Category: Open Access

Wake Forest University Library Faculty Adopt Open Access Policy

The library faculty of the Z. Smith Reynolds Library, Wake Forest University have unanimously adopted an open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the policy:

Each faculty member grants Wake Forest University the right to archive and make publicly available the full text of the author’s final version of scholarly works via the University’s open access institutional repository. This provides the University the nonexclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license to preserve and redistribute the work. When publisher agreements do not automatically grant permission to archive the author’s final version, the faculty commit to negotiating for such rights. Faculty members will submit an electronic version of the author’s final version in an appropriate format as soon as possible, respecting some publishers’ requests for embargo.

Furthermore, the faculty endeavor to publish their scholarship in open access venues when possible, or alternately to seek the right to archive the final published version in lieu of the author's final version.

This policy will apply to all scholarship created while a member of the WFU faculty, excluding works previously accepted for publication and works for which authors entered into incompatible licensing or assignment agreements prior to the adoption of this policy, and excepting books and book chapters as necessary. The Dean of the Library will waive the application of the policy for future scholarship upon written notification from the author, who informs the Dean of the reason.

Read more about it at "ZSR Library Faculty Adopt Open Access Policy."

PEER Behavioural Research: Authors and Users vis-à-vis Journals and Repositories; Baseline Report

The Publishing and the Ecology of European Research (PEER) project has released PEER Behavioural Research: Authors and Users vis-à-vis Journals and Repositories; Baseline Report.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The PEER Behavioural Research Team from Loughborough University (Department of Information Science & LISU) has completed its behavioural baseline report, which is based on an electronic survey of authors (and authors as users) with more than 3000 European researchers and a series of focus groups covering the Medical sciences; Social sciences, humanities & arts; Life sciences; and Physical sciences & mathematics. The objectives of the Behavioural Research within PEER are to:

  • Track trends and explain patterns of author and user behaviour in the context of so called Green Open Access.
  • Understand the role repositories play for authors in the context of journal publishing.
  • Understand the role repositories play for users in context of accessing journal articles.

The baseline report outlines findings from the first phase of the research and identifies the key themes to emerge. It also identifies priorities for further analysis and future work. Some interesting points to emerge from the first phase of research that may be of interest to a number of stakeholders in the scholarly communication system include:

  • An individual's attitude towards open access repositories may change dependant on whether they are an author or a reader; readers being interested in the quality of the articles but authors also focused on the reputation of the repository itself
  • Reaching the target audience is the overwhelming motivation for scholars to disseminate their research results and this strongly influences their choice of journal and/or repository
  • Researchers in certain disciplines may lack confidence in making preprints available, and to some extent this is not only a matter of confidence in the quality of a text but also due to differences in work organisation across research cultures (e.g. strong internal peer review of manuscripts versus reliance on journals for peer review). Other factors are likely to include career stage and centrality of research to the parent discipline
  • Value-added services, such as download statistics and alert services, would contribute to the perceived usefulness of repositories and could help them gain popularity in what is an increasingly competitive information landscape
  • Readers often need to go through a variety of processes to access all the articles that they require and widespread open access may reduce the need for this time consuming practice.

Selected Comments to the White House OSTP Public Access Policy Forum

Below are selected comments submitted to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Public Access Policy Forum. The Forum is now closed.

David H. Carlson Elected SPARC Steering Committee Chair

David H. Carlson, Dean of Library Affairs at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, has been elected Chair of the SPARC Steering Committee. Carlson has been a committee member since 2008.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Carlson brings to the Chair position a rich and deep perspective informed by working with a variety of libraries and institutions in his career, including a teaching college, large research-intensive university, and a library consortium. He has served extensively with the board of directors at the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI), and currently serves on the boards of directors for the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) and BioOne.

Carlson has been an active participant in industry-level scholarly communication activities, especially those related to library-vendor relations. He led the library community in successfully securing a reversal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) decision to stop supplying new Science content to JSTOR. He has spearheaded Open Access activities at SIUC, and was responsible for launching the campus's open-access repository. Carlson has also been active supporter of national public access policies and has been a vocal advocate of the NIH Public Access Policy as well as the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA).

