Monday, June 30, 2008

OICR Open Access Policy

It's been blogged elsewhere (e.g. on Heather Morrison's Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics: http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2008/06/three-forthcoming-oa-policies-announced.html) but I should make brief mention of the just-announced Ontario Institute of Cancer Research (OICR) Open Access Policy. I won't get into too many details (this page - http://www.oicr.on.ca/portalnews/vol2_issue3/access.htm - covers the basics plus there will be lots of discussion elsewhere) but I will say that the new directive is much in the vein of the previously-announced CIHR policy.

Also, in her posting, Heather says "Note: watch for OA policies at other Canadian provincial funding agencies - discussions are underway!" I know that the main Alberta health funder, the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR, http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/), is certainly looking seriously looking at Open Access options; along with Denise Koufogiannakis from the University of Alberta, I talked with some folks at the AMFHR several months back about OA.

Andrew

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

University of Calgary Open Access Authors Fund

It has appeared elsewhere already but, in case you haven't seen it yet, here's the press release about the University of Calgary OA submission fee fund. I figured that I should blog something about this considering I'm involved in it and am one of the folks behind OA Librarian :-)

U of C funds Open Access Authors Fund

Fund gives professors and students access to new funds

University of Calgary professors and graduate students will now have access to a $100,000 Open Access Authors Fund designed to increase the amount of publicly available research.

The new fund, announced today by Thomas Hickerson, Vice-Provost, Libraries and Cultural Resources and University Librarian, is the first of its magnitude in Canada. “I am proud that the University of Calgary is taking leadership in this movement to increase the worldwide accessibility of cutting- edge research,” said Hickerson.

The new fund will provide U of C faculty and graduate students with financial support to cover Open Access author fees. Open Access publishing is a rapidly expanding development in the exchange of research information. An increasing number of academic journals make research literature openly available via the internet without the restrictions on authors and without the high costs to users imposed by traditional subscription-based publications.

This new publishing model does, however, often require that authors pay fees contributing to the costs of publication. With the establishment of this new fund, researchers at the University of Calgary will have the freedom to exercise their own choice in publishing decisions. Open Access publishing is emerging as the best hope for a sustainable and responsible course of action for the future of scholarly communication.

“The Open Access movement is a significant initiative in bringing our research activity more quickly and broadly to the awareness of the scholarly community and to the public at large,” said Dr. Rose Goldstein, Vice-President, Research. “The establishment of this fund by Libraries and Cultural Resources is a crucial development for our faculty and graduate students.”

Open Access publishing allows authors to retain copyright control over their work and promotes broad educational use of the latest information. Open Access is also a key means by which university research can serve the larger community, providing public access to the new findings in everything from cancer treatment to global warming.

Faculty or graduate students looking for additional information may contact Helen Clarke, Head, Collection Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at hclarke@ucalgary.ca For media inquiries, please contact: Tom Hickerson Vice-Provost, Libraries and Cultural Resources and University Librarian tom.hickerson@ucalgary.ca 403.220.3765


The online version of the press release, with picture, is at http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/june2008/authorsfund.

I should stress that we haven't worked out all the details quite yet but we in the process of doing so. The official start-up date is September 2008.

Andrew

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Position Statement on Open Access now on CLA website

The Canadian Library Association / Association canadienne des bibliothèques Position Statement on Open Access for Canadian Libraries, approved by the CLA Executive on May 21, 2008, has just been posted on the CLA website, at: http://www.cla.ca/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Position_Statements&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=5306

The text of the position statement is:

Whereas connecting users with the information they need is one of the library's most essential functions, and access to information is one of librarianship's most cherished values, therefore CLA recommends that Canadian libraries of all types strongly support and encourage open access.

CLA encourages Canadian libraries of all types to:
  • support and encourage policies requiring open access to research supported by Canadian public funding, as defined above. If delay or embargo periods are permitted to accommodate publisher concerns, these should be considered temporary, to provide publishers with an opportunity to adjust, and a review period should be built in, with a view to decreasing or eliminating any delay or embargo period.
  • raise awareness of library patrons and other key stakeholders about open access, both the concept and the many open access resources, through means appropriate to each library, such as education campaigns and promoting open access resources.
  • support the development of open access in all of its varieties, including gold (OA publishing) and green (OA self-archiving). Libraries should consider providing economic and technical support for open access publishing, by supporting open access journals or by participating in the payment of article processing fees for open access. The latter could occur through redirection of funds that would otherwise support journal subscriptions, or through taking a leadership position in coordinating payments by other bodies, such as academic or government departments or funding agencies.
  • support and encourage authors to retain their copyright, for example through the use of the CARL / SPARC Author's Addendum, or through the use of Creative Commons licensing.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Version 72, Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

Charles Bailey has just released Version 72 of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Oxford Open automatic deposit at PMC

Posting message from Oxford (with permission). Note also that Oxford is taking article processing fees into account when assessing subscription rates, and has already reduced some subscription fees to reflect revenue from article processing fees.

Excerpt of message from Kirsty Luff at Oxford:

Open access articles published in over 50 journals in the Oxford Open initiative are now automatically deposited in PubMed Central (PMC).

Authors who have paid a fee to make their articles open access in one of our Oxford Open biomedical journals do not need to deposit their article into PMC – Oxford Journals will do so on their behalf. The final published version of their article will be freely available immediately via PMC and also directly from the journal website.

Oxford Journals is depositing into PMC all open access papers that have been or will be published in 58 journals participating in the Oxford Open initiative (a list of journals can be found here: http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/open_access_titles.html)

Regular data feeds between PMC and the journals concerned have been set up. Recently published open access content is being deposited first, followed by older content. You can refer to http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/open_access_titles.html for the latest information on the status of PMC deposits for individual journals.

We have also prepared some information and guidelines for authors of various funding agencies, which can be found here: http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/open_access_titles.html

We look forward to continuing our work with PMC to help authors deposit their articles.

Kirsty Luff, Senior Communications & Marketing Manager
Oxford Journals, Oxford University Press

Monday, June 02, 2008

June SPARC Open Access Newsletter

The June 2008 SPARC Open Access Newsletter is now available.

Peter Suber's main article in the Newsletter is Open access and the self-correction of knowledge. Beautifully written, this article talks about how knowledge is built. Inspiring, and highly recommended for those of us thinking about the broader changes in, and purpose of, scholarly communications.

One thought is that thinking about the self-correcting nature of knowledge helps to put the (to me) rather silly worries about article versions into perspective.

Regardless of what version of an article (or other scholarly document) one looks at, no matter how good the article, it is only a part of the truth. Better to critique, build upon, try the next step in the grand experiment or develop the next concepts. This is how we learn, all of us together.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Creating a Gold Open Access Publishing Organization

Efforts are underway to create a Gold Open Access Publishing Organization.

It's about time! In future OA policy discussions, a group like this can be a strong voice FOR OA from the publishing side.

A good summary by Peter Suber on Open Access News.

I agree with Peter's comment that it would be wise to be more inclusive in forming this organization, and welcome fully open access publishers even if they provide basic rather than permissions OA - or if they provide permissions OA, but restrict commercial use, or use sharealike conditions. In both of the latter cases, the aim is often not to limit but to protect OA for further uses and redistribution.