More on open access to scientific data....Christine Soares, Building an EvoBank, The Scientist, February 24, 2003. Soares reports on the response to Bernard Wood's proposal that paleoanthropologists create an open-access archive of their data on unique and far-flung physical specimens. Wood is the Henry R. Luce Professor of Human Origins in the Department of Anthropology at George Washington University and Adjunct Senior Scientist at the National Museum of Natural History. Quoting Wood: "We should all be wanting to democratize science. We should be making science, or the opportunity to do science, as widely available as possible." Quoting Phil Walker, incoming president of the American Association for Physical Anthropology: "The more access people have, the healthier the field will be. It just doesn't make sense to work partially in the dark, trying to figure out these very complex issues." Quoting Mark Weiss, one of the NSF program directors for physical anthropology and archeology who is planning a large autumn meeting on Wood's proposal: "It's nothing new, but with electronic access, it's becoming much more feasible to provide much more broad access." Gerhard Weber of the University of Vienna goes further and proposes that providing open access to one's data should be a condition of publication in the field's major journals. (Thanks to Dov Henis.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/09/2003 09:56:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
