Policy Guidelines for the development and promotion of…

Policy Guidelines for the development and promotion of open access :

“These Guidelines provide an account of the development of Open Access, why it is important and desirable, how to attain it, and the design and effectiveness of policies.”

URL : http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002158/215863e.pdf

The effects of open access mandates on institutional…

The effects of open access mandates on institutional repositories in the UK and Germany :

Purpose :
This research project explores the effects of institutional open access mandates on institutional repositories in Higher Education Institutions in the UK and Germany. Therefore, it analyses the experiences, opinions, and expectations of institutional repository managers from both countries.

Methodology : A thorough literature review and a questionnaire-based survey were conducted to gain background information regarding open access publishing, institutional repositories, and institutional open access mandates. Semi-structured follow-up interviews provide an in-depth insight into the views of institutional repository managers regarding the effects of institutional open access mandates. The results are presented thematically.

Findings : There is evidence that institutional mandates do have effects on institutional repositories in different ways, e.g. on content deposited and service provision. The effects vary according to the characteristics of repositories and the approach taken by institutions. The research results also indicate that the experiences of institutions with a mandate and the expectations of institutions without one are almost identical across both the UK and Germany, although the developmental context of institutional repositories and institutional mandates in these two countries are very different.

Impact : The findings of the dissertation are of interest for Higher Education Institutions considering the implementation of an institutional open access mandate.

Research limitations : The research was limited in the comparative analysis of the experiences of institutional repository managers as there are almost no mandates implemented in Germany. The limited time did not allow to follow-up further questions after the
interviews were transcribed and analysed. A study of larger scale, for example on European level, should be interesting.

Value : The value of this dissertation is the exploration of the effects of institutional open access mandates on institutional repository services, a neglected field within the vast research about open access publishing and mandates so far.”

URL : https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/handle/2134/9327

Survey on open access in FP7 Open…

Survey on open access in FP7 :

“Open access refers to the practice of granting free Internet access to research outputs. The principal objective of an open access policy in the seventh framework programme (FP7) is to provide researchers and other interested members of the public with improved online access to EU-funded research results. This is considered a way to improve the EU’s return on research and development investment.

The European Commission launched in August 2008 the open access pilot in FP7. It concerns all new projects from that date in seven FP7 research areas: energy, environment, health, information and communication technologies (cognitive systems, interaction, and robotics), research infrastructures (e-infrastructures), science in society (SiS) and socioeconomic sciences and humanities (SSH). Grant beneficiaries are expected to deposit peer-reviewed research articles or final manuscripts resulting from their projects into an online repository and make their best efforts to ensure open access to those articles within a set period of time after publication.

In addition to the pilot, FP7 rules of participation also allow all projects to have open access fees eligible for reimbursement during the time of the grant agreement (1) (‘open access publishing’, also called ‘author pays’ fees).

In May 2011, the Commission identified the 811 projects designated at the time and sent a questionnaire to all project coordinators in order to collect feedback on their experiences of both the implementation of the pilot and the reimbursement of open access publishing costs. A total of 194 answers were received by the end of August 2011. They provide important input for the future of the open access policy and practices in Horizon 2020 (the future EU framework programme for research and innovation), and for the preparation of a communication from the Commission and a recommendation to Member States on scientific publications in the digital age.”

URL : http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document_library/pdf_06/survey-on-open-access-in-fp7_en.pdf

Héloïse un site sur les politiques des éditeurs…

Héloïse : un site sur les politiques des éditeurs scientifiques en matière de libre accès aux articles de revues :

“Afin de mieux communiquer auprès des chercheurs sur les autorisations en matière de dépôt, a été mise en place la plateforme d’information Héloïse à l’adresse : http://heloise.ccsd.cnrs.fr/. Elle résulte d’un partenariat entre le CCSD (Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), une unité du CNRS dédiée à la réalisation d’archives ouvertes, le SPCS (Syndicat de la Presse Culturelle et Scientifique) et le SNE (Syndicat National de l’Edition). Elle fait suite à plusieurs années de réflexion menée par le groupe de travail sur le libre accès du GFII (Groupement Français de l’Industrie de l’Information).

Cette plateforme est la réponse aux attentes des auteurs en matière de transparence des règles fixées par les éditeurs français en matière de dépôt des articles de revues. En effet, d’autres plateformes existent dans le monde anglo-saxon (SHERPA-RoMEO) ou hispanophone (Dulcinea), mais ne permettent pas de renseigner les informations de manière aussi fine et fiable, d’autant qu’elles ne sont pas forcément alimentées par les éditeurs eux-mêmes.

