Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Thursday, April 24, 2008

More submissions on Canadian Science and Tech policy

Last week I blogged the comments of the British Columbia Library Association (BCLA) to the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, on the committee's inquiry into federally funded research performed by universities.  This week more submissions have been made public.  (Thanks, inter alia, to ZeroPaid.)

From the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic:

...Scientific data is the lifeblood of innovation. The Canadian government generates a huge volume of scientific data, both directly through the research activities of scientists employed by the government, and through its role funding the three federal research granting institutions. This data serves Canada best, generates innovation most, and advances knowledge most significantly, when it is openly accessible without restrictive licensing terms. Openly accessible data supports further research in both the public sector and private sector and allows for an efficient process for science to make its way from the lab into innovations that benefit Canadian researchers and businesses. This is not a controversial position: around the world, governments are making scientific data, generated through public funds, accessible to the public. The United States and the European Union, in particular, have moved rapidly over the past couple of years to improve access to publicly funded research. The Canadian government should follow suit, or risk undermining innovation and hampering the global competitiveness of Canadian businesses....

There are three areas in which the Canadian government could embrace open access. 

First, the government itself holds huge volumes of publicly-funded scientific data. Unfortunately, under cost-recovery programs that paradoxically attempt to restrict the flow of this data to researchers, businesses, and individuals, government agencies often distribute this data in restrictive formats that impose complicated and onerous licensing conditions. Occasionally, agencies will restrict further dissemination of the data for fear of “competition” with the agency. This approach actually undermines Canada’s policies supporting commercial research and innovation, and should be scrapped in favour of an open access policy.

Second, Canada’s federal research granting institutions – the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) – should mandate open access publication of data assembled through its funds. This could generate enormous repositories of scientific data and generate opportunities for public and private innovation. The funding agencies [such as the CIHR] are already starting to move in this direction. ...

Third, many of Canada’s academic institutions are also strongly in support of open access. Universities are beginning to publish open access journals and are encouraging their academic to publish their material in open access repositories. However, universities could use guidance in developing the institutional policies necessary to implement and maximize the benefits of open access. The federal government has a role to play in facilitating universities’ transition to the open access model....

Our submissions with respect to Crown copyright are closely related those with respect to open access: works authored at taxpayer expense best serve the public interest where the public is free to access, use, modify, and redistribute them without interference from the government....

From Michael Geist:

While today...self-archiving...is typically optional, a growing number of funding agencies are moving toward a mandatory requirement.  These include the National Institutes of Health in the United States, the Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom, and the Australian Research Council....

Canadian funding agencies have only recently begun to catch-up to their counterparts.  In 2008, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research implemented a new policy that requires all grant recipients to make every effort to ensure that all publications are freely accessible through the publisher's website or an online repository within six months of publication....

While the CIHR policy change is a positive development, Canada's other two federal granting institutions have been less receptive to open access mandates. To date, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council has only launched a small open access pilot project after opposition from publishers such as the University of Toronto Press short-circuited bolder plans. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council has proven even more apathetic, as internal documents reveal that Council personnel admit that open access is not a priority.

The failure to lead on this issue could have long-term negative consequences for Canadian research. Given the connection between research and economic prosperity, this Committee should work to maximize the public's investment in research by prioritizing open access.  Using the United States and the European Union as a model, the Committee should recommend that all three federal research granting institutions unlock innovation by building open access requirements into their research mandates....

In addition to the open access mandate, the Committee should recommend that the government identify the raw, scientific data currently under its control and set it free....

From Tracey P. Lauriault:

Formulation of national policy on free and open access to public natural, physical and social scientific data and research data.

Rationale:  Currently the government of Canada has a monopoly on publicly funded social, science and technological data.  The public funds scientific research which collects data, the government also collects and maintains public data for governance purposes....SSHRC has a policy on making research data accessible but has neither incentive structures in place nor an infrastructure to make their publicly funded research results and their associated data accessible to the public.  It is the same for ENSERC. There is no National mandate, policy or mechanism – as in infrastructure – in Canada to make public data freely - as in no cost - and easily accessible - as in useable - to the public.  There is a Byzantine cost recovery policy rigidly adhered to by Statistics Canada and other government agencies, and restrictive use licenses which impede citizen’s access and use of these data.  This is odd since citizens by law must provide these data yet are subsequently asked to pay for them a second time over and above taxation! A cost recovery policy also means that municipalities, provinces and federal departments each have to pay for these data, and at times many times over as there is no coordination of data acquisitions within these organizations.  The public purse is therefore dipped into multiple times for a non-rivalrous good.  Further, restrictive use licenses impede multiple uses of public data that could be put to public good and to stimulate innovation.  Numerous economic studies conducted in the EU, UN and US demonstrate that free public data with liberal use licensing regimes lead to private and social sector entrepreneurship....

From Russell McOrmond:

...As with public funding of research, a condition of public funding for educational institutions should include that the results of work paid for in these institutions be publicly available.  This should include government mandates for academic papers to be published in Open Access journals [PS: or deposited in open access repositories?]....

From Heather Morrison:

...The results of federally funded research performed in government and higher education should be made openly accessible to all. The taxpayers (individuals or businesses) who have funded this research have a right to read the results, without having to pay again....

Open Access is the best way to achieve maximum benefit from Canadian research dollars....

Governments and universities around the world have developed, or are developing, policies requiring open access to the results of research that they fund....

Here in Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research has a Policy on Access to Research Outputs requiring open access to results of CIHR-funded research, within 6 months of publication. Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council adopted a policy in favor of open access in 2004, and currently has a pilot Aid to Open Access Journals program. The Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance and Genome Canada have open access policies, and other research funders in Canada are considering such policies....