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

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

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.

Version 72, Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

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

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

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.

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.

NIH policy: please express support!

OA Librarian colleagues - especially in the U.S. - please submit a comment in support of the NIH policy! Comments are due tomorrow, Saturday, May 31, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. If you're not sure about the details of the policy implementation, no problem - at least comment on question number 4, expressing thanks and support for the policy.

Details from Peter Suber on Open Access News:

Time is short to comment on the NIH policy

Public comments on the OA mandate at the NIH are due by 5:00 pm (Eastern Standard Time), Saturday, May 31, 2008, less than two days from now. 

Submit your comments through the NIH web form.  But before you do, see some of the comments already submitted.  The pro-OA comments will give you ideas, and the anti-OA comments will show you what objections to answer and what perspective might predominate if you don't send in your own.

This time the NIH wants separate answers to four separate questions.  The web form has four separate spaces for them:

1. Do you have recommendations for alternative implementation approaches to those already reflected in the NIH Public Access Policy?
2. In light of the change in law that makes NIH’s public access policy mandatory, do you have recommendations for monitoring and ensuring compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy?
3. In addition to the information already posted [here], what additional information, training or communications related to the NIH Public Access Policy would be helpful to you?
4. Do you have other comments related to the NIH Public Access Policy?

If you're thinking that the NIH just concluded a round of public comments for its March 20 meeting, you're right.  See the comments generated by that round (and my blog post on them).  One persistent publisher objection is that the policy has not been sufficiently vetted and one purpose of the new round no doubt is to give the stakeholders one more chance to speak.  We must use it.  Publishers will.

Please submit a comment and spread the word.  Even if you have no suggestions to improve the policy, it's important to express your support.

Thanks to Peter Suber on
"http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/05/time-is-short-to-comment-on-nih-policy.html">Open Access News

Health Commons video

Science Commons' John Wilbanks has produced a 6-minute video on the Health Commons which explains succinctly what is broken about the current approach to health discovery, and how a health commons could make a difference.

The current approach emphasizes profit; this makes the weight problems of the wealthy a higher priority than river blindness, a serious affliction for millions of people around the world.

The world wide web makes it possible to create new approaches to science discovery, based on open sharing of knowledge and collaboration.

Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News.

Olympics archive is OA

I found this while doing something else. It appears to be masses of Olympic information in the LA84 Foundation archives. And considering what will descend on us in 2010, the topic is getting bigger.

http://la84foundation.org/5va/over_frmst.htm


From the entry page:

Digital Archive

The LA84 Foundation has undertaken an ambitious project to convert portions of its traditional library collection to digital format. The growing digital collection now contains more than 300,000 pages, stored in over 45,000 PDF files. Digital resources include academic journals, scholarly books, popular sports magazines of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and an extensive offering of Olympic publications. The Olympic titles include a complete run of back issues of Olympic Review, the official publication of the International Olympic Committee, and two dozen Olympic Games official reports. All of the digital publications are available at no cost to website visitors. The LA84 Foundation Search page provides full-text access to all digital documents and shows a complete list of titles.

Medicins sans Frontiers website now OA

From the Website:
MSF is well known for its humanitarian medical work, but it has also produced important research based on its field experience with vulnerable populations. Its studies have been published in over 90 peer-reviewed journals and have often changed clinical practice and been used for humanitarian advocacy.
This website archives MSF's scientific articles and makes them available free, with full text, and in an easily searchable format. No login required.

http://fieldresearch.msf.org/msf/

The Audacity of SCOAP3

This brief page-and-a-half on SCOAP3 is an interesting an engaging way to learn about this exciting intiative to convert high energy physics publishing from subscription to OA:

The Audacity of SCOAP3
by Ivy Anderson, Director of Collections, California Digital Library

with:

Taking Action on SCOAP3
by Julia Blixrud, Assistant Executive Director, External Relations, ARL, and Assistant Director, Public Programs, SPARC

downloadable from: http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/br/br257.shtml

Open Access Directory

The Open Access Directory is now open for viewing - please join us in building and refining this wiki!

OA Librarian is on the list of blogs about OA, naturally.

LION TV announcement

Announcing the Library Information literacy Online Network or LION TV

The ANimated Tutorial Sharing Project (ANTS) would like to announce the introduction of their new site: the Library Information literacy Online Network or LION TV.

(http://liontv.blip.tv)

LION TV is an Educational Network whose Information Literacy Broadcasts are directed at Teachers, Professors, Students or members of the General Public. As such, the site provides librarians with a Brand site on the Internet where people can go to for Information about Information; much like one would go to YouTube for Videos or Flickr for Pictures.

