Category: Open Access

Research Works Act (H.R. 3699) Threatens Open Access to Publicly Funded Research

Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) have introduced the Research Works Act (H.R. 3699), which is aimed at eliminating federal open access policies such as the NIH Public Access Policy. The key passage of the bill states:

No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that—

  1. causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher of such work; or
  2. requires that any actual or prospective author, or the employer of such an actual or prospective author, assent to network dissemination of a private-sector research work.

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access has issued a call to action and a draft letter that can be modified and sent to legislators. Here's an excerpt from the call:

Supporters of public access need to speak out against this proposed legislation. We strongly urge you to contact these offices to express your opposition TODAY, or as soon as possible. To support you, draft letter text is available.

Also, don’t miss a key opportunity to express support for the expansion of the NIH public-access policy to other federal science and technology agencies. There are six days left to respond to the White House requests for information (RFI) on public access to scholarly publications and data (http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/action/action_access/11-1117.shtml).

Read more about it at "Publishers Applaud 'Research Works Act,' Bipartisan Legislation to End Government Mandates on Private-Sector Scholarly Publishing," "Research Works Act H.R.3699: The Private Publishing Tail Trying to Wag the Public Research Dog, Yet Again," and "Trying to Roll Back the Clock on Open Access: Research Works Act Introduced."

[Regular DigitalKoans posts resume on 1/17/12.]

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

"Is Free Inevitable in Scholarly Communication? The Economics of Open Access"

Caroline Sutton has published "Is Free Inevitable in Scholarly Communication? The Economics of Open Access" in College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

In this article I would like to make the case that a change in the delivery of scientific content and in the business models for delivering scholarly communication was inevitable from the moment journals moved online, even if much of this change is yet to come. By applying a thesis put forth by Chris Anderson in his 2009 book Free, I will argue that given that scholarly journals are now digital products, they are subject to very different economic principles and social forces than their print ancestors.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

"The Open Knowledge Foundation: Open Data Means Better Science"

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 |

"Open Access Journals from Society Publishers"

Peter Suber has published "Open Access Journals from Society Publishers" in the latest issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter.

Here's an excerpt:

How many scholarly societies publish OA journals, and how many OA journals do they publish? Four years ago (November 2007), Caroline Sutton and I released the first edition of our inventory answering those questions, and today we release the second edition.

Cutting to the chase: Our 2007 list turned up 425 societies publishing 450 full or non-hybrid OA journals. Our 2011 list shows 530 societies publishing 616 full OA journals. . . .

In 2007, only 15 (3%) society OA journals used CC licenses. In 2011, 92 (15%) do so, a small fraction but a distinct improvement. An additional 45 journals (7%) let authors retain copyright but do not publish under open licenses. Despite the improvement from four years ago, these are deeply disappointing numbers. As of last week (November 25, 2011) 1,727 or 24% of all the OA journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals used CC licenses. Hence, society OA journals use CC licenses at an even lower rate than OA journals in general.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

The Problem of the Yellow Milkmaid: A Business Model Perspective on Open Metadata

Europeana has released The Problem of the Yellow Milkmaid: A Business Model Perspective on Open Metadata

Here's an excerpt:

Europeana's extensive consultation with the heritage sector, including dozens of workshops, has explored in detail the risks and rewards of open data from different perspectives. The most helpful way of framing this discussion has proven to be around the business model of cultural heritage organisations. The findings in this white paper are drawn from a July 2011 workshop in which key actors from museums, libraries and archives evaluated their metadata within the context of their own business model. Placing metadata within their business models gave workshop participants the opportunity to assess the monetary and reputational utility of metadata to their respective cultural organisations.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

Costs and Benefits of Data Provision: Report to the Australian National Data Service

The Australian National Data Service has released Costs and Benefits of Data Provision: Report to the Australian National Data Service by John Houghton.

Here's an excerpt:

This report presents case studies exploring the costs and benefits that PSI [Public Sector Information] producing agencies and their users experience in making information freely available, and preliminary estimates of the wider economic impacts of open access to PSI. In doing so, it outlines a possibly method for cost-benefit analysis at the agency level and explores the data requirements for such an analysis —recognising that few agencies will have all of the data required. . . .

