After reading the UK government response to the July report on STM publishing and open access, the MP's who wrote the report charged that the government ignored or even "neutralised" the expert advice from JISC. In that light, it's significant that JISC has now issued a press release, JISC Reaffirms Commitment to Open Access Publishing (November 8, 2004). Excerpt: "JISC's support for and commitment to open access publishing is well-known....[The JISC OA projects] have shown the enormous potential of open access publishing to bring about significant gains in terms of value for money for educational and research institutions and to allow the fruits of research to be made available to all who want and need to access them. JISC reaffirms its commitment to continue to evaluate its work in this and other areas and to ensure that the results are disseminated widely. In its response to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report Scientific Publications: Free for All? the Government recognises the complexities of this ongoing debate. JISC welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this debate, through the continued development of open access models of publishing and of institutional repositories, and looks forward to working both with the Select Committee, the Government and all its key partners in ensuring that JISC continues to serve the needs of the education and research communities in the UK." The press release also links to JISC's full response to the original report.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/09/2004 04:20:00 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.
