An Open Access Future? Report from the Eurocancercoms Project

The European Association for Cancer Research has released An Open Access Future? Report from the Eurocancercoms Project.

Here's an excerpt:

A second survey picking up on the issue of Open Access publishing has now been completed. This paper shares the results of that survey, which was again conducted across the European membership of EACR, and cross references responses with selected data from the Study of Open Access Publishing (SOAP) 2011 [2] which was undertaken across all academic disciplines. The SOAP data is freely accessible and can be mined for information by anyone who wishes to use it. A number of questions were included in the survey that mirrored those used by SOAP, allowing the direct comparison of results. In this article a comparison has been made between the responses provided by cancer researchers and the 7,433 respondents to the SOAP survey from the Biological Sciences. (Over 43,000 responses were received across all disciplines to the SOAP survey.)

| New: Google Books Bibliography, Version 7 | Digital Scholarship |

"Open Access Institutional Archives: A Quantitative Study (2006-2010)"

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 |

"Free E-Books and Print Sales"

John Hilton III and David Wiley have published "Free E-Books and Print Sales" in the latest issue of The Journal of Electronic Publishing.

Here's an excerpt:

Digital technologies now enable books and other digital resources to be openly available to those with access to the Internet. This study examined the financial viability of a religious publisher that put free digital versions of eight of its print books on the Internet. The cost to put these eight books online was $940. Over a 10-week period, these books were downloaded 102,256 times and sales of these books increased 26%. Online sales increased at a much higher rate. Comparisons with historical book sales and sales of comparable titles indicate that this increase may have been connected to the free books being available. There was a modest correlation between book downloads and print sales.

| New: Google Books Bibliography, Version 7 | Digital Scholarship |

Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research Launches €1 Million Fund for Open Access Journals

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 |

"ArXiv at 20"

ArXiv founder Paul Ginsparg discusses the pioneering twenty-year-old disciplinary archive in "ArXiv at 20."

Here's an excerpt:

On arXiv, we have seen some of the unintended effects of an entire global research community ingesting the same information from the same interface on a daily basis. The order in which new preprint submissions are displayed in the daily alert, if only for a single day, strongly affects the readership on that day and leaves a measurable trace in the citation record fully six years later.

| Digital Scholarship |

European Commission Launches Public Consultation on Digital Scientific Information Access and Preservation

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on digital scientific information access and preservation.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

A public consultation on access to, and preservation of, digital scientific information has been launched by the European Commission on the initiative of European Commission Vice President for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes and Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn. European researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs must have easy and fast access to scientific information, to compete on an equal footing with their counterparts across the world. Modern digital infrastructures can play a key role in facilitating access. However, a number of challenges remain, such as high and rising subscription prices to scientific publications, an ever-growing volume of scientific data, and the need to select, curate and preserve research outputs. Open access, defined as free access to scholarly content over the Internet, can help address this. Scientists, research funding organisations, universities, and other interested parties are invited to send their contributions on how to improve access to scientific information. The consultation will run until 9 September 2011. . . .

Interested parties are invited to express their views on the following key science policy questions:

  • how scientific articles could become more accessible to researchers and society at large
  • how research data can be made widely available and how it could be re-used
  • how permanent access to digital content can be ensured and what barriers are preventing the preservation of scientific output

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography | Google Books Bibliography | Institutional Repository Bibliography | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

"Who Shares? Who Doesn’t? Factors Associated with Openly Archiving Raw Research Data"

Heather A. Piwowar has published "Who Shares? Who Doesn't? Factors Associated with Openly Archiving Raw Research Data" in PLoS One.

Here's an excerpt:

First-order factor analysis on 124 diverse bibliometric attributes of the data creation articles revealed 15 factors describing authorship, funding, institution, publication, and domain environments. In multivariate regression, authors were most likely to share data if they had prior experience sharing or reusing data, if their study was published in an open access journal or a journal with a relatively strong data sharing policy, or if the study was funded by a large number of NIH grants. Authors of studies on cancer and human subjects were least likely to make their datasets available.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Institutional Repository Bibliography | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Social Networking Sites and Their Role in Scholarly Communications

The Research Communications Strategy project has released Social Networking Sites and Their Role in Scholarly Communications.

Here's an excerpt:

In particular, the Centre was interested to determine to what extent social networking sites are usurping the role of Open Access repositories and to what extent they are likely to do so in the future. The study therefore naturally needed to consider the relationship between Open Access repositories and social networking sites, both now and in the future. Furthermore, the study needed to examine the behaviour patterns of researchers in using different web locations for research communications and to attempt to predict future trends.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Institutional Repository Bibliography | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Analysis of Chemists and Economists Survey on Open Access

The Research Communications Strategy project has released Analysis of Chemists and Economists Survey on Open Access.

Here's an excerpt:

The motivations for engaging with open access given by these academics tend to be internal, personal reasons, especially altruistic ones. Both chemists and economists see themselves as working for the wider public benefit. However, economists especially also give more selfish reasons, where OA is seen as conferring a personal benefit. External forces that attempt to push academics towards engagement with OA feature less prominently.

See also the related study Further Exploration of the Views of Chemists and Economists on OA Issues in the UK.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Institutional Repository Bibliography | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

New Open Access Journal: Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication

The Pacific University Libraries and the Robert E. Kennedy Library at California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo have launched the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

A joint publishing partnership between the libraries at Pacific University (Ore.) and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo has announced a new open access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to library-led scholarly communication initiatives, online publishing and digital projects.

The Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication will provide a focused forum for library practitioners to share ideas, strategies, research and pragmatic explorations of library-led initiatives related to such areas as institutional repository and digital collection management, library publishing/hosting services and authors' rights advocacy efforts. As technology, scholarly communication, the economics of publishing, and the roles of libraries all continue to evolve, the work shared in JLSC will inform practices that strengthen librarianship.

Marisa Ramirez (Cal Poly) and Isaac Gilman (Pacific University) will co-edit the journal in collaboration with an editorial board composed of experienced and respected library practitioners.

Founding board members include Allyson Mower (University of Utah), Amy Buckland (McGill University), Ann Lally (University of Washington), Faye Chadwell (Oregon State University), JQ Johnson (University of Oregon), Katherine Johnson (California Institute of Technology), Lisa Schiff (California Digital Library), Michael Boock (Oregon State University), Pamela Bluh (University of Maryland, School of Law), Paul Royster (University of Nebraska), Rebecca Kennison (Columbia University), Sarah Shreeves (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Shawn Martin (University of Pennsylvania), Susan Wells Parham (Georgia Institute of Technology) and Terry Owen (University of Maryland).

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Institutional Repository Bibliography | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

"STM Submission on the Open Public Consultation on the European Institute of Innovation and Technology"

STM: International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers has released "STM Submission on the Open Public Consultation on the European Institute of Innovation and Technology."

Here's an excerpt:

Because the public interest is not served if access to and dissemination of trusted scientific publications and data is not sustainable, rules governing publication must allow publishers to obtain the exclusive use of copyrighted content in relevant media. . . so that the substantial investments they make in scholarly communication can be recovered.

Read more about it at "STM Submission to European Institute of Innovation & Technology: A Critique."

| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

University of Bath Adopts Open Access Mandate

The University of Bath has adopted an open access mandate.

Here's an excerpt:

  1. The University of Bath requires researchers to deposit full-text copies of their peer-reviewed journal articles and papers from published conference proceedings (subject to copyright provisions) in the University of Bath research repository, Opus4.
  2. The mandate applies to items published after 1 June 2011. Publications from 2008 onwards should also be added in readiness for the REF.
  3. The full-text of the paper and its details should be uploaded to Opus as close to publication as possible. See the Quick Start Guide for details.
  4. Optional deposit of other research outputs such as book sections, reports, working papers and conference presentations is supported. These items will be identified as peer-reviewed or non-peer-reviewed as appropriate.

| New: Institutional Repository Bibliography, Version 4 | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Faculty Senate Passes Open Access Resolution at Washington University

The Washington University Faculty Senate has passed an open access resolution.

Here's an excerpt from the minutes:

The Faculty of Washington University in St. Louis is committed to making its scholarship and creative works freely and easily available to the world community. Faculty members are encouraged to seek venues for their works that share this ideal. In particular, when consistent with their professional development, members of the Faculty should endeavor to:

Amend copyright agreements to retain the right to use his or her own work and to deposit such work in a University digital repository or another depository, which is freely accessible to the general public;

Submit a final manuscript of accepted, peer-reviewed publications to one of the University's digital repositories whenever consistent with the copyright agreement; and

Seek publishers for his or her works committed to free and unfettered access (often referred to as open access publishers) whenever consistent with his or her professional goals.

| New: Institutional Repository Bibliography, Version 4 | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

"The Development of Open Access Journal Publishing from 1993 to 2009"

Mikael Laakso, Patrik Welling, Helena Bukvova, Linus Nyman, Bo-Christer Björk, and Turid Hedlund have published "The Development of Open Access Journal Publishing from 1993 to 2009" in PLoS ONE.