"David Carlson is a committed advocate who sees things through to their conclusion," said Heather Joseph, SPARC's Executive Director. "His experience with institutions of all types, and his commitment to deepening the impact of research through expanding access will help SPARC make important new strides in the coming years. The committee and I look forward to having David's leadership to help us address the challenges and opportunities before us."

"The matters facing SPARC are vital to not just libraries but the academy," said Carlson. "Indeed, as technology provides greater access to tools and platforms that permit creative contributions, the issues are becoming increasingly important to society as a whole. It is a critical time to show the detrimental effects of restrictive laws and regulations, and to advance requirements for public access to research sponsored by government agencies." He added, "I look forward to working as Chair of SPARC to pursue key avenues toward change at this crucial juncture."

SPARC's voting membership, which includes representatives from over 150 academic libraries in the U.S. and Canada, also elected the following individuals to serve on the SPARC Steering Committee for three-year terms beginning January 1:

  • Maggie Farrell, University of Wyoming (non-ARL director)
  • Rick Luce, Emory University (ARL director)
  • Lorraine Harricombe, University of Kansas (ARL director)

Steering Committee members whose terms concluded in December include outgoing Chair (2005 through 2009) Ray English (Oberlin College), Larry Alford (Temple University), Sherrie Bergman (Bowdoin College), Diane Graves (Trinity University), and Randy Olsen (Brigham Young University).

The full SPARC Steering Committee represents ARL and non-ARL libraries in the U.S. and Canada as well as SPARC Europe, SPARC Japan, CARL, and AASHL. The full list is available at http://www.arl.org/sparc/about.

Last Call: Tell the White House You Support Open Access by Thursday

The deadline for submitting comments to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy's public consultation on public access policy is January 21st.

If you do not want to submit detailed comments, you might consider indicating your support for the comments of one of the below organizations. The easiest way to do so is simply to send an e-mail message to publicaccess@ostp.gov indicating that you support their comments.

If you wish to make detailed comments, either send them to the e-mail address above answering the 9 questions in the Federal Register or make comments at the appropriate OSTP post:

To post comments on the OSTP Blog, you must first register and login.

STM Reacts to Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Report

STM, an international association of around 100 publishers, has issued a press release regarding the recent Report and Recommendations from the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

STM takes issue, however, with some of the other recommendations and goals expressed in the Report. Firstly, while STM supports US agencies in the development of public access policies to the results of research funded by those agencies, we do not agree that the scholarly articles arising from publisher investment and value add fall under this category. Government research grants currently cover the cost of the research only. Government research grants do not cover the costs of publication.

Secondly, while welcoming the consultation and collaboration that has occurred with our industry, STM believes the goal of US agencies in establishing a "global publishing system" is redundant and wasteful and ignores the essentially international nature of STM publishing, which has, without any government assistance anywhere in the world, enabled more access to more people than at any time in history.

Thirdly, if there is to be no compensation for the use of journal mediated content, STM supports the need for embargo periods. There is, however, no evidence whatsoever to support the recommendation that embargo periods of 0 to 12 months could be adopted for "many sciences" without problem. STM is leading a three year experiment part-funded by the European Commission (the PEER Project) to find out the effects of various embargo periods on journals. We strongly encourage such an evidence-based policy investigation in the US as well.

Finally, while STM supports the recommendation that the final published article should be given primacy (the so called VoR or Version of Record) over the proliferation of other imperfect earlier versions, it is through this final version —and the creation and maintenance of their authoritative journals—that STM publishers provide significant added value; to make final published articles (VoRs) free immediately upon publication must involve some mechanism of financial compensation.

ALA and ACRL Support Open Access in Comments to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

ALA and ACRL have submitted comments to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) calling for greater open access to federally funded research.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The ALA and ACRL have long believed that ensuring public access to the fruits of federally funded research is a logical, feasible, and widely beneficial goal. They provided information and evidence as the Executive Branch considers expanding public access policies, like that implemented by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to other federal agencies. Specifically, the ALA and ACRL recommend: which agencies should be covered, that policies should be mandatory, that earlier access is better, version and format recommendations, how to keep implementation costs reasonable, and the importance of supporting emerging scholarly practice.

