Open Access News

The University of Kansas has become the nation’s first public university to adopt an “open access” policy that makes its faculty’s scholarly journal articles available for free online. ...

Under the new faculty-initiated policy approved by Chancellor Robert Hemenway, digital copies of all articles produced by the university’s professors will be housed in KU ScholarWorks, an existing digital repository for scholarly work created by KU faculty and staff in 2005. ...

Professors will be allowed to seek a waiver but otherwise will be asked to provide electronic forms of all articles to the repository. KU’s Faculty Senate overwhelmingly endorsed the policy at a meeting earlier this year, but additional policy details, including the waiver process, will be developed by a senate task force in the coming academic year, said Faculty Senate President Lisa Wolf-Wendel, professor of education leadership and policy studies. The task force will be led by Ada Emmett, associate librarian for scholarly communications. ...

Via email: The policy was approved by the Faculty Senate on April 30, 2009; by the Provost on May 19; and by the Chancellor on May 22. From the text of the policy:

... Each faculty member grants to KU permission to make scholarly articles to which he or she made substantial intellectual contributions publicly available in the KU open access institutional repository, and to exercise the copyright in those articles. In legal terms, the permission granted by each faculty member is a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit. This license in no way interferes with the rights of the KU faculty author as the copyright holder of the work. The policy will apply to all scholarly articles authored or co-authored while a faculty member of KU. Faculty will be afforded an opt out opportunity. Faculty governance in consultation with the Provost's office will develop the details of the policy which will be submitted for approval by the Faculty Senate.

Comment. The university's press release is a bit misleading. Both the University of Oregon and Oregon State University, which are public universities, have departmental mandates. But KU is the first university-wide institutional mandate of any American public university, and only the second of any American university, after MIT.

I haven't found a final version of the policy text online. But an earlier draft of the policy contains several features missing from the version I received by email, most notably a deposit mandate. The version I received authorizes the university to provide OA to faculty articles (with an opt-out), but doesn't state that faculty will be required to deposit a copy. (The press release says that authors will be "asked" to deposit.)

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... It makes no sense to limit and control access now we have technologies to give information to everyone. But it is also foolish to pretend we do not need incentives to help produce and publish that information. ...

[I]f we really want to end scarcity, we will have to build institutions that promote knowledge-sharing, while at the same time ensuring that there are incentives for creative and technical minds to contribute.

Science, and the universities that support it, is the grandest example of a system that has evolved to promote the abundance of knowledge. Universities offer incentives in the form of tenure, promotion and prestige to researchers who can discover and share the information which their peers consider most valuable. ...

Take the open access movement, which has campaigned to ensure that scientific articles are freely available to the public ... Within a decade or two, it is safe to say that all scientific literature will be online, free and searchable. Journal publishers will still be paid, but at a different point in the chain.

Outside the universities we have some even more remarkable developments. Fifteen years ago, who would have predicted that teenagers would be allowed to edit the world's primary reference source from their homes? ...

It's time to recognise that when we build institutions to promote the abundance of knowledge, everybody wins. When it comes to knowledge, you can never have too much of a good thing.

The fabric of science is changing, driven by a revolution in digital technologies that facilitate the acquisition and communication of massive amounts of data. This is changing the nature of collaboration and expanding opportunities to participate in science. If digital technologies are the engine of this revolution, digital data are its fuel. But for many scientific disciplines, this fuel is in short supply. The publication of primary data is not a universal or mandatory part of science, and despite policies and proclamations to the contrary, calls to make data publicly available have largely gone unheeded. In this short essay I consider why, and explore some of the challenges that lie ahead, as we work toward a database of everything.

... A group of six national and local American student associations, representing both graduates and undergraduates, have come together to issue the Student Statement on the Right to Research. This statement calls on researchers, universities, and governments to take relevant steps to increase access to the results of research.

