Taking my cue from Jonathan Eisen, herewith the things I plan to do this year to the benefit of Open Science:
1. Get my act together in the lab and publish some quality papers in OA journals, complete with Open Data....
One of the most important things researchers can do is to increase awareness of the issues by making OA-centric choices with their own work. Jonathan's entry brings to mind the difference between what he -- that's Professor Eisen, with a CV as long's your arm! -- can do for OA, and what I can do. I think it could also be useful to have a lowly postdoc publicly choosing OA journals, refusing to deal with Elsevier, and so on. I've heard a number of colleagues say that such choices are the sort of thing they will put off "until after tenure" -- and I suppose Jonathan has heard "well, it's OK for you, you have a lab and tenure and so on, the risk is lower for you". Thing is, I don't think these choices add up to a risk. There are clear advantages to having my work available under Open Access conditions, and I think similar advantages will accrue as a result of my willingness to provide Open Data (and, when I can get colleagues to agree, Open Notebook access to my work). I think I've said this before, but I view it as a sort of experiment. My hypothesis is that Open Science will be good for my career, and there's only one way to test it! (I know, no control, yadda yadda. Call it "money where my mouth is" if you prefer.)
The rest of these are swiped from Jonathan's list, and from Peter Suber's "what you can do" list:
2. Find an OA, OAI-PMH-compliant repository for my existing postprints and future pre/postprints. In the case of published papers, I think I can get 'em into ePrintsUQ (as discussed here). In the case of future papers, I've already made tentative contact with the relevant people where I work, and I'm going to try to get an IR up and running. Further possibilities to discuss: everything on Peter Suber's list for administrators.
3. Review papers for OA journals (or do anything else they ask me to, pretty much), but for non-OA journals, decline and explain....
4. Find a way to work at least a quick push for OA/Open Science into every presentation.
5. At least ask the administrators of any conference or meeting I attend about providing Open Access to proceedings.
6. Discuss OA/Open Science with colleagues (note to self: avoid hectoring!).
7. Discuss OA/Open Science with everyone; use blog for same. As Jonathan notes, public support is going to be necessary to get mandates and such working.
8.Sign the BOAI (you can do this as an individual, whereas Bethesda is closed and Berlin only open to organizations).
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/02/2007 08:43:00 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.