While greater access to publicly funded research has long been a high priority issue for academic libraries, ACRL President Lori Goetsch, Dean of Libraries at Kansas State University, emphasized that now is the time for public and school librarians to tell their stories.

"What would it mean for members of your community to have better access to scholarly, scientific, and technical articles—paid with their own tax dollars through grants from agencies like NASA or the EPA?" Goetsch said. "How would it help small business owners starting up green technology companies? How would it help enhance teaching and learning in high schools?"

In the past, the ALA and ACRL have supported NIH Public Access Policy and endorsed "The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009" (S. 1373) noting the latter, "reflects ALA policy regarding access to Federal government information by providing for the long-term preservation of, and no-fee public access to, government-sponsored, tax-payer funded published research findings."

The ALA and ACRL encourage all members to consider making comments, no later than January 21, to OSTP as individuals or libraries. More information is available on the OSTP Public Access Policy blog at http://blog.ostp.gov/category/public-access-policy. Comments can also be posted on OSTP’s blog. Comments e-mailed to publicaccess@ostp.gov are also accepted, but may be posted to the blog by the moderator. General comments, addressing any part of the Request for Information, may be submitted. See the full notice Federal Register notice at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-30725.htm for details.

Report and Recommendations from the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable

The Scholarly Publishing Roundtable has released the Report and Recommendations from the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

An expert panel of librarians, library scientists, publishers, and university academic leaders today called on federal agencies that fund research to develop and implement policies that ensure free public access to the results of the research they fund "as soon as possible after those results have been published in a peer-reviewed journal."

The Scholarly Publishing Roundtable was convened last summer by the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology, in collaboration with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Policymakers asked the group to examine the current state of scholarly publishing and seek consensus recommendations for expanding public access to scholarly journal articles.

The various communities represented in the Roundtable have been working to develop recommendations that would improve public access without curtailing the ability of the scientific publishing industry to publish peer- reviewed scientific articles.

The Roundtable’s recommendations, endorsed in full by the overwhelming majority of the panel (12 out of 14 members), "seek to balance the need for and potential of increased access to scholarly articles with the need to preserve the essential functions of the scholarly publishing enterprise," according to the report. . . .

The Roundtable identified a set of principles viewed as essential to a robust scholarly publishing system, including the need to preserve peer review, the necessity of adaptable publishing business models, the benefits of broader public access, the importance of archiving, and the interoperability of online content.

In addition, the group affirmed the high value of the "version of record" for published articles and of all stakeholders' contributions to sustaining the best possible system of scholarly publishing during a time of tremendous change and innovation.

To implement its core recommendation for public access, the Roundtable recommended the following:

  1. Agencies should work in full and open consultation with all stakeholders, as well as with OSTP, to develop their public access policies. Agencies should establish specific embargo periods between publication and public access.
  2. Policies should be guided by the need to foster interoperability.
  3. Every effort should be made to have the Version of Record as the version to which free access is provided.
  4. Government agencies should extend the reach of their public access policies through voluntary collaborations with non-governmental stakeholders.
  5. Policies should foster innovation in the research and educational use of scholarly publications.
  6. Government public access policies should address the need to resolve the challenges of long-term digital preservation.
  7. OSTP should establish a public access advisory committee to facilitate communication among government and nongovernment stakeholders.

Read more about it at "Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Releases Report and Recommendations" and "Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Releases Report to Congress."

White House OSTP Asks for Additional Comments on Open Access until Jan. 21st

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has requested additional comments about its public consultation on public access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Many of you expressed a desire for more time to engage in the Public Access Policy Forum post-holidays. We heard you! While Phase III ended on January 7th, we have launched a two-week bonus period for all of you who signed off for the holidays. Therefore, all three phases of the Forum will remain open through January 21st.

In hopes that you will continue to build and respond to the thoughtful comments of your peers, we ask you to visit the Public Access Policy Forum portion of our blog to see all relevant posts and submit your comments in the appropriate forum:

In addition, be sure to check out the many comments and proposals submitted to our publicaccess@ostp.gov inbox, to which you are also welcome to submit comments or documents. Some comments are just text; some have links to documents that have been submitted.