In the past, discourse on scholarly publication and open access (OA) has largely been between academics, librarians, and publishers. This resolution marks students’ entry into the discussion. It reflects the large impact that limited access to research can have on students of all disciplines. ...

The new generation of scholars has grown up using the internet and having access to whatever information they need whenever they need it. Not having the same kind of unfettered access to information that is critical for their professional development is especially frustrating. ...

The statement has resonated with students in the USA but, while the current signatories are American, the resolution is not exclusive in its focus. It has also generated interest from students in Canada and across Europe and we look forward to reaching out to international student organisations in the near future. ...

As we move forward, we hope to use this statement as a rallying point for students to get engaged with the OA movement and as a solid foundation on which to build a rich student voice on OA. ...

Hindawi Publishing Corporation is pleased to announce that it has seen very strong growth in the Impact Factors of its journals in the recently released 2008 Journal Citation Report published by Thomson Scientific. This most recent Journal Citation Report shows the average Impact Factor of Hindawi's journals increasing by more than 27% over the past year, with two of Hindawi's largest journals, EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing and Mathematical Problems in Engineering, rising by 70% and 45% respectively. ...

In addition to the 14 journals that were included in the 2007 Journal Citation Report, three of Hindawi's journals received Impact Factors for the first time this year ...

The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), an OA mandate for research funded by the U.S. federal government, was introduced yesterday by Sens. Joe Lieberman and John Cornyn. What's new since our last post:

• The bill number (S. 1373) is now available.
• The bill was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (which Lieberman chairs), as expected.
• The Alliance for Taxpayer Access added FRPAA to its Legislative Action Center, with a form to contact Congress and draft letters.
• See also coverage by GenomeWeb News and comments by David Wiley.

Senator John Cornyn, Sens. Cornyn & Lieberman Team Up To Increase Public Access To Taxpayer Funded Research, press release, June 25, 2009.

U.S. Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Joe Lieberman, I-CT, introduced legislation today to expand the public's access to the research they help fund by shedding additional light on federal research projects. Their legislation, the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), would require every federal department and agency with an annual extramural research budget of $100 million or more to make their research available to the public within six months of publication.

"Our legislation would give the American people greater access to the important scientific research they help fund, which will accelerate scientific discovery and innovation, while also making sure that funding is being spent appropriately to ensure taxpayers are receiving a return on their research investments and they are not having to pay twice for the same research - once to conduct it, and a second time to read it. I will continue to advocate for greater transparency measures across all of our governmental departments and agencies, and I urge our Senate colleagues to support this legislation," said Sen. Cornyn.

"The United States has some of the best and brightest researchers," said Lieberman. "I continue to be impressed by their ideas and feel strongly that the American public should have access to what they discover. The internet makes it possible to provide public access to federally funded research and I am pleased to lead the effort to make this information more accessible." ...

Sens. Cornyn and Lieberman first introduced this legislation in the 109^th Congress [Note: 2006]. ...

Specifically, the FRPAA would:

• Require every researcher with an annual extramural research budget of $100 million or more, whether funded totally or partially by a government department or agency, to submit an electronic copy of the final manuscript that has been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
• Ensure that the manuscript is preserved in a stable digital repository maintained by that agency or in another suitable repository that permits free public access, interoperability, and long-term preservation.
• Require that each taxpayer-funded manuscript be made available to the public online and without cost, no later than six months after the article has been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

... The proposed bill is welcomed by the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, a coalition of research institutions, consumers, patients, and others formed to support open public access to publicly funded research. ...

The bill gives individual agencies flexibility in choosing the location of the digital repository to house this content, as long as the repositories meet conditions for interoperability and public accessibility, and have provisions for long-term archiving. ...

The bill covers unclassified research funded by agencies including: Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation. ...

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access calls on organizations and individuals to write in support of the bill ...

Comment. This is big. FRPAA would open a massive amount of research, expanding the NIH policy to most agencies across the government. The six-month embargo is shorter than the NIH policy and closer to most other funder policies.

