Open Access News

Barbara Kirsop, Creating a National Open Access Policy for Developing Countries, Open and Shut, November 29, 2006.  Excerpt:

Meeting in the idyllic surroundings of the Indian Institute of Science campus, in Bangalore, the 44 participants of the [Workshop on electronic publishing and open access, November 2-3, 2006] included scientists and OA experts from India, China, Brazil and South Africa, along with colleagues and OA advocates from a number of other countries....

[W]hy was it felt necessary to hold a workshop on OA so soon after the Salvador Declaration on Open Access for Developing Countries, held in September 2005?  The Bangalore workshop was not intended to be a venue simply for confirming acceptance of the principles of OA, but was convened to bring some of the most scientifically advanced developing countries together to report on progress, and consider a model National Open Access Policy that could be offered to governments, and their funding organisations, as a practical tool for driving OA forward.

The aim, therefore, was to take the next step towards ensuring the implementation of earlier OA declarations, not just to talk about OA....

[S]ince the cost of academic journals is prohibitive for many developing countries, scholarly communication is for them severely restricted.  This is a huge problem: A survey conducted by the WHO in 2003, for instance, found that in 75 of the poorest countries, 56% of the medical institutions had been unable to access any journals over the previous five years....

Furthermore, the cost of printing and distributing local journals means that much developing world research is 'invisible' to the rest of the world....As a consequence, the incorporation of regional knowledge into international programmes remains minimal. Yet with the growth of global problems — think only of HIV/AIDS, avian 'flu, environmental disasters, climate change or crop failure — it is essential that the countries in which these problems are most commonly experienced have access to research findings, and can contribute their crucial experience to finding global solutions.

Without both improved access and regional visibility, the science base of poorer countries will not be strengthened, and it is well documented that without a strong science base economies remain weak and dependent on others....

It is clear...that wherever researchers have embraced OA, the visibility, quality and the impact of local research has flourished, and subscriptions to OA journals have even increased — a clear indication that researchers were previously information-starved....

One Indian institute...is 'gently persuading' its scholars to deposit their articles by refusing travel support to those that do not archive their publications!...

It was agreed...that progress could be significantly speeded up if a model National OA Policy could be drawn up, and developing countries encouraged to adopt it.  It was also felt that this would be particularly effective if it was formally accepted by a group of local experts — of which there was no shortage at the workshop — who know and understand the problems faced by developing countries on the ground.  While there was vigorous debate on how to encourage adoption of such a policy, there was no dissent over the need for it, or of its basic form.

Specifically, the draft Policy document urges governments to require copies of all publicly funded research published in peer-reviewed journals to be deposited in an institutional repository as soon as publication is accepted and encourages government grant holders to provide open access to their deposited papers immediately upon deposit. Grant holders are also encouraged to publish in a suitable open access journal where one exists. This should be a condition for research funding for any papers partly or fully funded by the government....

All presentations, lists of participants and the draft model National OA Policy document are available on the workshop web site.