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Consultation on Open Access

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) public consultation on public access policy completed phase three on January 7, 2010.

Here's an excerpt from "Phase III Wrap-Up":

We sincerely thank every one of you for taking the time to provide such valuable commentary on this topic. As previously mentioned, due to the busy holiday season we will be re-opening the forum for a two-week bonus session beginning immediately. In this final session we will be soliciting comments on all the topics discussed in the three previous phases, and may periodically ask during the course of these two weeks that participants focus on a few key issues that we feel warrant additional attention. . . .

Once again thank you to all who participated; your comments and suggestions are genuinely appreciated. Now, for those of you who have been caught up with the holidays or have simply procrastinated, please take some time to share your thoughts as we extend this public forum through January 21th.

Here are the main discussion pages for the three phases:

Alliance for Taxpayer Access Call to Action about White House Open Access RFI

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access has issued a call to action about the OSTP open access RFI.

Here's the press release:

CALL TO ACTION: Let the White House know you support public access to public funded research

Last week, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a Request for Information (RFI) inviting input on "enhancing public access to archived publications resulting from research funded by federal science and technology agencies." SPARC is pleased that the Administration, as part of its Transparency and Open Government initiative, is looking at public access as an opportunity to stimulate scientific and technological innovation and competitiveness.

All are urged to respond to this pivotal opportunity, as individuals and on behalf of institutions and organizations, NO LATER than January 7, 2010. Your input will be critical in helping the administration to form a deep and balanced view of stakeholders’ interest in ensuring public access to publicly funded research.

This RFI will be active for only 30 days, from December 10, 2009 to January 7, 2010. Respondents are invited to comment online through the Public Access Policy blog at http://blog.ostp.gov/category/public-access-policy, where the discussion will center on a single theme for each of three ten-day periods.

December 10 – 20: Implementation

December 21 – 31: Features and technology

January 1 – 7: Management

Email comments will also be accepted, but will still be posted to the blog by the moderator. General comments may also be submitted. See the full Federal Register notice at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-29322.htm for details.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss, please contact SPARC, representing the Alliance for Taxpayer Access.

Heather Joseph, Executive Director
heather [at] arl [dot] org

Jennifer McLennan, Director of Communications
jennifer [at] arl [dot] org

We'll look forward to talking with you, and to working with you on this tremendous opportunity for higher education and American public.

Note: To post comments on the OSTP blog, you must register and login. There are also registration and login links on the sidebar of the Archive for the Public Access Policy OSTP blog category at the bottom right and on the OSTP blog home page in the same location. The current discussion post is "Policy Forum on Public Access to Federally Funded Research: Implementation." As noted in the Federal Register announcement, comments can also be e-mailed to publicaccess@ostp.gov.

Read more about the OSTP RFI at "Obama Administration Potentially a Strong Voice in Open Access Debate" and "Obama's Open Government Plan Includes Open Access for Research Publications."

12/22/09 Update: The current discussion post is "Policy Forum on Public Access to Federally Funded Research: Features and Technology." Comments are entered at this post.

Cornell Gives about 80,000 Digitized Public Domain Books to Internet Archive

The Cornell University Library has given about 80,000 digitized public domain books to the Internet Archive.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In an effort to make its materials globally accessible, Cornell University Library is sharing tens of thousands of digitized books with the Internet Archive.

"We have been carefully preserving and storing materials for years, and now we're diversifying the channels for them to be studied and used," said Oya Reiger, associate university librarian for information technologies. "We have the ability to take books to the places where readers are."

The new collaboration repurposes nearly 80,000 books that the Library has already digitized in-house or through its partnership with Microsoft and Kirtas Technologies. All the books are in the public domain, printed before 1923 mainly in the United States. They cover a host of subject areas, including American history, English literature, astronomy, food and wine, general engineering, the history of science, home economics, hospitality and travel, labor relations, Native American materials, ornithology, veterinary medicine and women's studies. . . .

"Expanding access to knowledge is one of the Library's core principles, and we are excited to participate in the open-access vision of the Internet Archive," said Anne R. Kenney, Carl A. Kroch University Librarian.

