Category: Open Access

Open Access Week 2011 starts on Monday, October 24.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Every year, research funders, academic institutions, libraries research organizations, non-profits, businesses, and others use Open Access Week as a valuable platform to convene community events as well as to announce significant action on Open Access. The Week has served as a launching pad for new open-access publication funds, open-access policies, and papers reporting on the societal and economic benefits of OA.

This year, programs highlighting publishing and rights management choices for faculty authors, use of new media, and opportunities created by re-mixing and re-using scholarly materials are on tap. Open Educational Resources are another key topic, as is open-source technology. Campuses will be presenting a sweeping range of events, from the Harvard University-sponsored "Yana" an open-source template for scholarly journals to develop mobile applications to the University of Utah event diving into new media, fair use, and pop culture. . . .

Participation in this highly successful event continues to grow. This year, there are over 2,000 individuals in more than 110 countries registered in the Open Access Week social network at openaccessweek.org. Participation remains strong throughout Europe and North America and will be complemented by new activities in regions as diverse as Algeria, Gambia, Iceland, Iraq, and Sudan. The global nature of this event is captured nicely by the interactive Open Access Week member map, available on the Web site.

To help support local programming, SPARC provides a suite of resources, including a video series featuring leading voices in research and digital technology. This year's feature is Brewster Kahle, founder and Chairman of the Internet Archive. Kahle suggests the time is ripe for Open Access; now that the "plumbing" of the Internet is in place, "We have to move beyond the mainframe model and the subscription or the license model," he says. "It has to be so that things are. . .shared widely." The video may be viewed and downloaded at http://blip.tv/sparc-north-america/sparc-2011-oaweek-guest-brewster-kahle-founder-of-the-internet-archive-5660098.

| New: E-science and Academic Libraries Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

The Florida State University Faculty Senate has adopted an open access resolution.

Here's an excerpt:

The Faculty Senate of The Florida State University, consistent with the University's mission to "preserve, expand and disseminate knowledge" and to provide broad access to institutional resources and services, endorses the storage and preservation of scholarly publications in The Florida State University's open access institutional repository.

This resolution aims to extend the university's mission into the digital age. Its goals are to remove access barriers to publicly-funded scholarship, to centralize the University's intellectual output while maintaining quality filters and supporting established publishing opportunities, and to support faculty who wish to pursue open access publishing whenever consistent with their professional goals.

Resolution Implementation

Implementation of this resolution is dependent on the foundation and development of infrastructure, including a university library-supported institutional repository and Scholarly Communications staff who will coordinate and facilitate the digital collection process for faculty. The Faculty Senate calls upon the Faculty Senate Library Committee and the Florida State University Libraries to explore and address the implementation of this resolution, including the needs to:

• protect authors' intellectual property
• maintain Florida State University standards for Promotion and Tenure
• promote quality and prestige in scholarly publishing
• develop policies and procedures for the governance of this resolution
• explore scholarship publishing in emerging platforms and digital contexts

Read more about it at "Open Access at FSU."

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) has established an Open Access Taskforce.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Following the endorsement of IFLA's Statement on Open Access by the Governing Board, April 18th 2011—and the subsequent approval from the Governing Board during the WLIC in Puerto Rico August 2011 of a number of key initiatives—IFLA's Open Access Taskforce has been established.

The taskforce will work on the following issues:

1. Advocate for the adoption and promotion of open access policies as set out in IFLA's Statement on Open Access within the framework of the United Nations institutions (UN, UNESCO, WHO, FAO);
2. Build Capacity within the IFLA Membership—to advocate for the adoption of open access policies at the national level, through the development of case studies and best practices for open access promotion;
3. Furthermore the taskforce will connect to the various organizations working for Open Access—as indicated in the statement—such as SPARC (US/Europe/Japan), COAR, OASPA,EIFL, Bioline International & DOAJ, among others.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

The Association of College & Research Libraries has signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

ACRL has long supported open access to scholarship as a central principle for reform in the system of scholarly communication. In ACRL's new strategic plan, the plan for excellence, the goal in the area of research and scholarly environment is that librarians accelerate the transition to a more open system of scholarship. Signing the Berlin Declaration is one way college and university libraries can demonstrate their intention to influence scholarly publishing policies and practices toward a more open system. Earlier this year, ACRL demonstrated its own commitment to open access by removing price barriers to the scholarly journal College and Research Libraries, which is now available at no charge from 1997 to the present through the publication website.

Here's an excerpt from the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (emphasis added):

Open access contributions must satisfy two conditions:

1. The author(s) and right holder(s) of such contributions grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship (community standards, will continue to provide the mechanism for enforcement of proper attribution and responsible use of the published work, as they do now), as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in an appropriate standard electronic format is deposited (and thus published) in at least one online repository using suitable technical standards (such as the Open Archive definitions) that is supported and maintained by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, inter operability, and long-term archiving.

| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals | Digital Scholarship |

Bucknell University has adopted an open access policy..

Here's an excerpt:

The faculty of Bucknell University grant to Bucknell University limited use of their scholarly articles for the purpose of making these articles open access. Specifically, each faculty member grants Bucknell University a nonexclusive, paid-up, worldwide license for each of his or her scholarly articles for the purpose of making these articles openly accessible in an institutional repository, and grants Bucknell University permission to exercise all rights under copyright for this purpose, as well as to authorize other parties to do the same, provided that the articles are not sold for income or profit. A scholarly article is defined as a peer-reviewed scholarly work published in a journal or in another format that a faculty member determines to be appropriate for his or her particular discipline.