I can't find the bill number or text online yet, but we'll post it here on OAN when it's available.

The environment for FRPAA should be even more positive than during its first iteration. In addition to the growth of OA generally:

• The U.S. now has the NIH mandate as an example policy; the success of its implementation should count in FRPAA's favor.
• In 2006, FRPAA was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; Lieberman was then the committee's ranking member, but he now chairs the committee, increasing his influence on the bill's fate.
• The first FRPAA was introduced toward the end of the Congress, decreasing the likelihood that it could clear all the legislative hurdles required to become law before it died with the Congress. This time, it's a year earlier in the process, giving it a more meaningful chance of becoming law.
• We can hope that President Obama's professed interests in advancing science and transparency will lead to his support for FRPAA. (Remember too that Obama was himself an academic.)

Importantly, the first iteration of FRPAA inspired a wave of support that drew many into the OA movement for the first (including myself). Look for renewed interest in OA around the U.S.

See also our past posts on FRPAA.

Update. For more coverage, see the items tagged oa.frpaa in the OA Tracking Project.

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Wilfrid Laurier University today announces the launch of an open research archive, an institutional repository that provides open-access archiving of intellectual output for all members of the university community.

Built on BioMed Central’s “open repository” system and using BioMed Central's open-access knowledge and technology experience, the archive will significantly increase access to Laurier’s scholarly information and highlight the talent of the university’s researchers and students. ...

In addition, the university’s supporter membership with BioMed Central reduces the barriers for Laurier researchers publishing in BioMed Central’s open-access journals by providing researchers with a 15 percent discount on the article processing charges. ...

Within the next 12 months, Laurier aims to build a full community structure for the repository which will include customized designs and collections for particular groups of researchers. ...

A project team will establish content and policy parameters for the archive. The team also hopes to implement a content-recruitment strategy to ensure that as much scholarly output from the university as possible is held with the repository. ...

The Université de Genève adopted an OA policy, which took effect on June 1, 2009. A directive (in French) detailing the policy was approved on May 18, 2009 by the university's Rectorat. The university's IR also has a page on its policies, including in English. (Thanks to Stevan Harnad.)

Comment. My French isn't great and I haven't found an English translation of the directive. To my (potentially incorrect) understanding, the policy applies to articles as well as books, book chapters, and doctoral dissertations. Deposit is required, but the author can choose to restrict access to the full text to the university Intranet or completely; temporary embargoes are also an option. The directive refers to these options as a "choice" which is the "author's responsibility", rather than as a waiver or exception from OA.

If you have more information in English, please let me know.

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I haven’t seen it discussed anywhere, but it seems that the Institute of Education Sciences in the [U.S.] Department of Education is now requiring its funded research be made openly available through the ERIC repository. The policy looks analogous to that of the NIH. The pertinent clause from the current IES Request for Applications is:

Recipients of awards are expected to publish or otherwise make publicly available the results of the work supported through this program. Institute-funded investigators should submit final, peer-reviewed manuscripts resulting from research supported in whole or in part by the Institute to the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) upon acceptance for publication. An author’s final manuscript is defined as the final version accepted for journal publication, and includes all graphics and supplemental materials that are associated with the article. The Institute will make the manuscript available to the public through ERIC no later than 12 months after the official date of publication. Institutions and investigators are responsible for ensuring that any publishing or copyright agreements concerning submitted articles fully comply with this requirement. ...

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On June 22, Lindsay Tanner, Australia's Minister for Finance and Deregulation, announced the creation of a Government 2.0 Taskforce. (Thanks to Creative Commons.)

The task force's purview includes "increasing the openness of government through making public sector information more widely available to promote transparency, innovation and value adding". In addition to recommendations, the task force also has a $2.45 million AUD fund to disburse to new projects. Among the task force's members, notably, are:

• Brian Fitzgerald, CC Australia project lead
• Seb Chan of the Powerhouse Museum
• Mia Garlick, former General Counsel for Creative Commons

See also our past posts on Garlick, Fitzgerald, and the Powerhouse Museum.

