(Re)Shaping Open Access Policy to Scientific Resources at Polish Technical Universities: Gdańsk University of Technology Perspective

Author : Anna Walek

Developing European Open Access policy to scientific resources is one of the most important issues undertaken during the public debate about the future trends in scholarly communication process.

The Open Access landscape is determined by several factors (e.g. mandates). The open mandate: voluntary or mandatory, can be implemented at the institutional, national or international level. It requires scholars to use open repository to deposit results of scientific research funded with public money and research grants.

The current paper reflects European Commission guidelines regarding dissemination of
scientific results funded with EU funds together with recommendations at the national level for Polish universities.

The process of preparing and implementing Open Access policy at the institutional level, and the role of libraries in this process were presented on the example of Gdańsk University of Technology in comparison to the other technical universities in Poland.

Gdańsk University of Technology implements a project called Multidisciplinary Open System Transferring Knowledge. The acronym of its name in the Polish language is “MOST Wiedzy”, which means “the bridge of knowledge”.

The repository is a project of an archive of scientific publications, scientific documentation, research data, scientific dissertations, as well as other documents and sources, created as a result of scientific experiments and other research and development work conducted at the Gdańsk University of Technology.

It will also be a solution supporting communication between researchers and a platform for cooperation between science and business.

URL : https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2198&context=iatul

The Dutch Approach to Achieving Open Access

Authors : Maria A.M. Heijne, Wilma J.S.M. van Wezenbeek

In this paper, the authors – both of whom are library directors and involved in the contract negotiations with the bigger scientific publishers – present the conditions that formed the Dutch approach in these negotiations.

A combination of clear political support, a powerful delegation, a unique bargaining model and fidelity to their principles geared the Dutch to their success in achieving open access. The authors put these joint license and open access negotiations in the perspective of open science and show that they are part of the transition towards open access.

URL : https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/handle/18452/19356

 

Open Access in the United Kingdom

Author : Martin Paul Eve

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has been a leader in the advance towards open access (OA) to scholarship and research. Indeed, a combination of centralized, state research-funding bodies, coupled with a nationwide openness and transparency agenda has created an economic and political climate in which discourses of open science and scholarship can flourish.

Although different parts of UK policy on open access have not been universally well received by those in the academy and those in publishing, there have also been two official parliamentary hearings into open access; a set of reviews and recommendations, headed by Professor Adam Tickell; and a variety of implementation strategies from different private and public funders and institutions.

In this chapter, I briefly cover the political and economic elements of open access as they have emerged in the UK, spanning: funders, politics, institutions, publishers, and academics. Please note that this chapter will be available openly one year after publication.

URL : http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/16684/

Monitoring the transition to open access: December 2017

The studies on which this report is based were undertaken by a team led by Michael Jubb and comprising Andrew Plume, Stephanie Oeben and Lydia Brammer, Elsevier; Rob Johnson and Cihan Bütün, Research Consulting; Stephen Pinfield, University of Sheffield.

Following the Finch Report in 2012, Universities UK established an Open Access Coordination Group to support the transition to open access (OA)  for articles in scholarly journals. The Group  commissioned an initial report published in 2015 to gather evidence on key features of that transition.

This second report aims to build on those findings, and to examine trends  over the period since the major funders of research in the UK established new policies to promote OA.

URL : Monitoring the transition to open access: December 2017

Open Access and OER in Latin America: A survey of the policy landscape in Chile, Colombia and Uruguay

Author : Amalia Toledo

This chapter presents an overview of the mechanisms (funding, policy, legislative and procedural) adopted by Latin American governments with respect to Open Access and Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives in the higher education sector.

It addresses three questions: How do the higher education systems of Chile, Colombia and Uruguay operate and fund their activities in general? How do existing policies and processes incorporating Open Access and/or OER influence student access to learning and research materials in these countries? What policy, advocacy and community-building interventions might be useful for promoting Open Education activities in these contexts?

This study employed a descriptive, case study approach to examine whether and how Open Access and OER policies have been applied at national and institutional levels. It first engaged in an Open Education policy country-mapping exercise, then conducted a comparative analysis, and concluded the research process with a workshop conducted with 10 regional education experts and activists to validate findings.

Findings indicate that while each country has its own approach to funding higher education, there are few or no specific national and/or institutional policies aimed at promoting Open Education in the higher education sectors.

Low OER awareness and a commercialised model of higher education appear to account for the lack of any OER policies in Chile, while in Colombia various national and institutional strategies reveal a country at a nascent stage of Open Education policy development.

By contrast, the nature of OER management and extent of policy implementation in Uruguay suggests that it is an enabling environment for current and future open policy development.

URL : Open Access and OER in Latin America: A survey of the policy landscape in Chile, Colombia and Uruguay

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.602781

Measurement of Open Access as an Infrastructural Challenge

Author : Pekka Olsbo

Finland has set numeric goals for the development of open access. However, at the moment, no system is available by which this development could be monitored. Poor quality in the metadata records in universities’ research information databases prevents metadata-based analysis of open access publishing progress.

This paper shows how the quality problems of Finnish publication data can be resolved through centralizing the services and processes of metadata creation and by improving the interoperability of systems involved in the processes.

As a result, this study describes an environment where reliable measurement of open access is possible and presents suggested actions for improving the Finnish publication data collection.

URL : Measurement of Open Access as an Infrastructural Challenge

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3233/978-1-61499-769-6-217

Brexit – and its potential impact for open access in the UK

Author : Paul Ayris

This article looks at the possible implications of Brexit for approaches to open access (OA) in the UK. It begins by sketching current issues in Brexit debates at the end of 2016 as the context into which discussions about open access are then placed.

Issues in four thematic areas are analysed: OA policies and mandates, EU copyright reform, new OA publishing models and open science. The level of dependence in the UK on European developments is assessed in each case and its contribution to Brexit issues identified.

The paper concludes that Brexit presents not only challenges, but also opportunities which the UK could seize. In open access, the UK is already playing a leadership role. In areas of open science, particularly in relation to the European Open Science Cloud, it is the European Commission which is asserting leadership. The UK needs to consolidate its current activity and ensure that, whatever the nature of Brexit arrangements, its freedom does not lead to isolation.

URL : Brexit – and its potential impact for open access in the UK

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.336