Prior to its launch of the eScholarship Postprints program (February 2005), the University of California's Office of Scholarly Communication undertook a Mellon-funded study, Postprint Repository Services: Context and Feasibility at the University of California. The final report was released on March 31. Excerpt from the executive summary: 'A key set of questions appear at the intersection between publisher policies on transferal of copyrights and the knowledge and behavior of authors with regard to their intellectual property. At the center of the intersection is the publicly accessible "postprint" and its standing as a viable additional copy of research results that retains quality control (peer-review) of the published record while overcoming significant barriers to access and impact. In August 2004 the OSC set out with the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to better understand the context for, and to assess the cost, viability, and potential use of a repository for open-access distribution of UC faculty article publications. In particular, it pursued six research objectives that collectively would provide baseline data about: [1] the number and proportion of UC faculty articles that can be made available for simultaneous distribution in an open-access postprint repository; that is, articles that appear in journals whose publishers do not prohibit open-access postprint distribution; [2] faculty attitudes toward managing copyright in their work as a means of enabling its open-access distribution....UC faculty published 3.8% (26,000) of the 680,000 articles in a sample of 4,300 scholarly journals indexed by Thomson Inc.'s ISI services in 2003. 76% of those publications are in journals that do not preclude simultaneous open-access distribution of some form of the research results, for example, via an open-access postprint repository....
Recommendation 1. The University of California should develop and encourage widespread faculty adoption of a postprint repository that leverages the existing infrastructure of and is managed by the University's eScholarship program....
Recommendation 3. The Office of Scholarly Communication should analyze the potential demand for repository services....Further, it should develop and practically assess marketing opportunities to ensure widespread adoption and use of the repository by UC faculty....
Recommendation 5. Widespread faculty acceptance and use of the repository will require the coordinated actions of diverse university constituencies. The Office of Scholarly Communication should be advised by a group able to inform and monitor repository progress, and to mobilize action or influence thinking in those constituencies....
Recommendation 7. The Office of Scholarly Communication should formally document and evaluate the repository's development to provide a route-map for others interested in hosting similar initiatives.' (Thanks to John Ober.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/20/2005 09:21:00 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.