The collaboration with Internet Archive is another step in Cornell University Library's cutting-edge participation in mass digitization initiatives. Earlier this year, the Library announced an expanded print-on-demand partnership with Amazon.com that allows readers to pay for reprinting of books on an individual basis.

"The Internet Archive is proud to process and host the books from Cornell — these collections are priceless," said Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive. "We are happy that Microsoft put no restrictions on the scanned public domain books and Cornell is encouraging maximum readership and research use."

Performing a simple search for one of Cornell University Library's digitized books now brings up both a copy on Amazon and a free online copy on the Internet Archive.

Columbia University Joins Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity

Columbia University Libraries/Information Services have joined the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Columbia University has joined several leading institutions of higher learning in a commitment to a Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity. Other signatories to the compact are Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California at Berkeley.

The compact commits signatories to the timely establishment of mechanisms for underwriting reasonable publication fees for open access journal articles authored by researchers without alternative funding. The effort around the compact arose as a result of discussions within the university community about providing sustainable, efficient, and effective business models for journal publishing. "The growth of this new strategy for support for high quality scholarly communication in the expanding number of open access journals requires our participation and support," said Jim Neal, Columbia's Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian.

In today's scholarly publishing environment, financial strain is motivating libraries to seek means other than traditional subscription journals for providing access to intellectual content. OA journals offer such an alternative, while providing the same services common to scholarly journals such as management of the peer-review process, filtering, production, and distribution.

Following from the compact commitment, Columbia University Libraries/Information Services is establishing a fund to help support Columbia faculty, staff, and students who wish to publish in OA journals. The Libraries are currently formulating policy and eligibility requirements for the fund, which will be administered by the Scholarly Communication Program, based at the Center for Digital Research and Scholarship (CDRS). CDRS currently offers free and for-cost publishing services for Columbia-based scholarly journals, and specializes in support for open access publications.

OSTP Policy Forum on Public Access to Federally Funded Research

Diane DiEuliis, Assistant Director, Life Sciences, Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Robynn Sturm, U.S. Assistant Deputy Chief Technology Officer, Office of Science and Technology Policy, have posted "Policy Forum on Public Access to Federally Funded Research: Implementation" on the OSTP Blog.

Note: To post comments on the OSTP Blog, you must register and login. There are registration and login links on the sidebar of the blog home page at the bottom right (these links are not on individual blog postings).

Here's an excerpt from the post:

Yesterday we announced the launch of the Public Access Forum, sponsored by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Beginning with today's post, we look forward to a productive online discussion.

One of our nation's most important assets is the trove of data produced by federally funded scientists and published in scholarly journals. The question that this Forum will address is: To what extent and under what circumstances should such research articles—funded by taxpayers but with value added by scholarly publishers—be made freely available on the Internet?

The Forum is set to run through Jan. 7, 2010, during which time we will focus sequentially on three broad themes (you can access the full schedule here). In the first phase of this forum (Dec. 10th-20th) we want to focus on the topic of Implementation. Among the questions we'd like to have you, the public and various stakeholders, consider are:

  • Who should enact public access policies? Many agencies fund research the results of which ultimately appear in scholarly journals. The National Institutes of Health requires that research funded by its grants be made available to the public online at no charge within 12 months after publication. Which other Federal agencies may be good candidates to adopt public access policies? Are there objective reasons why some should promulgate public access policies and others not? What criteria are appropriate to consider when an agency weighs the potential costs (including administrative and management burdens) and benefits of increased public access?
  • How should a public access policy be designed?
  1. Timing. At what point in time should peer-reviewed papers be made public via a public access policy relative to the date a publisher releases the final version? Are there empirical data to support an optimal length of time? Different fields of science advance at different rates—a factor that can influence the short- and long-term value of new findings to scientists, publishers and others. Should the delay period be the same or vary across disciplines? If it should vary, what should be the minimum or maximum length of time between publication and public release for various disciplines? Should the delay period be the same or vary for levels of access (e.g. final peer reviewed manuscript or final published article, access under fair use versus alternative license)?
  2. Version. What version of the paper should be made public under a public access policy (e.g., the author's peer-reviewed manuscript or the final published version)? What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of different versions of a scientific paper?
  3. Mandatory v. Voluntary. The NIH mandatory policy was enacted after a voluntary policy at the agency failed to generate high levels of participation. Are there other approaches to increasing participation that would have advantages over mandatory participation?
  4. Other. What other structural characteristics of a public access policy ought to be taken into account to best accommodate the needs and interests of authors, primary and secondary publishers, libraries, universities, the federal government, users of scientific literature and the public?