The policy applies to all scholarly articles authored or co-authored while the author is a faculty member of Bucknell University except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy.

The license granted to Bucknell University by this policy will in no way interfere with the rights of a faculty member as the author of the work. Furthermore, the license granted to Bucknell University for an article will be automatically waived for any reason and without sanction at the sole discretion of the faculty member upon written/electronic notification to Bucknell University's scholarly communications officer.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has adopted an open access policy. EPSRC is "the main UK government agency for funding research and training in engineering and the physical sciences, investing more than £850 million a year in a broad range of subjects—from mathematics to materials science, and from information technology to structural engineering." Previously in the UK, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council, the Natural Environmental Research Council, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council have adopted open access policies.

Here's an excerpt from the policy:

EPSRC Council has agreed to mandate open access publication, with the proviso that academics should be able to choose the approach best suited to their field of research. This mandate is now being implemented: EPSRC requires authors to comply with this mandate and ensure that all published research articles arising from EPSRC-sponsored research, and which are submitted for publication on or after 1st September 2011, must become available on an Open Access basis through any appropriate route. As now, publication costs may be recovered either as 'directly incurred costs' (if incurred before the end date of the relevant research project) or as indirect costs (and hence factored into the fEC indirect cost rate for the relevant research organisation).

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Princeton University has adopted an open access policy. The faculty unanimously approved the policy on 9/19/11. Previously, open access polices have been adopted by seven schools at Harvard University, Emory University, Duke University, MIT, the University of Kansas, the University of North Texas, and other U.S. academic institutions and units.

Here's an excerpt from the policy:

1) The members of the Faculty of Princeton University strive to make their publications openly accessible to the public. To that end, each Faculty member hereby grants to The Trustees of Princeton University a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all copyrights in his or her scholarly articles published in any medium, whether now known or later invented, provided the articles are not sold by the University for a profit, and to authorize others to do the same. This grant applies to all scholarly articles that any person authors or co-authors while appointed as a member of the Faculty, except for any such articles authored or co-authored before the adoption of this policy or subject to a conflicting agreement formed before the adoption of this policy. Upon the express direction of a Faculty member, the Provost or the Provost's designate will waive or suspend application of this license for a particular article authored or co-authored by that Faculty member.

The University hereby authorizes each member of the faculty to exercise any and all copyrights in his or her scholarly articles that are subject to the terms and conditions of the grant set forth above. This authorization is irrevocable, non-assignable, and may be amended by written agreement in the interest of further protecting and promoting the spirit of open access.

| New: Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

The faculty of the McIntyre Library at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire have adopted an open access declaration.

Here's an excerpt:

It should come as no surprise that as librarians, we are not only committed to providing our student and researchers with open access to scholarly content, but equally focused on disseminating our own scholarship through open access options.

It is important, however, to point out that while we are committed to open access we also understand the costs associated with publishing scholarly works. It is our goal to work closely with publishers in order to carefully balance our rights as authors and copyright holders with the needs of publishers.

Be it therefore resolved that the undersigned faculty librarians of the W.D. McIntyre Library at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire are committed to open access and will strive to achieve open access for our own scholarly publications.

| Digital Scholarship |

Bhaskar Mukherjee and Mohammad Nazim have published "Open Access Institutional Archives: A Quantitative Study (2006-2010)" in the DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology.

Here's an excerpt:

Open access publishing is growing in importance, and, in parallel, the role of institutional archives has come to the forefront of discussion within the library community. The present study is an attempt to analyse the present trend of institutional archives worldwide. The factual data of each individual repository was collected from various Directories of Institutional Repositories by using survey method. Data was analysed in terms of quantity of institutional archives increased during last six years, countrywise contents of institutional archives, types of materials archived, subject coverage, software used, language of interface of institutional archives, host domains, and policy of institutional archives. The results of the study suggest healthy growth in terms of quantity of institutional archives' increase worldwide, however, the development is more prevalent in developed countries than developing countries. The subject analysis of the institutional archives indicates that the contributors in the field of health and medicine are more interested to submit their materials in repositories. Currently the institutional archives mostly house traditional (print-oriented) scholarly publications and grey literature, using DSpace software and most of these materials were of English language. However, the policy of content inclusion, submission and preservation is yet to be well defined in institutional archives.

| Digital Scholarship |

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research has launched a €1 million fund to support open access journals.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has made one million euros available for setting up open access journals or for the conversion of existing journals to an open access model.

Providing financial incentives to open access journals is a new initiative within NWO's open access policy. Academic researchers from every discipline can now apply for one-off funding for setting up a new open access journal (maximum 45,000 euros per proposal) or for converting an existing journal into an open access model (maximum 22,500 euros per proposal). The deadline for submitting proposals is 4 October 2011. Further information about this funding instrument and the specific conditions that apply to it can be found at www.nwo.nl/openaccess.

| Digital Scholarship |

In "Suber: Leader of a Leaderless Revolution," Richard Poynder interviews prominent open access advocate Peter Suber.

| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |