...PolicyArchive plans to become the largest online repository of public policy research in the world. At its launch, the archive already contains over 12,000 policy documents from over 220 think tanks and other research organizations. It will house up to 20,000 documents by the end of 2008.
"PolicyArchive builds an online bridge between the worlds of public policy research and legislative implementation," says Tracy Westen, CEO of the Center for Governmental Studies. "PolicyArchive will put high quality, current research instantly at policymakers' finger tips."
Contributors:Current contributors to PolicyArchive include the Aspen Institute, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Cato Institute, Center for American Progress, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Center for Democracy and Technology, Common Cause, Congressional Research Service, Economic Policy Institute, Hudson Institute, Lithuanian Center for Strategic Studies, Mathematica Policy Research, National Bureau of Economic Research, National Center for Policy Analysis, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, New America Foundation, Public Policy Institute of California, RAND, Reason Foundation and the Southern Sudan Commission for Census, Statistics and Evaluation, among others (see attached contributor list).
Need: Sound research is critical to public policy in a world that grows more complex every day. But locating and obtaining this research online can be difficult or impossible, and researchers looking for different perspectives on controversial issues often get frustrated hunting through the Web sites of myriad organizations.
Solution:PolicyArchive changes all that. It lets users view research online, free of charge, covering 306 subtopics and contributed by a wide range of nonprofit, educational, governmental, private and international think tanks and research organizations.
Features: PolicyArchive enables publishers to upload their own research and make it freely available to legislators, policymakers, scholars, citizens and others. The site contains summaries and full texts of research, a subject index, an internal search engine, research synopses, sign-up newsletters and email notifications of new research. The next version will feature online communities, user ratings and reviews, personalized "bookshelves" and information on researchers and funders.
Benefits: PolicyArchive will help elected officials and their staffs, policy researchers and charitable foundations....
"Partnering with CGS allows us to build on the model for the 21st century academic library and be a leader in providing long term open access to public policy research," said David Lewis, Dean, IUPUI University Library. "We are pleased to be part of this important project." ...
Update. The repository has been online for some time and we blogged a pre-launch preview last October.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/19/2008 02:32:00 PM.
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.
