...In Canada, Athabaska University instituted a policy in November 2006 requesting that faculty, academic and professional staff deposit an electronic copy of any published research articles in its repository. However, it does not require the articles to be accessible online to people who search for them....
John Wilbanks, vice-president for science at Creative Commons, said the vast majority publishers already allow researchers to distribute their articles online for free through online repositories like MIT's. But it's not always easy for authors to figure out what their rights are because publishers' copyright agreements vary.
"What this [the MIT policy] does is make it standard and simple," said Wilbanks, whose organization helps make it easier for people to share images, writings, databases, patents or other creations on the internet through tools such as specially crafted copyright licences.
He said many publishers are already learning to deal with the new reality of increasing open access because the motivation behind it for researchers is so strong — making articles more accessible increases their the number of people who read them and cite them, boosting their impact.
"And if you're a publisher and you're going to reject anyone who has to follow one of these things [open access policies]," he said, "you're turning down Harvard, MIT, Stanford — you're turning down some pretty important scholars."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/21/2009 05:07:00 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.