Comment. Pardon the pun in this post's title. (Peter leaves me in charge for a week and I start to run wild!)

... The City of Vancouver recently adopted an openness policy that establishes a preference for open standards, open source software, and open government data. The federal government should do the same, promoting the use of cost-effective open source software and the benefits of commercial and civic activity around accessible government data. ...

The openness principle should also cover access to taxpayer-funded research, often referred to as open access. In recent months, the United States and the European Union have taken strong steps toward making their research openly available, with legislative mandates that require researchers who accept public grants to make their published research results freely available online within a reasonable time period. We have started to move in this same direction but need to make it a priority. ...

... My interest in Free lies in the part played by the worldwide web in his thinking. At least in America, there's now a vociferous free-culture movement that argues the time has come to redefine our understanding of "the public domain".

Writers like James Boyle are developing a libertarian theory of copyright which argues that "the commons of the mind" should be freed up to liberate a moribund society. Open networks, goes the argument, will immediately have a positive effect on our culture and our communications networks.

Free speech, cultural access, digital creativity and the innovations of science are also the watchword of the Pirate Party in Sweden, which now has a platform for its ideas in the European Parliament. Such ideas enjoy a wide currency in forward-looking California, where Google is the Vatican City of such beliefs. The Google Initiative (public-spirited digitisation of the world's libraries or Grand Theft Book, depending on your point of view) is all about "free".

One of the stumbling blocks to the liberation of copyright has always been the remuneration of the Artist. Free, subtitled "The Future of a Radical Price" (aka Nothing), may just be the first draft of a business plan for books and writers in the digital age.

E-LIS is the largest open access repository in the field of library and information science and is maintained voluntarily by an international team of librarians and information professionals. As from April 2009, it contains at about 9000 full text documents in 37 languages from more than 5600 authors from 90 countries. Additionally to the provision of services to authors and associations in the field, the management of policy issues is crucial for the repository administration. Thus E-LIS has, inter alia, completed a policy audit and intends to formulate and communicate its policies in a standardized way.

Editorial Flamboyant, a start-up publisher in Spain, is releasing a collection of English-language children's stories translated into Spanish and Catalan. The illustrations are reprinted from public domain editions collected in the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature, which are available OA via the University of Florida Digital Collections. See blog posts by the UF Digital Library Center or by Editorial Flamboyant (Google translation).

The presentations from CERN Workshop on Innovations in Scholarly Communication (Geneva, June 17-19, 2009) are now online.

See also Imma Subirats Coll, et al., The International Effort Towards the Creation of an International Repository for Library and Information Science: Breaking Barriers in the Access to Scientific Research, from the same conference but not yet available from the conference site.

• Increasing exposure and possibilities for reuse of information: the creative commons license
• Long-term preservation of Open Access journals secured
• Proefschriften Plus: enhanced dissertations
• In the Spotlight: Digital Student Thesis Archive
• Upload your publication in the Igitur Archive

We are pleased to report the increase of the impact factors of [Molecular Diversity Preservation International] journals [Note: publisher of Molecules] during 2007 and 2008. In 2005 and part of 2006, the use of a two tier publication system, whereby we offered full Open Access publication to those authors willing to contribute financially to support this option, while providing the alternative choice of free publication without Open Access for those authors who preferred not to pay, resulted in the obviously decreased impact factors seen in 2006. In early 2007, a full Open Access publishing policy was instituted and we can now begin to clearly see the effect of the full Open Access policy in the steady recovery of the impact factors of the affected journals.

On the other hand, the two tier publication system (Open Access and non-Open Access) was only briefly applied to the journal Sensors and we thus see a continuous increase of the impact factor in recent years. ...

