[Icommons] Yes, you can - Open Access under the new US administration

Subbiah Arunachalam subbiah.arunachalam at gmail.com
Thu Nov 6 18:36:09 EST 2008


Friends:
Here is a well written short piece on the prospects for open access when
Senator Obama becomes the President of the United States. Senator Obama has
chosen Prof. Harold Varmus, a great champion of open access, as his
scientific adviser. That is a pointer to what is to follow.

Arun

====


http://www.epublishingtrust.blogspot.com/


Thursday, 6 November 2008 Yes, you
can<http://epublishingtrust.blogspot.com/2008/11/yes-you-can.html>

On this momentous day, when America has returned the Democratic party to
office by electing its first African-American President, Barak Obama, the
world can look forward to changes in America's approach in science. During
his campaign, Obama announced that he planned to double investment in basic
research, ensure more transparency in contracts, and make government data
available to all online (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INo69f7f8bo).
This intention, combined with his 'can do' philosophy, presages well for the
open distribution and sharing of research data. His background in Kenya and
Indonesia ensures an understanding of the need to redress the
information-deprivation experienced still by researchers in the economically
poor countries.

This message of renewed hope for greater openness in sharing information,
comes at a time when there is growing evidence of the manifest benefits for
individual researchers achieved by providing open access to their research
output. The OptimalScholarship blog of Alma Swan,
http://optimalscholarship.blogspot.com/2008/10/reasons-researchers-really-rate.html,
recently provided yet another very encouraging story showing how deposit of
articles in the Queensland University of Technology repository has
significantly increased the downloads/impact/citation of deposited research
articles. The QUT's most prolific author, a chemist, Ray Frost, found that
citations to his work increased from ~300 to 1200/year once he had deposited
his papers in the QUT open access repository in 2004, as the charts below
show.
<http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8-6aDVnNC_0/SRL69q2893I/AAAAAAAAAA0/KJCo1RTST8s/s1600-h/Frost+chart.jpg>

So if you researchers out there want to make a difference, want your
research to lead to new developments, want to raise your career prospects,
the means are in your hands. Deposit copies of your published articles in
your institutional repository, or publish in an OA journal in the first
place.*Yes, you can*.

And if your institute is so behind the times that it hasn't yet established
an IR (remember, free software, quick to set up, free help to hand), please
let the EPT know on ept at biostrat.demon.co.uk. We need to know of any
difficulties (and of any successes too) in making your research as widely
accessible as possible. There are people that can help, but they need to
know the scale and kind of problems you face.

Posted by Barbara Kirsop

 Posted by Electronic Publishing Trust for Development at
06:01<http://epublishingtrust.blogspot.com/2008/11/yes-you-can.html>
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