What this study demonstrates is that the direct and measurable benefits of making PSI available freely and without restrictions on use typically outweigh the costs. When one adds the longerterm benefits that we cannot fully measure, and may not even foresee, the case for open access appears to be strong.

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

"Public Access and Use of Health Research: An Exploratory Study of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy Using Interviews and Surveys of Health Personnel"

Jamie O'Keeffe, John Willinsky, and Lauren Maggio have published "Public Access and Use of Health Research: An Exploratory Study of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy Using Interviews and Surveys of Health Personnel" in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Here's an excerpt from:

Conclusions: The results provide grounds for expecting the NIH Public Access Policy to have a positive impact on EBP [Evidence-Based Practice] and health care more generally given that between a quarter and a third of participants in this study (1) frequently accessed research literature, (2) expressed an interest in having greater access, and (3) were aware of the policy and expect it to have an impact on their accessing research literature in the future. Results also indicate the value of promoting a greater awareness of the NIH policy, providing training and education in the location and use of the literature, and continuing improvements in the organization of biomedical research for health personnel use.

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

SHERPA Estimates That Only 5% of Journals Prohibit Self-Archiving

Based on an analysis of about 19,000 journal self-archiving policies in RoMEO, SHERPA estimates that only 5% of these journals prohibit self-archiving.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This chart shows that a remarkable 94% of journals allow archiving of peer-reviewed articles after any embargo period has expired and any additional restrictions have been complied with. Indeed, for nearly a quarter of journals, the publisher's version/PDF itself can be archived. Just 1% of journals only permit the pre-peer review submitted version to be archived. This leaves only 5% of journals that do not permit self-archiving of some form or another. . . .

Unfortunately, assigning journals to policies is not an exact process, due to the vagueness of some publishers' policies and the fact that some publishing houses do work for societies and other third parties whose own open access policies may take precedence. It is therefore difficult to gauge the precision of these figures, but we guestimate that they are accurate to within 2%. The charts do not take into account journals that are not covered by Romeo's own database, but we expect that the relative proportions would be similar.

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

"Openness as Infrastructure"

John Wilbanks has published "Openness as Infrastructure" in the Journal of Cheminformatics.

Here's an excerpt:

The advent of open access to peer reviewed scholarly literature in the biomedical sciences creates the opening to examine scholarship in general, and chemistry in particular, to see where and how novel forms of network technology can accelerate the scientific method. This paper examines broad trends in information access and openness with an eye towards their applications in chemistry.

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

33 Canadian, Mexican, and U.S Institutions Have Signed Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities

Thirty-three Canadian, Mexican, and U.S institutions have signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Berlin Declaration promotes the Internet as a medium for disseminating global knowledge. Its goal is to make scientific and scholarly research more accessible to the broader public by taking full advantage of the possibilities offered by digital electronic communication. Signatories support actions that ensure the future Web is sustainable, interactive, and transparent—and that content is openly accessible—in order to realize the vision of a global and accessible representation of knowledge. The leaders of research institutions, libraries, archives, museums, funding agencies, and governments from around the world have signed the Declaration—including CERN, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academia Europaea, and the German Max Planck Society (co-initiator and custodian).

North American signatories now include leading private research institutions (such as Harvard University and Duke University), public research institutions (University of Kansas, University of California-Los Angeles), Canadian research campuses (Concordia University, University of Quebec in Montreal), smaller academic institutions (Oberlin College, Grand Valley State University), non-profit organizations (Alliance for Information Science and Technology Innovation, Science Commons), major library coalitions (SPARC, the Association of Research Libraries, Canadian Library Association), and the Open Society Foundations (architect of the Budapest Open Access Initiative).

The full list is available at http://oa.mpg.de/lang/en-uk/berlin-prozess/signatoren/.

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

UNESCO Launches Global Open Access Portal

UNESCO has launched the Global Open Access Portal.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

For countries that have been more successful in implementing Open Access, the portal highlights critical success factors and aspects of the enabling environment. For countries and regions that are still in the early stages of Open Access development, the portal identifies key players, potential barriers and opportunities.

The portal has country reports from over 148 countries with weblinks to over 2000 initiatives/projects in Member States. The portal is supported by an existing Community of Practice (CoP) on Open Access on the WSIS Knowledge Communities Platform that has over 1400 members.