A review of the site indicates that:

• Unlike YouTube, the broadcasts at this site are so clear that you can view the text typed into a search box.
• Individual Episodes can be easily located and displayed.
• It has excellent Sharing, Embedding, Linking, and E-mailing capabilities.
• Viewers can opt to easily Syndicate all LION TV episodes at their own sites.
• Anyone Embedding Episodes or Syndicating the Show, can select the size of screen they wish to see displayed at their site, so they are not restricted to small screens.
• Identifying Files, Metadata and Creative Commons Rights for each Episode is very easy.
• Viewers can subscribe to LION TV’s broadcasts using RSS, Miro, Pando or iTunes.
• Viewers can provide Feedback to each episode.
• The home page for LION TV provides viewers with a lot of information about Information Literacy and Libraries.

Less visibly:

• The site makes use of excellent Push Technology to send broadcasts out to popular Brand sites on the Internet like Facebook, Blinkx, iTunes, Flickr, AOL Video, Yahoo Video, MySpace, MeFeedia, Meebo, MeeVee, Lycos Mix, del.ic.ious and Internet Archive - so even though the broadcasts are not on YouTube, they are ubiquitous.
• The site has excellent statistics which enables us to keep track of viewing numbers for each episode.

While not all distribution sites have been officially posted to, we are working at getting the content out to as many sites as possible. In the interim you can:

• Visit the LION TV site: http://liontv.blip.tv/
• See how the tutorials display at the Blinkx http://www.blinkx.com/ or AOL http://video.aol.com/ Video Search engines by (1) searching for tutorials there (for example search for PsychInfo) and then (2) watching how it links back to the LION TV site.

• Visit our Facebook site at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/LION-Library-Information-literacy-Online-Network/26633613400?ref=ts
• See how their broadcasts look Embedded in Libguides:

http://demo.libguides.com/content.php?pid=7133

Librarians wishing to add to the LION TV’s broadcasts can do so by adding a tutorial or video broadcast to the ANTS repository at DSpace.[1] Topics might include Facebook and Privacy; Copyright; The Open Web vs the Invisible Web; The Information Cycle; Media Literacy, Database Searching, (etc). We will take the content, do the file conversions, and upload it to LION TV. So all you need do is create and upload. We will handle the rest.

We at ANTS and LION TV are very excited about this new site as we recognize that Librarians and Educators today face an enormous challenge in attempting to be seen and heard amidst all of the noise on the Internet - and we believe that LION TV can help. LION TV places Librarian created content onto popular brand sites and this content then directs people back to a new Library Brand site: LION TV. Once there, people will discover an Online Network with professional insight into the complex World of Information. In short, LION TV’s approach to broadcasting and brand name promotion – combined with the rich array of content coming from contributors to ANTS – will work to ensure that libraries and librarians are once again visible where many people spend their time online.

Presently, LION TV contains 44 broadcasts and with the help of our fellow librarians in institutions everywhere, will continue to add to our list of educational broadcasts. If you would like to assist with this initiative, we would encourage you to (1) become a contributing member of ANTS (see: http://ants.wetpaint.com ) and (2) ensure that students, teachers, faculty or members of the general public know about this site by promoting it to your users.

Join us by developing professional content and sharing it with the world. When you do so, everyone wins.

Sincerely,

The ANTS Team

---

[1] Note: While content is welcome, please keep in mind that it should be content that is relevant beyond your home institution or home library. Please do not include shots of your library or your library’s home page. Instead keep content generic enough to be relevant to all viewers.

If you are creating a tutorial for a specific e-product, we have important Guidelines for Developing ANimated Tutorials that provide people with a good overview of what to include and exclude. These guidelines are very good and many have commented that they are useful even when they are not contributing content to ANTS. They can be found at: http://attachments.wetpaintserv.us/Jr2tlDmuo5TvbAbKF6A5sQ%3D%3D27395

Launch of Open Access Directory

From SCHOLCOMM - congratulations and thanks to Peter Suber, Robin Peek, and the rest of the Open Access Directory group for this initiative:

Open Access Directory: A wiki to organize information about the open access movement

Boston, April 30, 2008. Peter Suber and Robin Peek have launched the Open Access Directory (OAD), a wiki where the open access community can create and maintain simple factual lists about open access to science and scholarship. Suber, a Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, and Peek, an Associate Professor of Library and Information Science at Simmons College, conceived the project in order to collect OA-related lists for one-stop reference and searching.

The wiki will start operating with about half a dozen lists - for example, conferences devoted to open access, discussion forums devoted to open access, and journal "declarations of independence"- and add more over time.

The goal is to harness the knowledge and energy of the open access community itself to enlarge and correct the lists. A list on a wiki, revised continuously by its users, can be more comprehensive and up to date than the same list maintained by an individual. By bringing many OA-related lists together in one place, OAD will make it easier for users, especially newcomers, to discover them and use them for reference. The easier they are to maintain and discover, the more effectively they can spread useful, accurate information about open access.

The URL for the Open Access Directory is http://oad.simmons.edu.

To contact us, email Athanasia Pontika, the Assistant Editor, or the Editorial Board.