Here's an excerpt:

Open Access (OA) is a model for publishing scholarly peer reviewed journals, made possible by the Internet. The full text of OA journals and articles can be freely read, as the publishing is funded through means other than subscriptions. Empirical research concerning the quantitative development of OA publishing has so far consisted of scattered individual studies providing brief snapshots, using varying methods and data sources. This study adopts a systematic method for studying the development of OA journals from their beginnings in the early 1990s until 2009. Because no comprehensive index of OA articles exists, systematic manual data collection from journal web sites was conducted based on journal-level data extracted from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Due to the high number of journals registered in the DOAJ, almost 5000 at the time of the study, stratified random sampling was used. A separate sample of verified early pioneer OA journals was also studied. The results show a very rapid growth of OA publishing during the period 1993–2009. During the last year an estimated 191 000 articles were published in 4769 journals. Since the year 2000, the average annual growth rate has been 18% for the number of journals and 30% for the number of articles. This can be contrasted to the reported 3,5% yearly volume increase in journal publishing in general. In 2009 the share of articles in OA journals, of all peer reviewed journal articles, reached 7,7%. Overall, the results document a rapid growth in OA journal publishing over the last fifteen years. Based on the sampling results and qualitative data a division into three distinct periods is suggested: The Pioneering years (1993–1999), the Innovation years (2000–2004), and the Consolidation years (2005–2009).

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

Current Issues in Research Communications: Open Access—The View from the Academy

The Research Communications Strategy project has released Current Issues in Research Communications: Open Access—The View from the Academy. Three prior reports are also available.

Here's an excerpt:

This is the fourth and final quarterly report to JISC from the Research Communications Strategy (RCS) project. In addition to a strategic overview of developments and issues in the sector, it contains a number of recommendations for further action. It includes:

  • initial results from the RCS?s recent opinion-gathering activities on attitudes to open access among researchers and senior managers in HEIs
  • comments on some ongoing issues relevant to the open access (OA) agenda
  • suggested approaches to future OA advocacy.

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

OpenAccess.se’s Steering Committee Objects to Elsevier’s Self-Archiving Policy’s Position on OA Mandates

OpenAccess.se's Steering Committee has issued a statement that objects to Elsevier's self-archiving policy's position on open access mandates.

Here's an excerpt:

Elsevier now requires specific agreements with universities or research funders if there is an open access mandate to deposit and disseminate articles in a specific open archive. These agreements may involve long embargo periods and restrict availability of research results. . . .

We recommend that Swedish universities with open access mandates refrain from concluding separate agreements with Elsevier. Instead, this issue should be managed along with negotiations over national license agreements with Elsevier.

Previously, UKB, a consortium of the thirteen Dutch university libraries and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, issued a statement about the policy.

Here's an excerpt:

The [Elsevier] clause states that an author "has the right to post a revised personal version of the text of the final journal article (to reflect changes made in the peer review process) on your personal or institutional web site or server for scholarly purposes, incorporating the complete citation and with a link to the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of the article (but not in subject-oriented or centralized repositories or institutional repositories with mandates for systematic postings unless there is a specific agreement with the publisher. . . .

UKB is deeply concerned about the fact that Elsevier has recently adapted its Open Access policy and has taken the initiative to negotiate directly with universities and research institutions about the conditions under which their authors may deposit manuscripts of their own articles in repositories. UKB aims to expand the digital availability of Dutch scientific output and is an advocate of publication in Open Access. UKB therefore deplores every action that results in the restriction of that accessibility, such as unacceptably long embargo periods. In addition, UKB is concerned about the consequences of this clause, namely that it will become even less clear for authors whether and according to which conditions they are allowed to post their article in a repository. This in turn will create an extra obstacle preventing authors from doing so. It is the view of UKB that an author should in principle have the right to deposit his own article, preferably in the version produced by the publisher but in any case in the final author’s version, a right which should not become dependent on (subsequent) agreements with publishers. UKB is particularly concerned about the fact that publishers may overrule agreements made between authors and funding bodies by means of this policy.