We also observed an interesting phenomenon: two Molecules papers were retracted because they had also been published elsewhere. Nevertheless, these withdrawn papers were cited elsewhere, while the non-Open Access papers were not. ...

Reports from the Association of American University Presses annual meeting (Philadelphia, June 18-21, 2009):

Scott Jaschik, Change or Die?, Inside Higher Ed, June 22, 2009.

[Kathleen] Keane of Johns Hopkins, in her debut speech as president of the association, noted that the current debates over open access "appears to put us at an impasse with members of the library and faculty communities" and that this appearance was "unfortunate." But she didn't suggest any change in association policies. ...

Stuart M. Shieber, director of the Office of Scholarly Communication and professor of computer science at Harvard University, said that the current publishing system is "not economically sustainable," but he offered a take on open access that differed from that of its most fervent supporters. Shieber said that we shouldn't be talking about how to pay for open access, since open access doesn't cost much at all. Rather, the question should be about "paying for publisher services" such as managing peer review and marketing (which apply to digital work as much as to printed editions). He said that it may be time to consider a model where libraries don't pay for subscriptions in the typical way, but pay "first copy costs" (those that still exist digitally) or that universities pay a fee for work published by their faculty members. ...

Michael Jensen, director of strategic Web communications for the National Academies Press, noted that his publisher offers more than 4,000 books in free, digital form, "and we are not broke." Jensen -- who, when he isn't thinking about the future of scholarly publishing, is thinking about environmental issues -- said that university presses need to acknowledge "an inconvenient truth about book publishing," namely that its basic structure won't work anymore. ...

Scholarship must be "de-linked from print publication," such that books are "the exception" and no longer the norm for disseminating new scholarship. With colleges and universities unlikely to be providing major budget increases to libraries, the reality is that within a decade "we will be unlikely to be able to sell print books to to libraries at the prices we need to charge," adding that "it's crazy to think we can continue to do what we have been doing."

While stressing that he believes book publishing is essential to promote and spread great new intellectual ideas, Jensen said there is no good reason to keep print and to keep charging. Print distribution hurts the environment, he says, and charging (while failing to make university presses economically viable) limits readership. ...

Jennifer Howard, Scholarly Presses Discuss What It Takes to Survive, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 22, 2009. Access restricted to subscribers.

... One indication that university-press publishing has life in it yet: Many more presses have moved from talking about electronic books to producing them. On June 12, for instance, the University of Chicago Press made 1,000 of its titles available as e-books, using Adobe Digital Editions. Garrett P. Kiely, the press's director, said he was already seeing some indications that the digital books were finding a market. He noted that other scholarly publishers, including the University of Alabama Press, the University of Iowa Press, and Utah State University Press, have recently begun to sell digital editions of books. Having big players like Sony and now Google in the e-book game has lit a fire under academic presses, Mr. Kiely said.

"It's one of those things that's just bursting to happen," said Alex Holzman, director of Temple University Press. "Once we make a hole in the dam, the water's just going to rush through. It's going to change fast."

Mr. Holzman and the directors of New York University Press, the University of Pennsylvania Press, and Rutgers University Press have an idea about how to push the transition along. Over the weekend, they learned that they had gotten a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the first phase of a project to help presses make the leap to electronic monographs.

The project, which does not have an official name yet, will survey librarians--­major buyers of university press output--­to figure out what they want from electronic books. It will also analyze current systems for delivering digital books, to see what might work best for university presses and whether something new needs to be built. ...

"As we know, the crisis in scholarly communication is now in its fifth decade," joked [Douglas] Armato of the University of Minnesota Press as he moderated the plenary session in which Ms. Bonn, of Michigan, took part.

