Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Sunday, July 01, 2007

Rector of U of Oslo supports OA

Geir Ellingsrud, Bør forskningen demokratiseres? A presentation (in Norwegian) supporting OA at Forskerforbundet (Oslo, June 13, 2007).  Ellingsrud is the Rector of Oslo University.

Here's a short summary of the conference presentations, also in Norwegian.  Thanks to Caroline Sutton for the alert and for this English translation of the summary of Ellingsrud's talk: 

Should research be democratized?

Open Access involves scientific publications being made freely available on the internet, but free does not necessarily mean free. This statement was made by Geir Ellingsrud from the University of Oslo as he introduced a debate at the Forskerforbundets breakfast seminar on publication patterns and open access in academia. The seminar, held 13 June, assembled nearly 100 participants.

Ellingsrud also showed that the public financial support for research should be made publicly available, and that there was a growing opposition to the large publishers publication- and price policies.

Digitalization has changed the publisher’s role and cost structure, and open access will change how research publications are financed, stated Ellingsrud.