Hot
I just mailed the August issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter. This issue takes a close look at two species of free online access and proposes some vocabulary to help us talk about them unambiguously. The round-up section briefly notes 115 OA developments from July. Labels: Hot
Stanford School of Humanities and Science is considering an OA mandate SPARC posted some new details (July 16, 2008) on the OA mandate at the Stanford School of Education. Excerpt:
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The Humanities and Social Sciences branch of France's Agence Nationale de la recherche (ANR) has adopted an OA mandate, requiring its grantees to deposit their peer-reviewed manuscripts in HAL-SHS, the humanities and social sciences section of HAL. (Thanks to Stevan Harnad.) Read the French original (in ROARMAP) or Google's English. In November 2007, ANR adopted a policy to encourage OA archiving, and the new policy strengthens it by requiring project managers to insure that it is done. Labels: Hot Free Microsoft tools for scholarly communication Microsoft Research Unveils Free Software Tools to Help Scholars and Researchers Share Knowledge, a press release from Microsoft, July 28, 2008. Excerpt:
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Update. Also see Peter Monaghan's story in the Chronicle of Higher Education, July 31, 2008. Excerpt:
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More on the OA mandate from the NRC NRC Publications Archive: Extending the reach and increasing the impact of NRC research, a press release from Canada's National Research Council (NRC), July 23, 2008. Excerpt:
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Labels: Hot More commercial drug data moves to the public domain Open access to large-scale drug discovery data, an announcement from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), July 23, 2008. Excerpt:
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Update. Also see the comment from John Wilbanks of Science Commons:
Labels: Hot Major medical schools announce major medical wiki A consortium of major medical schools has announced the World�s Largest Collaborative [OA] Online Encyclopedia of Medicine And Health, July 23, 2008. Excerpt:
While the contents of Medpedia will be OA, editing privileges will be limited to those with an M.D. or biomedical Ph.D. who apply to become an editor. For more details, see the FAQ. Labels: Hot
OAD launches the Bibliography of open access The Open Access Directory (OAD) is very pleased to announce the Bibliography of open access. The bibliography is based on Charles Bailey's definitive Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals (ARL, 2005). We are very grateful to Charles and the ARL for their willingness to move the bibliography to OAD for community updating and revision. Here's how Charles described the launch on his blog this morning:
The OAD bibliography couldn't have a better foundation for future development. It includes all the citations in Charles' original work and omits only his Preface, Acknowledgements, and introductory essay, Key Open Access Concepts. Remember that OAD is a wiki. We appreciate your help in keeping its lists comprehensive, accurate, and up to date. Labels: Hot Victorian govt considering OA for PSI and publicly-funded research Inquiry into Improving Access to Victorian Public Sector Information and Data, a discussion paper from the Economic Development and
Comment. The committee is soliciting public comments on the paper, which are due by August 22, 2008. (See the submission details here and on p. ix of the report.) After digesting the comments, the committee will report back to Parliament by June 30, 2009. I urge Australians, and especially Victorians, to submit comments to the committee in support of OA for publicly-funded research. Labels: Hot
New interim policy from the APA The American Psychological Association has posted a new interim policy on NIH-funded authors and self-archiving. If you remember, last week the APA posted a policy (1) charging a $2,500 fee to deposit author manuscripts in PubMed Central, and (2) revoking the APA's long-standing green policy, or permission to self-archive, at least for NIH-funded authors. The new interim policy drops the deposit fee and reaffirms the green policy, even for NIH-funded authors. Excerpt:
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Canada's NRC adopts an OA mandate Richard Akerman, Mandatory IR deposit as of 2009 for National Research Council Canada, Science Library Pad, July 15, 2008.