The GOAP is a knowledge portal that has the following features:

  • Country-wise distilled knowledge on the status of Open Access
  • Key organizations engaged in OA in Member States
  • Thematic focus areas of OA
  • Important publications on OA coming from different regions of the world
  • Critical assessment of major barriers to OA in each country
  • Potential of OA in UNESCO Member States
  • Funding and deposit mandates
  • Links to OA initiatives in the world

The Global Open Access Portal (GOAP), launched together with the revamped Open Training Platform (OTP) and the first UNESCO Open Educational Resources (OER) Platform, provides the information for policy-makers to learn about the global OA environment and to view their country's status, and understand where and why Open Access has been most successful.

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

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Issues RFIs on Public Access to Federally Funded Scholarly Publications and Digital Data

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has issued a "Request for Information: Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications Resulting from Federally Funded Research" and "Request for Information: Public Access to Digital Data Resulting from Federally Funded Scientific Research."

Here's an excerpt from the scholarly publications RFI:

In accordance with Section 103(b)(6) of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (ACRA; Pub. L. 111-358), this Request for Information (RFI) offers the opportunity for interested individuals and organizations to provide recommendations on approaches for ensuring long-term stewardship and broad public access to the peer-reviewed scholarly publications that result from federally funded scientific research. The public input provided through this Notice will inform deliberations of the National Science and Technology Council's Task Force on Public Access to Scholarly Publications.

Here's an excerpt from the digital data RFI:

In accordance with Section 103(b)(6) of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (ACRA; Pub. L. 111-358), this Request for Information (RFI) offers the opportunity for interested individuals and organizations to provide recommendations on approaches for ensuring long-term stewardship and encouraging broad public access to unclassified digital data that result from federally funded scientific research. The public input provided through this Notice will inform deliberations of the National Science and Technology Council's Interagency Working Group on Digital Data.

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

Digital Scholarship |

Routledge Announces Two-Year Trial of New Author Rights Policy for Library and Information Science Journals

Routledge has announced a two-year trial of a new author rights policy for library and information science journals.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Routledge, the social science and humanities imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, is pleased to announce a two-year pilot initiative for the library and information science research community, allowing contributors to its library and information science journals to retain the copyright to their work and to post it within their institutional repository without an embargo period.

This initiative applies to any of Routledge's 35 library and information science journals published from Taylor & Francis' Philadelphia office. Under this scheme, an author may post the peer-reviewed version of his or her article (although not the published pdf.) into their institutional or subject repository (although not commercial servers or for resale) immediately following publication, so long as the original place of publication is referenced and a URL link is made to the Version of Record on Routledge's website. To view a list of included titles please go to: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pdf/author/lis-journals.pdf

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

Association of Research Libraries Endorses the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities

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

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

On November 1, 2011, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) joined over 300 organizations and institutions to endorse the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.

In a letter to Dr. Peter Gruss, President of the Max Planck Society, Winston Tabb, ARL President and Sheridan Dean of University Libraries and Museums at the Johns Hopkins University, wrote, "The Association of Research Libraries has been a longtime and consistent supporter of Open Access and has worked hard to advance its principles internationally. During the October 2011 meeting of the Board of Directors a decision was taken to become a signatory to the Berlin Declaration. I am pleased to extend our endorsement of the Declaration and join the growing number of signatories from North America."

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

Cornell University Library Gets Grant to Plan arXiv Governance Model

The Cornell University Library has received a grant from the Simons Foundation to plan a governance model for arXiv.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Simons Foundation, which is based in New York City, has provided a $60,000 planning grant to support the development of a governance model that will guide the online repository's transition from interim to long-term governance. . . .

arXiv—a free scientific repository of research in physics, mathematics, statistics, computer science and related disciplines—allows scientists to share their research before publication. The repository now boasts 700,000 "preprint" articles, a million downloads a week and hundreds of thousands of contributors.

The work proposed in the planning grant has already begun, and it will continue through April 2012. The grant supports multiple goals:

  • Developing a set of arXiv operating principles and seeking input from key stakeholders;
  • Refining the institutional fee model and revenue projection;
  • Delineating a governance model and bylaws that clearly define roles and responsibilities for the Library and its partners; and
  • Establishing an initial governing board that reflects the financial contribution levels of major stakeholders and the scientific community.

