The Tomales Bay Institute's Commons Report for 2006 is now online. This year's edition includes a short entry on OA:
Now, open source science
Until recently, science was a ‘gift economy’ in which scientists pursued basic
knowledge and freely shared their findings and ideas. Then, patents became
the rage, and with them came secrecy and a tilt of research toward
profit-making products.
In response, many scientists are creating new scholarly commons. [1] The international effort to sequence the human genome placed all its results
in the public domain. [2] The Public Library of Science publishes freely accessible, peer-reviewed journals in biology and medicine. [3] OneWorld Health, a not-for-profit pharmaceutical company, brings scientists and capital together to create low-cost drugs for the developing world. [4] The Tropical Disease Initiative, a Web-based community of laboratories, collaborates on research for similar drugs.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/15/2006 07:49:00 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.