The comment got a laugh, but it also set up an assault on what Mr. Armato called the "polarizing and self-serving rhetoric" that fills the debate over open access and scholarly publishing. Yes, we have to learn to live with and through "the transformation that lies not ahead of us but all around us," he advised. Nobody wants to be the ancien régime, Mr. Armato said­--look what happened when the tumbrels rolled­--but he pointed out that "revolutions often begin without much consideration" of what's lost on the road to utopia. Revolutionary rhetoric has done more to harm scholarly communication than to advance it, as revolutions tend to ignore "the human, social, and cultural consequences of those steps and what is destroyed along the way," he warned. ...

Support for the community-governed archive cooperative, CLOCKSS (Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), continues to grow as they announce the addition of the University of Alberta as its newest governing library member. ...

“We are proud to welcome the University of Alberta as our first Canadian partner,” says Gordon Tibbitts, CEO of bepress and Co-Chair of the CLOCKSS Board of Directors. “Adding another global partner to the network further solidifies CLOCKSS leadership in providing a cost-sensitive and effective long-term archiving solution that services the entire scholarly community.” ...

As a governing library, the University of Alberta Libraries will operate one of the computer “CLOCKSS boxes” housed at (ultimately) 15 sites around the globe containing content contributed by publishers. This content is stored and preserved, ensuring that it is available for future use. “The University of Alberta Libraries consider CLOCKSS essential for ensuring access to the knowledge we create today far into the future,” stated Ernie Ingles, Chief Librarian and Vice Provost at the University of Alberta, “We feel that membership in this organization is a contribution to future generations.” ...

Jörg Tauss, a member of Germany's Bundestag, resigned his membership in the Social Democratic Party and joined the Pirate Party on June 20. See English coverage by the AP, The Local, or TorrentFreak. (Thanks to Matthias Spielkamp.)

Tauss left the SPD due to disagreement with its approach to Internet censorship. Tauss, who is under investigation for possession of child pornography, has said he will not seek re-election.

See also our past posts on the Pirate Party.

Roehampton University has adopted an OA mandate. (Thanks to Stevan Harnad.)

Deposits are hosted in the Roehampton University Research Repository. See also the policy and accompanying Further Guidance document, both dated November 4, 2008. From the policy:

The University intends that research outputs accepted for publication and all MPhil and Doctoral students’ theses will be placed in the Roehampton University Research Repository and thereby made freely accessible to the public.

Where the publisher prohibits use of the output in its actual published form, the author’s final version should be used. Where publishers’ copyright agreements prohibit even this, full bibliographical details should be provided and, where possible, a link to the website where the published version can be accessed. ...

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I'll be on the road all this week (Mon-Sat, June 22-27) with few opportunities for blogging or email.  But Gavin will be on the job and I'll start to catch up on Sunday.

Niha S. Jain, Ed School Faculty Endorse Open Access, Harvard Crimson, June 20, 2009.  Excerpt:

Joining a recent trend of schools endorsing open access scholarship, faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education voted overwhelmingly earlier this month to make their scholarly articles available to the public free of charge.

Under the new policy, faculty articles will now be circulated through the online Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard [DASH] repository now being developed by the Office for Scholarly Communication. Though currently in testing stages and available only within the University, the database is expected to opened to the general public by late summer or early fall. Faculty members will have the option of blocking public access to articles they write.

This move at GSE follows similar policies already approved by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Law School, the Kennedy School, and a smattering of peer universities including MIT and the Stanford School of Education.

According to John W. Collins III, GSE Librarian, allowing open access is universally beneficial. He said it will improve the quality of education worldwide, circulate faculty members’ works, and facilitate scholarly dialogue. He added that the decision has received a positive response from students and people outside the University.

Professor Stuart M. Shieber, faculty director of the Office for Scholarly Communication, said he perceived no drawbacks to the new policy.

“It is fundamental to the role of the university in society that access should be as broad as possible,” he said....

In a continuation of its efforts to disseminate faculty members’ scholarly work, the Office for Scholarly Communication has begun a dialogue with all Harvard schools to consider approving open access policies.