[LIS-Forum] Fwd: World Bank Launches Open Knowledge Repository and Announces Open Access Policy for Research and Knowledge

Tue Apr 10 23:06:11 IST 2012

Dear  All,

Through this announcement, I hope 'Open Access' to research knowledge will
get further boost from governments and research councils/funding
organizations.

best Regards,

Dr S.M. Pujar
Deputy Librarian, IGIDR, Mumbai, India
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Smith, Ina <ismith at sun.ac.za> <ismith at sun.ac.za>
Date: Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 6:07 PM
Subject: [Irtalk] FW: [EIFLoa] World Bank Announces Open Access Policy for
Research and Knowledge
To: "irtalk at lists.lib.sun.ac.za" <irtalk at lists.lib.sun.ac.za>

News Release

2012/379/EXTOP

*World Bank Announces Open Access Policy for Research and Knowledge *

*Launches Open Knowledge Repository*

WASHINGTON, April 10, 2012 - The World Bank today announced that it will
implement a new Open Access policy for its research outputs and knowledge
products, effective July 1, 2012. The new policy builds on recent efforts
to increase access to information at the World Bank and to make its
research as widely available as possible. As the first phase of this
policy, the Bank launched today a new Open Knowledge Repository and adopted
a set of Creative Commons copyright licenses.

The new Open Access policy, which will be rolled out in phases in the
coming year, formalizes the Bank's practice of making research and
knowledge freely available online. Now anybody is free to use, re-use and
redistribute most of the Bank's knowledge products and research outputs for
commercial or non-commercial purposes.

"Knowledge is power," World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said.
"Making our knowledge widely and readily available will empower others to
come up with solutions to the world's toughest problems. Our new Open
Access policy is the natural evolution for a World Bank that is opening up
more and more."

The policy will also apply to Bank research published with third party
publishers including the institution's two journals --World Bank Research
Observer (WBRO) and World Bank Economic Review (WBER)-- which are published
by Oxford University Press, but in accordance with the terms of third party
publisher agreements. The Bank will respect publishing embargoes, but
expects the amount of time it takes for externally published Bank content
to be included in its institutional repository to diminish over time.

In support of the new Open Access Policy, the World Bank is adopting a
Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) copyright license for content
published by the Bank, the most accommodating of all licenses offered by
Creative Commons. It allows anyone to distribute, reuse, and build upon the
Bank's published work, even commercially, as long as the Bank is given
credit for the original creation. The CC BY license helps the Bank to
maximize its impact while simultaneously protecting the Bank's reputation
and the integrity of its content.

World Bank content published by third party publishers will be available in
the Open Knowledge Repository under a more restrictive Creative Commons
license. The new copyright practice goes into effect today.

While much of the Bank's research outputs and knowledge products have been
available for free on the institution's web site, and on other channels,
the new Open Access policy marks a significant shift in how Bank content is
disseminated and shared. For the first time, the Bank will have an
aggregated portal to research and knowledge products, where the metadata is
curated, the content is discoverable and easily downloaded, and third
parties are free to use, reuse, and build on it.

"Allowing unfettered access to the Bank's trove of development knowledge is
commendable," said Cathy Casserly, CEO of Creative Commons. "For
researchers, it increases the visibility, usage, and impact of their work.
For users, it allows for the discovery of knowledge and encourages the open
interchange of ideas."

The Open Knowledge Repository, the centerpiece of the policy, is the new
home for all of the World Bank's research outputs and knowledge products.
The Repository -- available at openknowledge.worldbank.org -- currently
contains works from 2009-2012 (more than 2,100 books and papers) across a
wide range of topics and all regions of the world. This includes the World
Development Report, and other annual flagship publications, academic books,
practitioner volumes, and the Bank's publicly disclosed country studies and
analytical reports. The repository also contains journal articles from
2007-2010 from the two World Bank journals WBRO and WBER.

The repository will be updated regularly with new publications and research
products, as well as with content published prior to 2009. Starting in
2013, the repository will also provide links to datasets associated with
research. While the vast majority of the works are published in English,
over time translated editions will also be added.

The Open Knowledge Repository is interoperable with other repositories and
will support optimal discoverability and re-usability of the content by
complying with Dublin Core metadata standards and the Open Archives
Initiatives protocol for metadata harvesting.

"This new policy is a natural extension of our other efforts to make the
Bank more open, including the Open Data Initiative and the landmark Access
to Information Policy," said Caroline Anstey, World Bank Managing Director.
"Anyone with Internet access will have much greater access to the World
Bank's knowledge. And for those without internet access, there is now
unlimited potential for intermediaries to reuse and repurpose our content
for new languages, platforms and media, further democratizing development
by getting information into the hands of all those who may benefit from it."

The new Open Access policy and launch of the Open Knowledge Repository
represent the next major development in the World Bank's Open Development
Agenda. The first two initiatives were:

* Open Data Initiative (launched in April 2010): a range of reforms
enabling free access to more than 7,000 development indicators, as well as
a wealth of information on World Bank projects and finances, and

* Access to Information Policy (launched in July 2010): a groundbreaking
change in how the World Bank makes information available to the public.

Contacts:

In Washington: Yoko Kobayashi (202) 458-2624, ykobayashi2 at worldbank.org

For Broadcast Requests: Natalia Cieslik, (202) 458-9369,
ncieslik at worldbank.org

The Open Knowledge Repository is freely available at
openknowledge.worldbank.org.

More information about Creative Commons can be found at
www.creativecommons.org.

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