The G8 science ministers have issued a statement that includes sections supporting open access.

Here's an excerpt:

Open enquiry is at the heart of scientific endeavour, and rapid technological change has profound implications for the way that science is both conducted and its results communicated. It can provide society with the necessary information to solve global challenges. We are committed to openness in scientific research data to speed up the progress of scientific discovery, create innovation, ensure that the results of scientific research are as widely available as practical, enable transparency in science and engage the public in the scientific process. We have decided to support the set of principles for open scientific research data outlined below as a basis for further discussions.

i. To the greatest extent and with the fewest constraints possible publicly funded scientific research data should be open, while at the same time respecting concerns in relation to privacy, safety, security and commercial interests, whilst acknowledging the legitimate concerns of private partners.

ii. Open scientific research data should be easily discoverable, accessible, assessable, intelligible, useable, and wherever possible interoperable to specific quality standards.

iii. To maximise the value that can be realised from data, the mechanisms for delivering open scientific research data should be efficient and cost effective, and consistent with the potential benefits.

iv. To ensure successful adoption by scientific communities, open scientific research data principles will need to be underpinned by an appropriate policy environment, including recognition of researchers fulfilling these principles, and appropriate digital infrastructure.

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SPARC has released Implementing an Open Data Policy: A Primer for Research Funders.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This primer addresses key issues that these organizations encounter when considering the adoption and implementation of an open data policy. The guide covers big-picture topics such as how to decide on the range of activities an open data policy should cover. It also delves into areas of very specific concern, such as options for where data can be deposited, and how privacy and other concerns can be managed.

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Yesterday DigitalKoans reported on the Research Councils UK's new open access policy. Today, the European Commission has announced another major open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The European Commission today outlined measures to improve access to scientific information produced in Europe. Broader and more rapid access to scientific papers and data will make it easier for researchers and businesses to build on the findings of public-funded research. This will boost Europe's innovation capacity and give citizens quicker access to the benefits of scientific discoveries. In this way, it will give Europe a better return on its €87 billion annual investment in R&D. The measures complement the Commission's Communication to achieve a European Research Area (ERA), also adopted today.

As a first step, the Commission will make open access to scientific publications a general principle of Horizon 2020, the EU's Research & Innovation funding programme for 2014-2020. As of 2014, all articles produced with funding from Horizon 2020 will have to be accessible:

• articles will either immediately be made accessible online by the publisher ('Gold' open access)—up-front publication costs can be eligible for reimbursement by the European Commission; or
• researchers will make their articles available through an open access repository no later than six months (12 months for articles in the fields of social sciences and humanities) after publication ('Green' open access).

The Commission has also recommended that Member States take a similar approach to the results of research funded under their own domestic programmes. The goal is for 60% of European publicly-funded research articles to be available under open access by 2016.

The Commission will also start experimenting with open access to the data collected during publicly funded research (e.g. the numerical results of experiments), taking into account legitimate concerns related to the fundee's commercial interests or to privacy.

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

Research Councils UK has released Open Data Dialogue: Final Report.

Here's an excerpt:

Undertaken on the behalf of the Research Councils UK in partnership with JISC, the Royal Society and Sciencewise-ERC, this public dialogue explored views on open data, data reuse and data management policies within research.

The public dialogue was designed to:

• Provide insight on the business issues that the dialogue will support, at the research councils and JISC
• Build on prior work in the area and account for the wider policy framework
• Engage people meaningfully around this complex area, enabling the public to frame issues and test out any principles emerging across a range of research contexts.

The research comprised a number of elements:

• an initial literature and policy review of the area
• two reconvened discussion groups in Swindon and Oldham
• a workshop involving key stakeholders conducted between the first and second wave of the public dialogues.

Read more about it at Evaluation of Public Dialogue on Open Data: Report to Research Councils UK.

| Digital Curation Bibliography: Preservation and Stewardship of Scholarly Works | Digital Scholarship |

The Royal Society has released Science as an Open Enterprise.