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

UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Implements Open Access Policy

The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council is implementing an open access policy. The 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."

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).

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

"Open Access to Research: Changing Researcher Behavior through University and Funder Mandates"

Stevan Harnad has self-archived "Open Access to Research: Changing Researcher Behavior through University and Funder Mandates" in the ECS EPrints Repository.

Here's an excerpt:

The primary target of the worldwide Open Access initiative is the 2.5 million articles published every year in the planet's 25,000 peer-reviewed research journals across all scholarly and scientific fields. Without exception, every one of these articles is an author give-away, written, not for royalty income, but solely to be used, applied and built upon by other researchers. The optimal and inevitable solution for this give-away research is that it should be made freely accessible to all its would-be users online and not only to those whose institutions can afford subscription access to the journal in which it happens to be published. Yet this optimal and inevitable solution, already fully within the reach of the global research community for at least two decades now, has been taking a remarkably long time to be grasped. The problem is not particularly an instance of "eDemocracy" one way or the other; it is an instance of inaction because of widespread misconceptions (reminiscent of Zeno's Paradox). The solution is for the world's research institutions and funders to (1) extend their existing "publish or perish" mandates so as to (2) require their employees and fundees to maximize the usage and impact of the research they are employed and funded to conduct and publish by (3) depositing their final drafts in their Open Access (OA) Institutional Repositories immediately upon acceptance for publication in order to (4) make their findings freely accessible to all their potential users webwide. OA metrics can then be used to measure and reward research progress and impact; and multiple layers of links, tags, commentary and discussion can be built upon and integrated with the primary research.

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

Open Access Deposit Issues: "Seeking Custody"

Peter Suber has published "Seeking Custody" in the latest issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter.

Here's an excerpt:

If we want to make a digital file OA, and we already have an OA repository, then we face just two hurdles. We need a copy of the file and we need permission. We can call these the custody and copyright conditions. "Custody" here doesn't mean ownership of the rights, just possession of a copy. If we have possession and permission, then we don't need ownership.

The OA movement has given far more attention to the copyright or permission problem than to the custody or possession problem. This may have the effect of sweeping a difficult problem under the rug. We often have permission when we lack custody, and often find that solving the permission problem is easier than solving the custody problem. Here are some examples of what could be called permission success and custody failure.

(1) You've published an article in a TA journal which allows green OA or self-archiving. But the journal only allows deposit of the final version of the author's peer-reviewed manuscript, not the published version. You're fine with that and eager to make the manuscript OA. But you can't put your hands on the version you're allowed to deposit. You think it's on your hard drive somewhere, or in your email archive. But you're not sure. You haven't had time to look, or you've looked and found six versions. You don't have time to figure out which one, if any, is the deposit-eligible, peer-reviewed manuscript, or you've taken the time and you're still unsure. Or you have the version you submitted to the journal, and all the correspondence with the editor, but you don't have time to reconstruct the version approved by peer review. Or you might have deleted the relevant version in a fit of spring cleaning, as a superseded version not worth saving, or you might have failed to copy it over from your last computer when you upgraded. With enough detective work you could find out, but you don't know how much time it would take and you're pretty sure it would take more than you have.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Institutional Repository Bibliography |

Columbia University Libraries Adopt Open Access Policy

The Columbia University Libraries have adopted an open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Columbia University Libraries is joining a growing movement among universities and research institutions to make scholarly research free and available to the public online. The Libraries is among the first departments at the university to adopt an open access resolution, which calls for faculty and other researchers to post their journal articles in online repositories such as Columbia's Academic Commons. In January, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory became the first program at Columbia to adopt an open access resolution.

The resolution for the Libraries, which goes into effect on June 1, 2011, will require librarians and other professional staff members to deposit their published scholarly works into Academic Commons or another repository that makes the work publicly available. By posting articles in an open-access repository, authors are able to make their works freely accessible to anyone in the world with an Internet connection and discoverable via Google Scholar and other search tools, thus promoting a wider dissemination of research and information.

"The Libraries at Columbia have championed open access to research,” James G. Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian, said. "It is appropriate that its professional staff should model this policy and place their works in repositories for wide access and use."