Nous invitons vivement les éditeurs à s’inscrire et à enregistrer leurs politiques sur Héloïse et à en informer leurs comités de rédaction.”

URL : http://www.sne.fr/img/pdf/Dossiers/Droits_dauteur/Presentationheloise.pdf

Scholarly Communication Strategies in Latin America’s Research Intensive…

Scholarly Communication Strategies in Latin America’s Research-Intensive Universities :

“Open Access — scholarship that is “digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions” (Suber, 2011) — has dramatically changed the research landscape in universities worldwide in the twenty-first century. In Latin America, regional Open Access initiatives (if not officially labeled “open access”) have permeated most research-intensive universities and national science evaluation systems and have begun to alter the way that local research is perceived. Furthermore, the prominence of Open Access, regionally and globally, has become a significant force in transforming previous traditions and systems used by universities in Latin America in the production and access to scientific knowledge, having a profound influence on its position within what might be thought of as the global knowledge exchange.”

URL : http://openarchive.stanford.edu/content/scholarly-communication-strategies-latin-americas-research-intensive-universities

Electronic doctoral theses in the UK a sector…

Electronic doctoral theses in the UK: a sector-wide survey into policies, practice and barriers to Open Access :

“Sharing knowledge and research outputs is critical to the progress of science and human development, and a central tenet of academia. The Internet itself is a product of the academic community, and opening access to that community’s most important body of research, doctoral theses, is both a logical and an inevitable development. Progress toward open access to electronic theses has been slow in the UK. Much has been written on the perceived barriers and practical/infrastructural considerations that might explain this, but a comprehensive picture of that progress, and obstacles to it, was lacking. In 2010, a survey of policy and practice in UK HEIs was conducted by UCL (University College London) Library Services (commissioned by the Joint Information Systems Committee, JISC) to address this very issue. Incorporating inputs from 144 institutions currently awarding doctoral degrees, the work provides the first clear and detailed picture of the status of open access to doctoral research in the UK. The mission of the UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE) is to promote and support the interests of graduate education, and this it does through dissemination of best practice and intelligence on emergent trends; helping to shape policy and practice for the benefit of the UK HEI sector. This report contributes to that mission by bringing to the membership’s attention the results of this important work by UCL Library Services; a collaboration between UKCGE and the authors of the original work, it sets out the policies and practices that emerged from the survey and also considers what has been learned about the perceived barriers to the implementation of open access to electronic theses.

The 2010 survey has enabled, for the first time, a differentiation to be made between barriers that are “real” and those which are unfounded and/or yet to be properly validated. At the same time, the work highlights the progress made in certain critical areas, as well as those that require our greater attention. A positive picture emerges for the UK on the adoption of the electronic thesis, with the majority of HEIs surveyed expected to be providing open access to their theses in five years’ time. A more detailed picture also emerges regarding the primary reasons for requests to restrict access to theses, some of which, notably, apply only to electronic (not print) theses. This has necessarily given rise to new policy developments. There is positive evidence also of collaboration among HEIs to provide an efficient and robust service for accessing electronic theses; pooling their resources and expertise either in the development of their institutional repositories or in operating a joint service. The key driver of open access to electronic theses is the opportunity for UK HEIs to “showcase” their research outputs to the widest possible audience and enhance their impact. There are no reliable means as yet to measure this impact, but there are encouraging early indications that electronic doctoral theses attract significant attention when made openly accessible. Open access to electronic theses may therefore indeed accelerate the sharing of knowledge and the progress of scientific discovery and human development.”

URL : http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1339905/

Studies on Subject Specific Requirements for Open Access…

Studies on Subject-Specific Requirements for Open Access Infrastructure :

“This study addresses subject-specific requirements for research infrastructure
with a focus on the influences of Open Access (OA). OA is treated in a broad sense covering open access to literature, open data and open science. Considering the wide variety of aspects to be analysed and the early stages of developing a general account of OA infrastructure, the study took a case based approach and deliberately did not attempt to provide a representative account of research. In the pragmatic approach taken, six partners (institutions and organisations) were chosen to provide their subjective view on OA infrastructure. These partners are considered as exemplars of research and infrastructure institutions in a given subject area.”

URL : http://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/download/2445229/2460478