The Open Access (OA) guidelines of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) are very, very welcome, but I hope that a few seemingly minor details (see below) can be revised to make them an effective model for others worldwide....The first problem concerns this clause:
"recommended encouraging funded scientists to also digitally publish their results and make them available via open access"
On the one hand, this clause is too weak: It is specifically because the NIH only "recommended/encouraged" that its public access policy has failed and now needs to be strengthened to "required/mandated." On the other hand, the present clause is far too vague and ambiguous....Recommended re-wording:
"require funded scientists to also self-archive their published results in an online repository to make them available via open access"
Comment. Stevan makes five other recommendations and I support them all, especially the shift from a request to a requirement. See my 3/7/06 comment on the DFG policy.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/12/2006 08:58:00 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.
