The European Commission has finally released its report on scientific publishing and now has firmly placed itself in the international discussion of where such publishing should go in the future. In June 2004, the European Commission began a study to examine the economic and technical evolution of scientific publishing in Europe....The study was carried out by a consortium led by Mathias Dewatripont of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. The study, undertaken by the directorate-general for research, sought to determine the conditions for “optimum” operation of the scientific sector and to assess how the Commission could help meet those conditions. European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Poto?nik said: “It is in all our interests to find a model for scientific publication that serves research excellence. We are ready to work with readers, authors, publishers, and funding bodies to develop such a model.”...
The report acknowledged that much of the scientific research conducted in Europe is publicly funded and hence recommended that access to such research should be guaranteed....The first recommendation is: “Guarantee public access to publicly-funded research shortly after publication.” Note that the following actions could be taken at the European level: “Establish a European policy mandating published articles arising from EC-funded research to be available after a given time period in open access archives.” Secondly, explore with Member States and with European research and academic associations whether and how such policies and open repositories could be implemented.
Next, the report encouraged that there be a “level-playing field” so that different business models in publishing can compete fairly in the market. “It seems desirable to allow for experimentation and competition between various possible business models.” The report noted that monies should be allocated to libraries to subscribe to reader or library-pay journals “but also to authors to pay for publication costs in author-pay journals, and to researchers in the reader-pay model.”...
The report also strongly favored the development of open access archives, noting that they provide “immediate, free, and maximal access to research results, whether published or not, to anyone with an Internet connection.” And, those institutional repositories contribute to “raise the profile of the institutions, making their research output visible and accessible, and provide a potential research assessment tool.” In turn, this enhanced visibility and accessibility “may lead to higher citation,” noting that recent studies show that open access increases impact. However, there are concerns about the archival quality of the open access archives. Observing that the installation costs are low, the “maintenance costs are more difficult to plan, as they will vary with the number of records, and the long term preservation purposes.”
Specific actions at the European level to improve visibility include “establish[ing] a European policy mandating articles funded from European sources to be available in open access archives, for instance by mean of author’s self-archiving.” Also, there is a need to “specify standards that will insure that the archives are [accessible], interoperable, and have cross-searching facilities. In addition, set up a general European archive for researchers with access to a subject-based or institutional archive.”...
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/10/2006 10:27:00 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.