We invite your comments and in particular encourage you to be specific in your thoughts and proposals, providing empirical data and specific supporting examples whenever possible so this discussion can generate maximum practical value. You may want to start by reading a more complete description of this issue as it appeared in the Federal Register.

University of Northern Colorado Libraries Open Access Resolution

The University of Northern Colorado Libraries faculty have unanimously adopted an open access resolution.

Here's an excerpt:

We, the faculty of University Libraries of the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) resolve the following:

  1. To disseminate our scholarship as broadly as possible. We endeavor to make our scholarly work openly accessible in conformance with open access principles. Whenever possible, we make our scholarship available in digital format, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
  2. To deposit our scholarly work in our institutional repository, Digital UNC at the earliest possible opportunity.
  3. To seek publishers whose policies allow us to make our research freely available online. When a publisher’s policies do not allow us to make our research freely available online, we resolve to engage in good faith negotiations with the publisher to allow deposit of peer-reviewed, pre- or post-print versions of our scholarly work in Digital UNC. This resolution, however, gives us the latitude and individual discretion to publish where we deem necessary, given our career goals, intended audience, and other reasonable factors.

The resolution applies to the scholarly works authored and co-authored while faculty are employed at UNC Libraries, beginning with works published or submitted for publication after December 2, 2009. The works encompassed by this resolution include journal articles and conference proceedings. We encourage the deposit of other scholarly work, including but not limited to book chapters and conference presentations.

This open access resolution will be reviewed by faculty of the University Libraries after one year.

OSTP Requests Input Regarding Possible Open Access to Federally Funded Research Results

The Office of Science and Technology Policy is requesting input regarding enhanced access to federally funded science and technology research results, including the possibility of open access to them. Comments can be e-mailed to publicaccess@ostp.gov. The deadline for comments is January 7, 2010.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Input is welcome on any aspect of expanding public access to peer reviewed publications arising from federal research. Questions that individuals may wish to address include, but are not limited to, the following (please respond to questions individually):

  1. How do authors, primary and secondary publishers, libraries, universities, and the federal government contribute to the development and dissemination of peer reviewed papers arising from federal funds now, and how might this change under a public access policy?
  2. What characteristics of a public access policy would best accommodate the needs and interests of authors, primary and secondary publishers, libraries, universities, the federal government, users of scientific literature, and the public?
  3. Who are the users of peer-reviewed publications arising from federal research? How do they access and use these papers now, and how might they if these papers were more accessible? Would others use these papers if they were more accessible, and for what purpose?
  4. How best could federal agencies enhance public access to the peer-reviewed papers that arise from their research funds? What measures could agencies use to gauge whether there is increased return on federal investment gained by expanded access?
  5. What features does a public access policy need to have to ensure compliance?
  6. What version of the paper should be made public under a public access policy (e.g., the author's peer reviewed manuscript or the final published version)? What are the relative advantages and disadvantages to different versions of a scientific paper?
  7. At what point in time should peer-reviewed papers be made public via a public access policy relative to the date a publisher releases the final version? Are there empirical data to support an optimal length of time? Should the delay period be the same or vary for levels of access (e.g., final peer reviewed manuscript or final published article, access under fair use versus alternative license), for federal agencies and scientific disciplines?
  8. How should peer-reviewed papers arising from federal investment be made publicly available? In what format should the data be submitted in order to make it easy to search, find, and retrieve and to make it easy for others to link to it? Are there existing digital standards for archiving and interoperability to maximize public benefit? How are these anticipated to change?
  9. Access demands not only availability, but also meaningful usability. How can the federal government make its collections of peer- reviewed papers more useful to the American public? By what metrics (e.g., number of articles or visitors) should the Federal government measure success of its public access collections? What are the best examples of usability in the private sector (both domestic and international)? And, what makes them exceptional? Should those who access papers be given the opportunity to comment or provide feedback?