Here's an excerpt:

This report analyses the impact of new and emerging technologies that are transforming the conduct and communication of research. The recommendations are designed to improve the conduct of science, respond to changing public expectations and political culture and enable researchers to maximise the impact of their research. They are designed to ensure that reproducibility and self-correction are maintained in an era of massive data volumes. They aim to stimulate the communication and collaboration where these are needed to maximise the value of data-intensive approaches to science. Action is needed to maximise the exploitation of science in business and in public policy. But not all data are of equal interest and importance. Some are rightly confidential for commercial, privacy, safety or security reasons. There are both opportunities and financial costs in the full presentation of data and metadata. The recommendations set out key principles. The main text explores how to judge their application and where accountability should lie.

| Research Data Curation Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

The Executive Office of the President's National Science and Technology Council has released Interagency Public Access Coordination: A Report to Congress on the Coordination of Policies Related to the Dissemination and Long-Term Stewardship of the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research.

Here's an excerpt:

To summarize, the Administration been working on issues related to the management of and access to the results of federally funded scientific research. In accordance with ACRA, OSTP established the Task Force on Public Access to Scholarly Publications and re-chartered the Interagency Working Group on Digital Data under the NSTC CoS. Those groups are evaluating objectives for increasing access to and improving the management of the results of federally funded scientific research.

Three RFI's have been issued, two on public access to scholarly publications and one on the management of digital data. Responses to those RFIs are being analyzed now, but initial results show strong public support for increasing access to scholarly publications describing the results of federally funded research and for improving scientific data management and access. The NSTC groups are continuing to consider the public comments received from the RFIs and how they should be incorporated into the objectives required by ACRA. Once they have finalized their decisions, the objectives of all three groups will be combined and presented to the CoS. There, agency leadership will consider implementation options. In addition, the CoS will help prioritize the remaining responsibilities as described in ACRA Section 103 including further public consultation and international outreach necessary for developing agency-specific policies.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This bibliography is recommended for everyone interested in open access publishing." — M. Blobaum, Journal of the Medical Library Association 100, no. 1 (2012): 73. | Digital Scholarship |

Brian A. Nosek and Yoav Bar-Anan have self-archived "Scientific Utopia: I. Opening Scientific Communication" in arXiv.org.

Here's an excerpt:

Existing norms for scientific communication are rooted in anachronistic practices of bygone eras, making them needlessly inefficient. We outline a path that moves away from the existing model of scientific communication to improve the efficiency in meeting the purpose of public science—knowledge accumulation. We call for six changes: (1) full embrace of digital communication, (2) open access to all published research, (3) disentangling publication from evaluation, (4) breaking the "one article, one journal" model with a grading system for evaluation and diversified dissemination outlets, (5) publishing peer review, and, (6) allowing open, continuous peer review. We address conceptual and practical barriers to change, and provide examples showing how the suggested practices are being used already. The critical barriers to change are not technical or financial; they are social. While scientists guard the status quo, they also have the power to change it.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010: "SEP [Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography] is compiled with utter professionalism. It reminds me of the work of the best artisans who know not only every item that leaves their workshops, but each component used to create them—providing the ideal quality control." — Péter Jacsó ONLINE 27, no. 3 (2003): 73-76. | Digital Scholarship |

SURF's EJME (Enhanced Journals…Made Easy!) Project has released data file plug-ins for Open Journal Systems.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Internet makes it possible to present publications in combination with related research data, as Enhanced Publications. The Enhanced Journals…Made Easy project (EJME), which is funded by SURF, has designed a practical work process for publishers of Open Access journals so as to enhance academic journals with the associated data files. The project involved the development of two plug-ins for Open Journal Systems, a system for managing and publishing journals. Open Journal Systems (OJS) is the most frequently used open source package worldwide for academic journals.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

The European Commission has released the Online Survey on Scientific Information in the Digital Age.