The resolution covers only scholarly journal articles and is not retroactive. There is an opt-out feature built into the resolution, with respect to publishing an article in a journal that insists on exclusivity.  The resolution will also cover Health Sciences Library professional staff.

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

"Owning the Right to Open Up Access to Scientific Publications"

Lucie Guibault has self-archived "Owning the Right to Open Up Access to Scientific Publications" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Whether the researchers themselves, rather than the institution they work for, are at all in a position to implement OA principles actually depends on the initial allocation of rights on their works. Whereas most European Union Member States have legislation that provides that the copyright owner is the natural person who created the work, the copyright laws of a number European countries, including those of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, establish a presumption, according to which the copyright of works made in the course of employment belongs initially to the employer, which in this case would be the university. In France, a similar presumption applies to works created by employees of the State. Even if researchers are in a position to exercise the rights on their works, they may, nevertheless, be required to transfer these to a publisher in order to get their article or book published. This paper, therefore, analyses the legal position of researchers, research institutions and publishers respectively, and considers what the consequences are for the promotion of OA publishing in light of the principles laid down in the Berlin Declaration and the use of Creative Commons licenses.

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

Access to Research and Technical Information in Denmark

The Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation has released Access to Research and Technical Information in Denmark by John Houghton, Alma Swan, and Sheridan Brown.

Here's an excerpt:

The aim of this study is to examine levels of access to and use of research and technical information by knowledge-based SMEs [small and medium sized enterprises] in Denmark. We explore current levels of access and use, whether there are any barriers to access, access difficulties or gaps, and the costs and benefits involved in accessing research findings.

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

New Spanish Law on Science, Technology and Innovation Includes Open Access Policy

The Spanish Congreso de los Diputados has passed the Law on Science, Technology and Innovation, which includes an open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the bill:

Artículo 37. Difusión en acceso abierto.

  1. Los agentes públicos del Sistema Español de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación impulsarán el desarrollo de repositorios, propios o compartidos, de acceso abierto a las publicaciones de su personal de investigación, y establecerán sistemas que permitan conectarlos con iniciativas similares de ámbito nacional e internacional.
  2. El personal de investigación cuya actividad investigadora esté financiada mayoritariamente con fondos de los Presupuestos Generales del Estado hará pública una versión digital de la versión final de los contenidos que le hayan sido aceptados para publicación en publicaciones de investigación seriadas o periódicas, tan pronto como resulte posible, pero no más tarde de doce meses después de la fecha oficial de publicación.
  3. La versión electrónica se hará pública en repositorios de acceso abierto reconocidos en el campo de conocimiento en el que se ha desarrollado la investigación, o en repositorios institucionales de acceso abierto.
  4. La versión electrónica pública podrá ser empleada por las Administraciones Públicas en sus procesos de evaluación.
  5. El Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación facilitará el acceso centralizado a los repositorios, y su conexión con iniciativas similares nacionales e internacionales.
  6. Lo anterior se entiende sin perjuicio de los acuerdos en virtud de los cuales se hayan podido atribuir o transferir a terceros los derechos sobre las publicaciones, y no será de aplicación cuando los derechos sobre los resultados de la actividad de investigación, desarrollo e innovación sean susceptibles de protección.

Here's the Google Translate version:

Article 37. Open access dissemination.

  1. The public agents of the Spanish Science, Technology and Innovation will drive the development repositories, own or shared access open to the publications of its research staff, and establish systems to connect with similar initiatives at national and international.
  2. The research staff whose activity research is financed mainly with funds from the State Budget will released a digital version of the final version of contents which have been accepted for publication serial research publications or periodicals, as soon as practicable, but no more later than twelve months after the official date publication.
  3. The electronic version will be published in repositories open access recognized in the field knowledge which has developed research or open access institutional repositories.
  4. The public electronic version can be used by the government in its processes evaluation.
  5. The Ministry of Science and Innovation will facilitate centralized access to repositories, and their connection with similar national and international initiatives.
  6. This is without prejudice to agreements under which they have attributed or transferred to third parties rights publications and do not apply when the rights to results of research activities, development and eligible for protection innovation.

Read more about it at "The Congress of Deputies Gives Green Light to Science Act" (in Spanish), "Spain Passes New Science Law," and "Spanish Congress Passes the Law on Science, Technology and Innovation with Open Access Mandate."

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