In "The Obama Administration Wants OA for Federally-Funded Research," Peter Suber says:

  • This is big. We already have important momentum in Congress for FRPAA. The question here is about separate action from the White House. What OA policies should President Obama direct funding agencies to adopt? This is the first major opening to supplement legislative action with executive action to advance public access to publicly-funded research. It's also the first explicit sign that President Obama supports the OA policy at the NIH and wants something similar at other federal agencies.
  • Don't forget that FRPAA has to stand in line behind healthcare reform, financial regulation, and climate change. This is the perfect time to open a new front from the executive branch. Also don't forget that the federal funding agencies belong to the executive branch and are subject to executive order.
  • Comments are due January 7. Please write one and spread the word, not necessarily in that order. As far as I can tell, comments from non-citizens addressing the nine questions are as welcome as comments from US citizens.
  • You can be sure that the publishing lobby will be writing comments. It's vital that the research community be heard as well, loud and clear.

Read more about it at "OSTP to Launch Public Forum on How Best to Make Federally Funded Research Results Available For Free."

Also, the Office Of Management and Budget has released the Open Government Directive.

UC Publishing Services Launched

The University of California Press and the California Digital Library have launched the UC Publishing Services (UCPubS).

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

UCPubS offers a suite of open access digital and print publication services to University of California centers, institutes, and departments that produce scholarly books. By coordinating the publishing efforts of UC Press, the California Digital Library's eScholarship program, and publishing partners throughout the UC system, UCPubS provides a sustainable publishing model that extends the University's capacity to disseminate its scholarship to the world.

Building on current publishing activities, UCPubS enables organizations such as the Townsend Center at UC Berkeley and the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA to focus on scholarship rather than on distribution, sales and web platform development. "Campus partners immediately recognize the benefits of this program as it solves so many of the logistical challenges they face as small publishers," according to Laura Cerruti, Director of Digital Content Development at UC Press. These challenges include reaching a broader public by increasing print sales and gaining access to new market channels; streamlining peer review and manuscript production; reliable preservation of digital publications; and tracking usage and sales of publications. "The program seeks to enable greater visibility of UC-affiliated research while reducing duplication of effort and cost," Cerruti added.

With this shared resource model, campus publishing partners are responsible for selection of content, peer review, editing, design, and composition. eScholarship provides open-access digital publishing, peer review and manuscript management tools, and preservation. University of California Press handles printing (using print-on-demand technology), sales and distribution of print publications, and online marketing for both print and digital publications. "For the University Press and the Library, it is a mutually beneficial partnership, enabling us to amplify our capacity to serve our institution in ways that neither one of us could do as effectively alone. Combining eScholarship's open access platform with UC Press"s commercial distribution capacity brings two seemingly divergent models together as a flexible solution to monographic publishing needs at UC," says Catherine Mitchell, Director of the Publishing Group at the California Digital Library. . . .

Several partners are already using UCPubS services: The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley; California Academic Partnership Program (CAPP); The Earl Warren Institute of Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity, UC Berkeley School of Law; The Townsend Center for the Humanities, UC Berkeley; Global, Area, and International Archive (GAIA); Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA; Regional History Project at the University Library, UC Santa Cruz; and the UCLA Graduate Student Association.

Overcoming Barriers: Access to Research Information Content

The Research Information Network has released Overcoming Barriers: Access to Research Information Content.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Based on the findings of five studies, the report investigates the nature and scale of key restrictions on access to information resources of importance to researchers; the impact of these restrictions and the ways in which they might be alleviated or overcome.

The report examines the frequency with which researchers encounter problems in accessing content; researchers’ perceptions of the ease with which they can gain access and the issue of researcher access to information resources in the public and private sector which are not formally published and which are often subject to copyright restrictions. It also reviews academic and research libraries arrangements to provide access to researchers who are not members of their institutions.