The wiki is represented by an editorial board consisting of prominent figures in the open access movement. The Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at Simmons College hosts and provides technical support to the OAD.
http://www.simmons.edu/gslis/


Editors and administrators
Robin Peek. Editor, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College
Athanasia Pontika. Assistant Editor, Doctoral Student, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College
Terry Plum. Technical Coordinator, Assistant Dean for Technology and Director, Simmons GSLIS at Mount Holyoke College
Editorial board members
Charles Bailey. Publisher, Digital Scholarship
Leslie Chan. Program Supervisor for New Media Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough
Heather Joseph. Executive Director, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
Melissa Hagemann. Open Society Institute
Peter Suber. Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, Visiting Fellow at Yale Law School, and Senior Researcher at SPARC
Alma Swan. Key Perspectives Ltd
John Wilbanks. Vice President, Creative Commons

This post is both a copy, and a derivative of the SCHOLCOMM listserv message. Minor changes have been made, for technical reasons (e.g., to add links and enhance blogger formatting). This illustrates one of the benefits of the PERMISSIONS aspect of open access. A message that permits such changes is more useful to the sender than one that does not; in this case, more publicity for the Open Access Directory!

Amazing OA Progress in April 2008

Peter Suber just released the May 2008 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Peter's feature article this month is "What we don't know about open access: research questions in need of researchers".

Also worth highlighting: the absolutely amazing progress towards open access reflected in Peter's Roundup Section. There are 10 items reporting open access mandate news, all very good news and including 5 new university open access policies, by the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET), Stirling University, Southampton University, Queen Margaret University, Sweden's University College of Borås, with more in the works. Wow!

Details:

The Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET) adopted its long-awaited OA mandate.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/05/ircset-adopts-oa-mandate.html

The new OA mandate at the NIH took effect for the majority of NIH grantees.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/day-worth-celebrating.html


The UK Medical Research Council revised its OA mandate. When the MRC pays for a gold OA article, then it will demand the removal of key permission barriers, not merely the removal of price barriers.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/revision-to-oa-mandate-at-mrc.html


The European Commission recommended OA for publicly-funded research in its April 10 report on tech transfer.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/ec-recommends-oa-for-publicly-funded.html

Stirling University adopted an OA mandate (on March 5, announced April 9), the first university-wide mandate in the UK the second (after Harvard's) to be adopted by faculty rather than administrators.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/stirling-u-adopts-oa-mandate.html


The University of Southampton adopted a university-wide OA mandate (announced April 4). Its School of Electronics and Computer Science has had a departmental mandate since 2001.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/university-wide-oa-mandate-at.html


Scotland's Queen Margaret University adopted an OA mandate (on February 19).
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/05/queen-margaret-university-adopts-oa.html

Sweden's University College of Borås adopted an OA policy encouraging faculty to deposit their journal articles in the institutional repository.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/oa-policy-at-sweden-university-college.html

The European University Association (EUA) released an updated version of its OA recommendations. The EUA calls on universities to mandate OA to their research output and to support OA mandates for publicly-funded research. The EUA has 791 institutional members in 46 countries.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/eua-updates-its-oa-recommendations.html


The Open University is considering an "immediate deposit / optional access" OA mandate.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/richard-poynder-interviews-bill.html

Top 5 ways for librarians to contribute to OA

Dean Giustini has just posted the Top 5 Ways for Librarians to Contribute to OA on UBC Academic Search - Google Scholar Blog.

Periodicals Price Survey 2008: Embracing Openness

The latest issue of Lee C. Van Orsdel & Kathleen Born's Periodicals Price Survey series has just been published in Library Journal.

Subtitled:
Global initiatives and startling successes hint at the profound implications of open access on journal publishing

Snippets:

Evidence for open access as an emergent, global state of mind is everywhere

The OA tsunami crested on February 12. In a move few anticipated, Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted unanimously to give the university permission to post their scholarly articles in an institutional repository.

A really big mandate (NIH)

What's next for 2009? Read the article...

Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News.

European Universities Association (EAU) urges universities to develop clear strategies to advance open access

Great news from Europe!!!

The EUA open access recommendations have now been published in the EUA Newsletter. For more details and links, please see my post on The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics.

Thanks to Bernard Rentier and Stevan Harnad.

Librarians from outside Europe: have you been thinking that maybe you should go to Europe for a conference? If so - you have a point!

April 2008 SPARC Open Access Newsletter

The April 2008 issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter by Peter Suber has just been released.

Highlighted is the upcoming April 7 implementation date of the new NIH requirement policy for public access, and Peter Suber's own Three Principles of Open Access Policies.

Here are the Three Principles:

* Principles

1. Universities should provide open access (OA) to their research output.

2. Universities should not limit the freedom of faculty to submit their work to the journals of their choice.

3. Universities now pay most of the costs of peer review, through subscription fees and faculty salaries. They should continue to bear the costs of peer review, in order to assure its survival, while recognizing that the forms and venues of peer review are changing.