Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 16:03:49 +0530
From: Subbiah Arunachalam
Friends:
In response to messages to the Health Information Forum discussion list [
mailto:hif-net@who.int hif-net@who.int] on Open Access benefits, we would
like to add the following comments:
The two parallel Budapest Open Access Initiatives paths (Open Access
Journals/Publishing and Open Access Archiving) both aim to achieve the same
objective - the freeing of the research literature from access tolls - but
use very different mechanisms to achieve it. Perhaps the two routes should
be dissociated in our discussions, since discussing both routes under the
common term 'open access' can create confusion. The messages from Ayo
Onatola and others are focussing on Open Access journals, but we would like
to draw attention again to the benefits of Open Access Archiving for
developing countries.
Open Access Archiving is the archiving of already published and refereed
research papers in interoperable, minimal-cost institutional archives. The
advantages of this are:
[1] Nothing need change regarding the future of the publishers (because they
will continue to publish as before and in parallel with the OA Archives -
as already proven to be successful in physics through the 13-year old
archive http://arxive.org http://arxive.org and the major physics
journals. Over 60% of publishers have agreed to the institutional archiving
of already published papers in OA Archives, including Elsevier and Nature
Publishing);
[2] Nothing need change for the authors (because they can continue to
publish papers in their favourite journals). However, the impact of their
work will be hugely increased if they also archive their full text
publications in institutional archives using the free software that allows
interoperable searching across all archives. Authors would be wise to
publish in one of the majority of journals that agree to OA Archiving in
order to benefit from this much increased international impact. OA-compliant
archives are now also searchable through the Yahoo search engine.
[3] The research output of the authors' institutes will be greatly enhanced
through the establishment of institutional OA Archives, show-casing their
academic publications. OA Archives are set up using free software and there
are many support organisations offering help if needed. Note: there are
three major workshops on setting up Open Access Archives being held this
summer in Brazil, China and India.
[4] If institutes are unable to set up their own institutional archives,
authors may archive their *already published* research in any of the
established archives (eg Cogprints, Bioline International etc). It does not
matter at all where papers are archived, since the archives are all
interoperable. However, establishing institutional archives has the
advantage of additionally promoting the research output of the institutes.
[5] As more and more archives are established, more and more of the world's
research becomes internationally accessible for free. Harnad of Cogprints
says 'Archive unto others as you would have them archive unto you'. For the
developing country institutes, sharing their research with countries facing
similar research priorities has clear benefits, and making their research
'visible' internationally will lead to many other advantages.
In summary, archiving already published research in interoperable
institutional archives greatly benefits global science at almost no cost.
This could be done now, without changing established publishing practices.
For developing country science and medical research this offers enormous
opportunities. Maybe WHO should consider supporting the setting up of an OA
Archive for medical research publications so that all developing countries
can benefit from free access?
Useful OA institutional archives links:
Registry of institutional eprints:
http://archives.eprints.org/eprints.php
http://archives.eprints.org/eprints.php
Developing country bioscience archive: http://bioline.utsc.utoronto.ca
http://bioline.utsc.utoronto.ca
BOAI self(institutional)-archiving FAQ: http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
Eprints software: http://software.eprints.org/
http://software.eprints.org/
Eprints Handbook for setting up institutional archives:
http://software.eprints.org/handbook/
http://software.eprints.org/handbook/
Budapest Open Access Iniative http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml
Subbiah Arunachalam, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, India
Leslie Chan, University of Toronto, Canada
Barbara Kirsop, Electronic Publishing Trust for Development
http://www.epublishingtrust.org http://www.epublishingtrust.org
