As growing appreciation of Open Access to research drives demand for new resources – on what Open Access is and how it benefits faculty, students and researchers worldwide – the popular Open Access Directory (OAD) marks its first anniversary today.
The Open Access Directory, hosted by Simmons College, is a wiki where community contributors create and maintain simple, factual lists about Open Access to science and scholarship. Launched just one year ago, and operated entirely by an international corps of volunteers, the OAD quickly blossomed from six to 40 lists and has served more than 250,000 unique users.
Designed by Robin Peek (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College) and Peter Suber (Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, Visiting Fellow at Yale Law School, and Senior Researcher at SPARC), the OAD has quickly become a “go-to” resource in the academic community.
“The Open Access Directory has become a central and relied-upon resource that is also a gathering place for everyone looking to learn more about the benefits of Open Access,” said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC. “In planning last year’s Open Access Day, it became clear that OA champions in every corner of the world have valuable tools, key advancements, and breaking news to share. The OAD is the place they can meet and share these resources. Congratulations to the editors of the Open Access Directory on their first birthday!”
The Open Access Directory will serve as a central component in the program for the upcoming Open Access Week (October 19 to 23, 2009), which will feature educational resources that local hosts can use to customize events to suit local audiences and time zones. Two sample program tracks, highlighting “Author’s rights and author addenda - For researchers,” and “Institutional Advantages from Open Access - For administrators,” have been released for participants to use to design or inspire their plans for the week.
Sample tracks point first to OASIS (the Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook), which delivers resources for multiple constituencies and awareness levels. Both OAD and OASIS resources are community-driven tools that invite registered users to expand and refine available content....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/30/2009 02:21:00 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.
