... [The seminar] had another theme running through it, in the emphasis that a number of speakers gave to the gathering of evidence on the extent of the changes in behaviours on the part of publishers and libraries, as well as researchers. Implementation of policies does not lead to immediate results, and assessing the evidence of change is clearly an important part of the implementation process itself. ...
First, it was interesting to hear from Robert Kiley that the latest evidence from the Wellcome Trust shows that 30% of articles arising from projects funded by the Trust are being deposited in UK PubMedCentral. But 94% of articles are being published in journals that comply with the Trust’s policy on deposit. The difference between the two figures is clearly very striking.
Secondly, it was interesting to hear from Ann Okerson from Yale of the very practical concerns that have arisen for universities in the US in handling issues to do with compliance with the NIH “public access policy” that became operative in April. ...
Thirdly, we heard for the first time a full account of the PEER project that is now getting under way ... The purpose of the project is to get publishers and the research community to collaborate in developing an “observatory” to monitor the impact of systematically depositing stage-two outputs (that is, peer reviewed manuscripts) on a large scale; and to gather hard evidence to inform future policies. ...
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.