Comment. Thanks to the Richard for posting the news and kudos to all involved at the NRC. Neither the NRC Newsroom nor NRC Mediaroom has any details yet, but I'll post more as I learn more. Labels: Hot
APA will charge authors for green OA The American Psychological Association may have the worst publisher policy to date for NIH-funded authors. Excerpt:
Even after collecting the fee, the APA will not deposit the published version of the article, will not allow OA release for 12 months, will not allow authors to deposit in PMC themselves (and bypass the fee), will not allow authors to deposit in any other OA repository, and will not allow authors to retain copyright. Comments
Update (7/16/08). This morning the APA policy page deleted the language summarized above and replaced it with these paragraphs:
Update (7/16/08). Also see Kevin Smith's comment, Making Elsevier Look Good:
Labels: Hot OAD list of business models for OA journals The Open Access Directory (OAD) just opened a list of OA journal business models for community editing. The goal of this list is to catalog the basic themes in financing OA journals, and all the extant variations on those themes. From the scope notes:
The list has reached a critical mass but still needs a lot of work. Remember that OAD is a wiki, and you can help keep its lists comprehensive, accurate, and up to date. Labels: Hot
Publisher policies on NIH-funded authors The Open Access Directory (OAD) is pleased to announce that its list of Publisher policies on NIH-funded authors is now open for community editing and enlargement. The list starts with 204 links to publisher policies and 26 annotations. We've very grateful to Arta Dobbs (University of Connecticut Health Center), Molly Keener (Wake Forest University Health Sciences), and P. Scott Lapinski (Harvard Medical School) for their hard work in developing this foundation on which the public can now build. OAD is a wiki and we encourage all users to help keep it comprehensive, accurate, and up to date. We especially encourage publishers with a policy on NIH-funded authors to make sure that their policy is included on the new list. Labels: Hot
The Open Access Directory (OAD) list of Data repositories is now open for community editing. OAD is a wiki, and you can help the cause by adding or revising entries to its lists. Labels: Hot
Barbara Malina (ed.), Open Access Opportunities and Challenges: A Handbook, the German UNESCO Commission, July 2008. A 144 pp. collection of articles on OA by 38 authors. (Thanks to Napoleon Miradon.) This is an English translation of Open Access: Chancen und Herausforderungen - ein Handbuch, which the German UNESCO Commission published on June 6, 2007. PS: The German edition includes a short section by me on OA in the US, an abridgement of my longer piece in Neil Jacobs (ed.), Open Access: Key strategic, technical and economic aspects, Chandos, 2006. The English edition includes an abridgement and update (as of September 2007) of the same longer piece. Comment. Also see Canessa and Zennaro's Science Dissemination using Open Access, which I blogged this morning. That makes two books on OA in one day. If you count Kylie Pappalardo's Understanding Open Access in the Academic Environment: A Guide for Authors, which I blogged on Tuesday, then that's three books on OA in three days. Labels: Hot E. Canessa and M. Zennaro (eds.), Science Dissemination using Open Access, a new book published under a CC-NC-ND license by the Science Dissemination Unit of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, July 2008. The book knits together pieces from many sources into a single narrative. (Disclosure: some of the pieces are mine.) It's available as a downloadable PDF (4.74 MB, 196 pp.) or an online edition in an ebook viewer with turning pages. From today's announcement:
Labels: Hot Macquarie VC preparing to propose OA mandate Steven Schwartz, Open Access: what do you think? Macquarie University Vice Chancellor's Office, July 3, 2008. Schwartz is the Vice Chancellor of Macquarie University. Excerpt:
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Labels: Hot Norwegian government considers an OA mandate OA mandate forthcoming in Norway? Co-Action Publishing, June 30, 2008. An English summary of this June 2 document from the Norwegian government. Excerpt:
Comment. There's a good chance that Norway will end up adopting an OA mandate. The government is asking advice from the Norwegian Research Council, which created an OA working group last fall and is now working on an OA position paper. The government is also asking advice from the Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions, which joined SCOAP3 in January 2008, and submitted a pro-OA comment (in English) to the EC in June 2006, calling on the EC to provide OA to publicly-funded research and revealing that it had already called on its own member institutions to adopt local OA policies. Labels: Hot
Yesterday the European Commission released this very brief announcement:
Comment. For OA-related excerpts from the Council Conclusions (November 2007) and the Commission Communication (February 2007), and my comments, see my two blog posts on the Conclusions (one, two) and my blog post and newsletter article on the Communication. Both documents fall short of endorsing the near-consensus recommendations for an OA mandate the EC received from the EU research community. In the Communication, the EC said that "Initiatives leading to wider access to and dissemination of scientific information are necessary, especially with regard to journal articles and research data produced on the basis of public funding" (p. 7), and that it would eventually "issue specific guidelines on the publication of articles in open repositories after an embargo period" (p. 8). I suspect that the coming OA pilot is not the same as the coming OA guidelines, but just an experiment to help shape the guidelines. Labels: Hot I just mailed the July issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter. This issue takes a close look at how access barriers create a "last-mile problem" for knowledge. The round-up section briefly notes 128 OA developments from June. Labels: Hot |