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

Royal Society Makes Journal Articles Published More Than 70 Years Ago Open Access

The Royal Society has made journal articles published more than 70 years ago open access.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Royal Society has today announced that its world-famous historical journal archive—which includes the first ever peer-reviewed scientific journal—has been made permanently free to access online.

Around 60,000 historical scientific papers are accessible via a fully searchable online archive, with papers published more than 70 years ago now becoming freely available.

The Royal Society is the world's oldest scientific publisher, with the first edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society appearing in 1665. . . .

The move is being made as part of the Royal Society's ongoing commitment to open access in scientific publishing. Opening of the archive is being timed to coincide with Open Access Week, and also comes soon after the Royal Society announced its first ever fully open access journal, Open Biology.

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

Digital Scholarship |

Hope College Adopts Open Access Policy

Hope College has adopted an open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the policy:

Each member of the faculty of Hope College grants to Hope College permission to make her or his scholarly work as defined below openly accessible in the College’s Institutional Repository.

The permission granted by each member of the faculty of Hope College is a nonexclusive, irrevocable, non-commercial, paid-up, worldwide license. Hope College is permitted to exercise any and all rights under United States copyright law related to the scholarly work designated above provided that (a) the works are neither sold for a profit nor used for any commercial purposes and (b) the faculty member has not formally designated that a specific scholarly work is not to be so disseminated. The permission also allows Hope College to authorize others to do the same.

This policy applies to all peer-reviewed, published scholarly journal articles and conference proceedings written while the author is a member of the faculty of Hope College and written after the formal adoption of this policy. Faculty members shall submit all such scholarly articles for addition to the College's Institutional Repository. A faculty member may formally designate that a specific scholarly work is not to be disseminated by requesting a waiver. Reasons for doing so may include the existence of an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the existence of this policy or the reasonable potential for the author to expect to receive royalties for the work. However, faculty members may opt out of such dissemination of a scholarly work for any reason.

Read more about it at "Open Access Policy Makes Faculty Scholarship Available Worldwide."

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

JISC Collections Open Access Fees Project: Final Report

JISC has released the JISC Collections Open Access Fees Project: Final Report.

Here's an excerpt:

The focus of this third phase was around the so-called hybrid model of OA publishing and the extent to which this can be seen as an optional model offered by publishers or a transitional one as part of the move away from subscription-based to fully Gold OA.

It began with a series of in-depth one-to-one interviews with stakeholders within the Research Councils, other funding bodies, publishers and representatives from universities including librarians, institutional repository managers and research management. Interviewees were invited to answer a series of questions about the principles of the hybrid journal model, their attitudes towards it, the management of open-access fees at their organisation and their policy. . . .

The results of the interviews were used to develop a workshop for stakeholders to ensure that presentations and discussions were focused on the key issues identified in the interviews. The workshop was held in May 2011 and was the final part of the project.

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

Digital Scholarship |

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Adopts Open Access Policy

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences has adopted an open access policy. Among other duties, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences "awards prizes and runs a number of funding programmes, either in its own name or on behalf of a foundation or fund that has been entrusted to it."

Here's an excerpt from the policy:

Brief outline of policy

All Academy publications are basically made publicly accessible within eighteen months after publication.

All Academy research data is stored sustainably and made publicly accessible unless there are serious reasons for not doing so (those reasons are set out in an institute's data memorandum). . . . .

What material should be openly accessible?

All publications are available within the Academy. Outside the Academy, the following exceptions are possible:

  • The publisher does not approve open access. The researcher retains the correspondence with the publisher.
  • The management of the institute chooses a publisher that applies a longer embargo period.

All research data, unless the data memorandum stipulates that this is not necessary.

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

Benefits to the Private Sector of Open Access to Higher Education and Scholarly Research

JISC has released Benefits to the Private Sector of Open Access to Higher Education and Scholarly Research.

Here's an excerpt:

The focus of the current study is not on assessing private sector demand, but on identifying, mapping and reviewing practical illustrations of benefits. In particular, the study was asked to look at:

  • Identifying and, where possible, quantifying tangible and attributable benefits in Open Access engagement to university research outputs.
  • Identifying success factors and recurrent enablers to realising these benefits.
  • Establishing illustrations of what and how benefits were realised, the timescale for realisation and transferability of that experience.