Here's an excerpt:

Respondents were asked if there is no access problem to scientific publications in Europe: 84 % disagreed or disagreed strongly with the statement. The high prices of journals/subscriptions (89%) and limited library budgets (85%) were signalled as the most important barriers to accessing scientific publications. More than 1,000 respondents (90%) supported the idea that publications resulting from publicly funded research should, as a matter of principle, be in open access (OA) mode. An even higher number of respondents (91%) agreed or agreed strongly that OA increased access to and dissemination of scientific publications. Self-archiving ("green OA") or a combination of self-archiving and OA publishing ("gold OA") were identified as the preferred ways that public research policy should facilitate in order to increase the number and share of scientific publications available in OA. Respondents were asked, in the case of self-archiving ("green OA"), what the desirable embargo period is (period of time during which publication is not yet open access): a six-month period was favoured by 56% of respondents (although 25% disagree with this option).

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

Michael Nielsen has been named as a SPARC Innovator.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

While Nielsen is not alone in promoting the open sharing of data and research to advance science, he has been in the spotlight this fall as an advocate for the cause. The Open Society Foundations supported sending him on an awareness-raising tour on Open Science. In three months, Nielsen did 33 talks in 17 cities—from small gatherings of high school students in Lithuania to a 1,000-plus audience in Canada. (The recording on ted.com of his presentation at TEDxWaterloo has received more than 150,000 hits.). . .

For being a thought leader of how doing science in the open can promote change and bringing the discussion to a new level, SPARC honors Nielsen as the January 2012 SPARC Innovator. "Michael is an incredibly bright scientist and researcher in his own right," says Heather Joseph, executive director of SPARC. "But he also has a view beyond 30,000 feet of the entire scientific enterprise, and the value that open brings to the table." Nielsen has found a way to engage the general public in this issue to understand why it matters. In his push to open up the scientific process, he has helped advance the entire open-access movement. "He is a voice into the mainstream that has been sorely lacking," says Joseph.

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The Association of Research Libraries, the Johns Hopkins University Libraries, and SPARC have replied to the White House's Request for Information: Public Access to Digital Data Resulting from Federally Funded Scientific Research.

Here's an excerpt:

Question 1

What specific Federal policies would encourage public access to and the preservation of broadly valuable digital data resulting from federally funded scientific research, to grow the U.S. economy and improve the productivity of the American scientific enterprise?

Comment 1

The most effective Federal policies in this regard would mandate digital data deposit into publicly accessible repositories. In the absence of such policies, there are already cases of digital data which have been lost or remain inaccessible or accessible only with high barriers. While laudable efforts such as the NSF and NIH data management plans move the community in the direction of supporting U.S. economic growth and productivity, the reality is that many researchers continue to strictly interpret the requirement as sharing data based on specific requests or personal provisions. The Federal policy framework should move public access to digital data away from the current idiosyncratic environment to a systematic approach that lowers barriers to data access, discovery, sharing and re-use.

Instead of relying upon individual investigators to interpret and support public access through a point to point network (e.g., researcher provides digital data upon request), Federal policies should ensure that public access can occur through well managed, sustained, preservation archives that enable a legally and policy compliant peer to peer model for sharing. A useful metric for full-fledged public access to digital data is whether someone (or some machine) other than the original data producer can discover, access, interpret and use the digital data without contacting the original data producer.

See also Columbia University Libraries/Information Services' reply and the Creative Commons' reply.

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

Jennifer C. Molloy has published "The Open Knowledge Foundation: Open Data Means Better Science" in PLoS Biology.

Here's an excerpt:

Data provides the evidence for the published body of scientific knowledge, which is the foundation for all scientific progress. The more data is made openly available in a useful manner, the greater the level of transparency and reproducibility and hence the more efficient the scientific process becomes, to the benefit of society. This viewpoint is becoming mainstream among many funders, publishers, scientists, and other stakeholders in research, but barriers to achieving widespread publication of open data remain. The Open Data in Science working group at the Open Knowledge Foundation is a community that works to develop tools, applications, datasets, and guidelines to promote the open sharing of scientific data. This article focuses on the Open Knowledge Definition and the Panton Principles for Open Data in Science. We also discuss some of the tools the group has developed to facilitate the generation and use of open data and the potential uses that we hope will encourage further movement towards an open scientific knowledge commons.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |