Open Access News

Several of the presenters at the Berlin 5 conference, Open Access: From Practice to Impact: Consequences of Knowledge Dissemination (Padua, September 19-21, 2007), have self-archived their presentations in E-LIS:

• Francis André, Open Access in France: a MoU signed.  Abstract:   The presentation will cover the recent developments towards open access to French research output. A cooperative approach between research organisations and universities has been recently decided. In July 2006, a national Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by the major French research organisations and the universities and High Schools conferences with the objective of facilitating dissemination to the publicly funded research outputs through open access. The challenge is to expand the current HAL platform run by CCSD/CNRS since 2001 to a fully shared platform offering both direct depositing and indirect depositing by federating institutions local repositories, under development in most universities.

• Chris Armbruster, Making Open Access stick: developing overlay services for authors and readers.  Abstract:   Digital technology and economics favour the severance of certification (peer review) from distribution (electronic). Electronic distribution and communication may be organised in a cost-efficient manner that is free to both authors and readers. Knowledge overlay services exist in a complementary relationship to the increasing salience of open content and open access in scientific publishing and data provision. These new digital overlay services encompass certification (as staged and possibly interactive peer review – improved quality), literature and data awareness services (for structured reading and usage – increased efficiency) and new software tools (e.g. for text mining – enhanced scope with structurally new ways of handling publications and data). The markets for scientific publishing and scholarly communication are at the threshold of change. Digitalisation, the spread of English as academic language and the further expansion of research, education and the knowledge-based economy mean that a single global market will emerge that is segmented according to users in academic research, higher education and knowledge-intensive industries and services. Presently, none of the experimental movers or incumbents on the market has found a business model that answers the challenge of the coming global knowledge society.

• Subbiah Arunachalam, Open Access in India: Hopes and Frustrations.  From the abstract:   India has a large S&T research community and Indian researchers perform research in a wide variety of areas....India trains a very large number of scientists and engineers and a large percent of the best graduates migrate to the West. One would think that everything is fine with science and technology in India. Far from it. In terms of the number of papers published in refereed journals, in terms of the number of citations to these papers, in terms of citations per paper, and in terms of international awards and recognitions won, India's record is not all that encouraging. One key reason for the not-so-encouraging performance is to do with the way information is accessed and disseminated by Indian scientists. With an annual per capita GDP well below the thousand dollar mark, most Indian libraries cannot afford to subscribe to key journals needed by their users. Most scientists in India are forced to work in a situation of information poverty. Also, as Indian scientists publish their own research in thousands of journals, small and big, from around the world, their work is often not noticed by others elsewhere working in the same and related areas. Thus Indian work is hardly cited. Both these handicaps can be overcome to a considerable extent if open access is adopted widely both within and outside the country. That is easier said than done. As a individual I have been actively advocating open access for the past seven years. A few more have joined in recent years. But what we have to show is rather limited. Despite concerted advocacy and many individual letters addressed to policy makers, the heads of government's departments of science and research councils do not seem to have applied their minds to opening up access to research papers. Among those who understand the issues, a sizable number would rather like to publish in high impact journals, as far as possible, and then would not take the trouble to set up institutional archives. Most Indian researchers have not bothered to look up the several addenda (to the copyright agreement forms) that are now available. Many scientists I spoke to are worried that a publisher may not publish their papers if they attach an addendum! Publishing firms work in subtle ways to persuade senior librarians to keep away from OA initiatives. However, the National Knowledge Commission has acknowledged the importance of open access and has included it in its recommendations to the Government. A senior official of Google is in touch with NKC with a proposal to digitize all doctoral theses and bringing out OA versions of selected print journals and digitizing back runs of OA journals. The Indian National Science Academy invited an OA advocate to address its Council and it is likely that INSA will send before long a list of recommendations to the Government. Developments around the world, including in Latin America, South Africa and China, I hope will goad Indian establishment to action.

• Sigrun Eckelmann and Max Voegler, Knowledge Exchange and Its View on Open Access.  Abstract:   The Knowledge Exchange is a collaboration between DEFF (Denmark’s Electronic Research Library), Denmark, DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), Germany, JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee), United Kingdom, SURF (SURF Foundation), The Netherlands. The Knowledge Exchange is an initiative, aiming to develop closer working relationships between those key national agencies and bodies within Europe, responsible for the development of infrastructure and services to support the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) within education and research. Open Access is one of the fields of activities covered by the Knowledge Exchange inititative. The common petition to the EU in the beginning of 2007 is the best known result. Further activities are planned and will be introduced to the audience.

• Pedro Ferreira, New infrastructures and frameworks for knowledge creation and diffusion.  Abstract:   In the Information age, the creation, absorption and diffusion of knowledge become fundamental tasks that all economic agents need to master. As a consequence, knowledge management is at the heart of the dynamic evolution of today's institutions. In addition, institutions organize themselves into networks that share information and knowledge worldwide according to pre-established sets of rules that define property rights. Developing and using novel mechanisms that facilitate establishing such webs of knowledge emerge as key activities for attaining widespread success in the XXI Century. These mechanisms define ways for knowledge creators and receivers to interact and to share information. The implementation of these mechanisms usually requires both heavy technology and large numbers of people whose costs need to be carefully accounted for. Different ways to sustainably provision such costs have been analyzed in recent times and concepts like open access, open source and free software developed along with the idea of installing large, and distributed, digital repositories of information over broadband communication systems. Europe as a whole and European countries individually are steadily moving along a coherent path that can certainly lead to establishing world-class Pan-European knowledge management programs and structures as ways to help fulfill the objectives of a renewed Lisbon agenda. Policy making in this respect can now work as the best trigger to support and propel next steps. Additional effort to raise the issue of open access digital repositories to the top of national and regional political agendas must thus become a priority.