The study was also asked to review the quality of available evidence, how this might be addressed and to propose an evidence-based typology of Open Access engagement and benefit realisation over the short, medium and longer-term.

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

Bibliographies about Open Access from Digital Scholarship

Below is a list of digital/paperback books and digital bibliographies from Digital Scholarship that cover open access topics. They are all under a Creative Commons license (typically the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States License). The digital versions are open access.

  • Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 (July 2011): This selective bibliography presents over 600 English-language articles, books, technical reports, and other works that are useful in understanding institutional repositories and ETDs. This selective bibliography covers IR country and regional surveys, multiple-institution repositories, specific IRs, IR digital preservation issues, IR library issues, IR metadata strategies, institutional open access mandates and policies, IR R&D projects, IR research studies, IR open source software, and electronic theses and dissertations. Available as a paperback (96 pages, $9.95, ISBN-10: 146377429X) and an open access PDF file.
  • Institutional Repository Bibliography (June 2011): This selective bibliography presents over 460 articles, books, technical reports, and other scholarly textual sources that are useful in understanding institutional repositories. Available as an XHTML website with live links. Updated periodically. (Table of contents.)
  • Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography (November 2010): This selective bibliography presents over 150 articles, books, conference papers, technical reports, unpublished e-prints and other scholarly textual sources that are useful in understanding electronic theses and dissertations. Available as an XHTML website with live links. Updated periodically.
  • Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography (September 2010): This selective bibliography presents over 1,100 journal articles, books, and other textual works about the open access movement. Available as a paperback (180 pages, $15.95, ISBN-10: 1453780815), an open access PDF file, and an XTHML website. "An outstanding overview of scholarship relating to the growing Open Access movement." — The Charleston Advisor (Reviews)
  • Open Access Journals Bibliography (August 2010): This selective bibliography presents over 210 books and articles that are useful in understanding open access journals. Available as an XHTML website with live links. (Table of contents.)
  • Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals (February 2005): This selective bibliography provides an overview of open access concepts, and it presents over 1,300 books, conference papers (including some digital video presentations), debates, editorials, e-prints, journal and magazine articles, news articles, technical reports, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding the open access movement's efforts to provide free access to and unfettered use of scholarly literature. Available as a paperback (published by the Association of Research Libraries, 130 pages, $45.00, ISBN-10: 1594076707s), an open access PDF file, and an XHTML website. (Table of contents) "This title is a major contribution to the study of the open access movement in general, as well as its emergence in the early twenty-first century." — Library Resources and Technical Services (Reviews)

Also, the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography and the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 cover open access topics as part of broader coverage of scholarly communication issues.

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

It’s Open Access Week 2011

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 |

Florida State University Adopts Open Access Resolution

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 |

IFLA Establishes Open Access Taskforce

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 |

PEER Behavioural Research: Authors and Users vis-á-vis Journals and Repositories—Final Report

PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research has released PEER Behavioural Research: Authors and Users vis-á-vis Journals and Repositories—Final Report.

Here's an excerpt:

Over the period of Phases 1 and 2 of the Behavioural research project the increase in the number of researchers who reported placing a version of their journal article(s) into an Open Access Repository was negligible.

Researchers who associated Open Access with 'self-archiving' were in the minority.

Open Access is more likely to be associated with 'self-archiving' (Green Road) by researchers in the Physical sciences & mathematics and the Social sciences, humanities & arts, than those in the Life sciences and the Medical sciences who are more likely to associate Open Access with Open Access Journals (Gold Road).

There is anecdotal evidence that some researchers consider making journal articles accessible via Open Access to be beyond their remit.

Authors tend to be favourable to Open Access and receptive to the benefits of self-archiving in terms of greater readership and wider dissemination of their research, with the caveat that self-archiving does not compromise the pivotal role of the published journal article.

Readers have concerns about the authority of article content and the extent to which it can be cited when the version they have accessed is not the published final version. These concerns are more prevalent where the purpose of reading is to produce a published journal article, and are perceived as less of an issue for other types of reading purpose.

Academic researchers have a conservative set of attitudes, perceptions and behaviours towards the scholarly communication system and do not desire fundamental changes in the way research is currently disseminated and published.

Open Access Repositories are perceived by researchers as complementary to, rather than replacing, current forums for disseminating and publishing research.

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