The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Governing Board -- representing 47 countries, 31 international organizations and the Secretariat on the Convention of Biological Diversity - hereby recommends that research councils, other funding agencies and private foundations:
Promote that proposals for funding for biodiversity research include a plan for the maintenance and sharing of the digital biodiversity data generated in proposed projects;
Promote that species and specimen level data and associated metadata that are generated in funded projects are made publicly available through mechanisms cooperating with GBIF, within a specified period after completion of the supported research.
Rationale: Many research projects generate biodiversity data sets that are relevant for the wider scientific community, government natural resource managers, policy makers, and the public. Because data sharing now requires small marginal costs compared to the full research costs that generate the data, it is wise to allow for further shared use of these data to benefit the widest possible range of users....
Two of the goals of GBIF are to bring together data for multiple uses, and to find incentives and mechanisms to make data freely available as quickly and effectively as possible. These goals underlie the recommendations made here....The advantages of free and open data sharing have been documented (Arzberger et al. 2004) and brought together in the collaborative Conservation Commons:
Sharing data is good scientific practice and is necessary for the advancement of science, public awareness and education;
Expanded access to data sources could impressively increase the value to taxpayers of the more than $650 billion spent annually by governments on all research disciplines....
The openness of science stimulates and facilitates creativity;
Open access to data enables greater accountability to funding sources as quality, reliability, productivity and use of data are enhanced with public utilization and review.
Requirements for open access to data...signal the importance of data sharing to science and to decision-making, as well as to the long-term benefits to society and the environment, while respecting the right of scientists to publish on their data before releasing it for use by others.
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.
