The SURFfoundation is an organization for ICT in higher education. What is the connection to Open Access (OA) and what part does it play in SURF’s mission?
... Through the SURFshare-programme, SURFfoundation wishes to establish a joint infrastructure that advances the accessibility as well as the exchange of scientific information. A central point in this programme is that results of publicly financed research should be publicly accessible (open access).
OA has come a long way in the Netherlands over the past few years and SURF has been instrumental in the growth of this movement. Can you tell us about some of the milestones you've reached?
With the DARE programme, a Dutch network of institutional repositories based on international standards was realized. All institutional repositories in the Netherlands can be accessed through a single national web portal NARCIS (formerly DAREnet). Material within repositories is also being harvested by major search engines like Google and Google Scholar. The full text of more than 160.000 scholarly articles is now available and is linked to many international sources. This system prevents knowledge from being locked up in commercial databases.
Together with all the universities SURF has also realised Cream of Science, which is now a component of NARCIS. It is the Netherlands’ national research showcase on the Internet, featuring more than 50,000 publications by more than 200 top Dutch scientists and scholars. Several other European countries are busy following this good practice.
Another milestone was Promise of Science, otherwise referred to as the national dissertation site. The site makes it easy to find and consult tens of thousands of dissertations by Dutch PhDs. Such transparent access to dissertations complements the Cream of Science collection; not only does NARCIS feature established researchers, but it also turns the spotlight on talented up-and-coming scientists and scholars
The SURF programme SURFshare has named 2009 Open Access Year. Why now? What do you hope to accomplish in 2009?
In addition to the developments within the Netherlands in the past years, there have also been important developments happening in other countries and within various groups of ‘stakeholders’. For example, the recent recommendation of the European Universities Association (EUA), policy changes at universities such as Harvard University and the University of Southampton and the pilot being undertaken by the European Commission.... In the Netherlands, the time has also come to focus on policy and practice in order to give a strong impulse to opening access to the results of publicly funded research.
The focus in 2009 will be on:
The realization of a collective Open Access policy in line with the Berlin Declaration;
Implementation of the Berlin Declaration in policy and practice (local and national);
Implementation of a legal framework by using three kinds of licences already developed by SURF (Licence to Publish; Licence to Deposit; Licence to Use)
Increasing the awareness, involvement and commitment of the primary stakeholders, such as policy makers, researchers, research financiers, etc.
Particular focus on the stakeholders in the Netherlands’ Hoger Beroepsonderwijs (HBO) (universities of applied sciences)....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/12/2008 01:39:00 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.
