Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 12:30:04 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun@mssrf.res.in> Friends Here is an item from Peter Suber's blog. The author of this paper says "Si= nce there is no way of knowing in advance where new insights may lie, it's = in the interest of humanity to ensure the widest possible access to the bod= y of scientific knowledge." That is why I and many others (including Peter = Suber, Stevan Harnad, Leslie Chan, Barbara Kirsop, Alma Swan, D K Sahu and = others) are advocating open access to all research papers (full text and me= tadata) through interoperable institutional open access archives. That is w= hy MIT and several other universities around the world are makingtheir cour= se content freely available on the Internet through their "Open Course ware= " programmes. In a recent article in OUTLOOK, Dr Pushpa Bhargava, vice chairman of India'= s National Knowledge Commission, has argued that "it is surely important t= o recognise the deprivation and lack of opportunities which the SC/STs and = OBCs-the small creamy layer apart-have experienced; they are the ones who w= ill in all likelihood bring India its future Nobel Prizes." Dr Bhargava arg= ues in favour of extending opportunities for education to all. There is a parallel between Dr Bhargava's plea for extending opportunities = for education to all and the Open Access advocates' plea for making researc= h results (in the form of published papers) available to all scientists aro= und the world without barriers. Many bright scientists in developing countr= ies and in resource-poor institutions in the advanced countries may have th= e potential to advance knowledge (and even to win Nobel Prizes) but how can= they do it if they cannot have access to literature relevant to their rese= arch? And the one sure way to make the research literature available to eve= ry scientist is through interoperable institutional open access archives (o= r repositories). That is why OA advocates are pleading for governments and donor agencies su= pporting scientific research to mandate OA for all publicly-funded research= . =0D Institutions such as the Open Society Institute, NIH, CERN, Wellcome Trust = and JISC are leading the way. It is for others, especially those in the dev= eloping countries, to follow. I believe that India, if China, Brazil and Soth Africa can adopt OA in a bi= g way. That would pave the way for other developing countries. Subbiah Arunachalam ---------- Paula Le Dieu on OA and Science Commons Paula Le Dieu, Science Commons, a podcast lecture delivered at the O'Reilly= European Open Source Convention (Amsterdam, October 17-20, 2005). Paula Le= Dieu is the Director of Creative Commons International. (Thanks to Windley= .) From the description: The scientific traditions of collaboration, transparency and sharing can = be at odds with the constraints of publishers, patents and copy protection.= Science Commons is a new project of the Creative Commons with a mission to= facilitate the growth of an openly accessible commons for scientific knowl= edge. In this talk, Paula Le Dieu maps out some of the alternative models f= or journal publishing, licensing and data sharing which can help promote th= e flow of scientific results and innovation. Le Dieu highlights research on the well known p53 tumor suppressor gene t= o illustrate how scientific progress can be encumbered by limited access to= published results. Meta analysis of the tens of thousands of articles writ= ten on p53 reveals an intriguing web of connections between different pathw= ays and diseases, but this approach is hindered by the fact that only a qua= rter of published research papers are freely accessible in full text on lin= e. =0D Limits stem partly from a conflict between the scientists' interest in sh= aring knowledge and publishers' interest in protecting copyright. The shift= toward electronic publishing also means more libraries acquire journals on= a rental basis rather than outright purchase so that all access is lost if= the subscription ends. Since there is no way of knowing in advance where new insights may lie, i= t's in the interest of humanity to ensure the widest possible access to the= body of scientific knowledge. To that end, Science Commons is promoting ne= w publishing models. They are also trying to rationalize the language of te= chnology transfer agreements to help scientists avoid inadvertently signing= away rights. Finally, the group is investigating alternatives to the 'publ= ish or perish' mode of building scientific reputation. Open access publicat= ion and diverse impact measurements can help reduce the inequities of citat= ion ranking.