Although the open access movement is not intended to combat the continually rising profits of multinational publishers such as Elsevier, Springer, Thomson, Kluwer and Taylor and Francis, it does highlight the fact the university community gives away its research to multinational publishers and that universities then have to buy that information back at ever increasing prices....Research Councils UK recently issued a position paper proposing that recipients of RCUK research grants be required to archive a copy of their published research in an institutional or other archive as soon as possible, but in accordance with whatever agreement they have signed with their publisher. RCUK will also ensure that applicants for grants are allowed to include in the costing of their research proposals the predicted costs of any publications in open access journals. It will be interesting to see the reaction of the Australian Research Council in this context. In Australia, the Australian Research Information Infrastructure Committee, funded by DEST, has been leading the open access debate. Two of its main initiatives to date are the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories and Australian Research Repositories Online to the World, while a second round of grants is expected to be announced shortly by federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson. Two forthcoming Australian seminars will provide opportunities to overview global developments and provide frameworks for Australian debate and initiatives in this area....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/09/2005 02:08:00 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.
