Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 12:30:04 +0530
From: Subbiah Arunachalam
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.