The report’s key finding is that access is still a major concern for researchers. Although researchers report having no problems finding content in this age of electronic information, gaining access is another matter due to the complexity of licensing arrangements, restrictions placed on researchers accessing content outside of their own institution and the laws protecting public and private sector information. This means that research into important information resources can be missing. Researchers report that they are frustrated by this lack of immediate access and that this slows their progress, hinders collaborative work and may well affect the quality and integrity of work produced.

Research Information Systems in the Nordic Countries: Infrastructure, Concepts and Organization

Nordbib has released Research Information Systems in the Nordic Countries: Infrastructure, Concepts and Organization.

Here's an excerpt:

This report is commissioned by the Nordbib programme, and is based on a web survey of the current status of CRIS (Current Research Information Systems) and IR (Institutional Repositories) in the Nordic countries.

The survey has been conducted to investigate how Nordic higher education institutions collect and present their research output. Do they use Institutional Repositories and/or Current Research Information Systems, are these systems separate or integrated, what software is used, and how are they staffed and financed? An important part of the survey was to analyse the perceived needs for national and Nordic coordination and support regarding such specific issues as rights management, central search services, educational and promotional materials etc. The survey results are presented against international developments in Open Access, both historical and current.

University of Ottawa Adopts Comprehensive Open Access Program

The University of Ottawa has adopted a comprehensive open access program.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The University's new program includes:

  • a commitment to make the University's scholarly publications available online at no charge through the University's repository, uO Research;
  • an author fund to help researchers defray open access fees charged by publishers;
  • a fund to support the creation of digital educational materials organized as courses and available to everyone online at no charge;
  • support for the University of Ottawa Press's commitment to publishing a collection of open access books; and
  • a research grant to support further research on the open access movement.

The University of Ottawa also becomes the first Canadian university to join the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE), adding its name to a list of prestigious institutions including Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley. The signatories of this compact make a commitment to support open access journals that make articles available at no charge to everyone while providing the same services common to all scholarly journals, services such as management of the peer review process, production and distribution.

University of Ottawa researchers have already participated in many significant open access projects. These projects include developing the Canadian Creative Commons license, which ensures authors retain the right of attribution and that their work is accessible; under the leadership of Michael Geist and Ian Kerr, the publication of legal texts that are made available at no charge; and the founding of Open Medicine and Aporia, two open access journals in the fields of medicine and health sciences.

"I am proud that our university is the first one in the country to introduce a comprehensive open access program. Canada's university has become Canada's Open Access University," said Allan Rock, president and vice-chancellor at the University of Ottawa. "The fruit of our faculty's contributions to academic research will now be more visible, freely accessible and shared with the world."

"Citing and Reading Behaviours in High-Energy Physics. How a Community Stopped Worrying about Journals and Learned to Love Repositories"

Anne Gentil-Beccot, Salvatore Mele, and Travis Brooks have self-archived "Citing and Reading Behaviours in High-Energy Physics. How a Community Stopped Worrying about Journals and Learned to Love Repositories" in arXiv.org.

Here's an excerpt:

Contemporary scholarly discourse follows many alternative routes in addition to the three-century old tradition of publication in peer-reviewed journals. The field of High- Energy Physics (HEP) has explored alternative communication strategies for decades, initially via the mass mailing of paper copies of preliminary manuscripts, then via the inception of the first online repositories and digital libraries.

This field is uniquely placed to answer recurrent questions raised by the current trends in scholarly communication: is there an advantage for scientists to make their work available through repositories, often in preliminary form? Is there an advantage to publishing in Open Access journals? Do scientists still read journals or do they use digital repositories?

The analysis of citation data demonstrates that free and immediate online dissemination of preprints creates an immense citation advantage in HEP, whereas publication in Open Access journals presents no discernible advantage. In addition, the analysis of clickstreams in the leading digital library of the field shows that HEP scientists seldom read journals, preferring preprints instead.

CMAJ to Cease Being an Open Access Journal in January 2010

CMAJ, which has been an open access journal since 1995, will cease being so in January 2010, when some content will be restricted to subscribers.

Here's an excerpt from the "No Longer Free for All":

The harsh economic reality is that CMAJ, like many others in the publishing industry, has experienced a considerable decline in advertising revenue over the past two years. This loss necessitated an extensive examination of other business models to adequately address today’s economic challenges.