Jim Giles, Trust gives warm welcome to open access, Nature, November 11, 2004 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt: 'The Wellcome Trust, Europe's largest research charity, has become the latest grant-giving body to throw down the gauntlet to academic publishers in the debate over open-access literature. All papers reporting the results of research funded by the trust will in future have to be placed in a central public archive within six months of publication, the organization said on 4 November. The move could bring the trust into conflict with publishers, who often hold exclusive rights on the use of such material. This in turn could restrict researchers' choices about which journals they publish in....Researchers funded by Wellcome could find that the new rules create some difficult choices. Some publishing houses, such as Elsevier, which publishes more than 1,800 journals including Cell and The Lancet, do not currently allow any version of a paper they have published to be placed on a public archive other than on websites restricted to the author's research institution. "This will put publishers and researchers in a difficult position," acknowledges Robert Terry, a senior policy adviser at the trust's London headquarters. But Terry believes that journals will modify their policies to allow papers to go to central archives. He points out that the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is considering putting similar requirements on the research that it funds (see Nature 431, 115; 2004). "It would be quite a strange [biomedical] journal that didn't include research funded by the NIH and the Wellcome Trust," he adds.' (Thanks to Helen Doyle.)
(PS: Exactly. The charge that mandated OA archiving will limit authors' freedom on where to publish will only be plausible if biomedical journals declare that they will no longer accept work based on NIH- or Wellcome-funded research. So far, many biomedical journals have criticized the OA plans, but none has chosen to opt out and limit the freedom of authors.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/11/2004 01:05:00 AM.
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.
