From SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #98[http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/06-02-06.htm]

* Institutional OA policies adopted in two countries. On May 15, India's National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Rourkela adopted an OA mandate. According to the policy summary in ROARMAP, "All research papers by faculty and students, MTech (Research) and Ph. D. thesis is to be self-archived in Dspace@nitr or it should be submitted to the librarian for archiving, so that others interested may benefit by referring to these documents. The Administration may use this archive for assessment of faculty performance when needed." NIT's is the sixth worldwide university-level OA mandate and the first from India. For the other five, see the institutions with asterisks by their names in ROARMAP. India's National Institute of Technology http://www.nitrkl.ac.in/ http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#1147526930... ROARMAP http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/ ----- Congratulations to the Director of NIT-R and Mr Muthu Madhan, Librarian, NIT-R, for their bold vision. But when will the rest of India's higher educational institutions and research laboratories set up institutional archives and mandate OA for all their research publications? After all, most of India's researchers - be they faculty or students in universities or scientists in laboratories - are supported by public funds. It is only fair that publicly-funded research is made freely available to other researchers and students of science. Here are some more excerpts from Peter Suber's SPARC Open Access Newsletter No.98: Here are the top stories from May: * German Parliament considers an OA bill. * National OA policies emerging in four other countries. * Institutional OA policies adopted in two countries. * OA repositories pop up at institutions in three countries. * Gunther Eysenbach confirms the OA impact advantage. * German Parliament considers an OA bill. The Upper House of Germany's Parliament (Bundesrat) is considering a bill to permit author self-archiving of journal articles six months after publication regardless of the terms in a copyright transfer agreement the author might have signed. Here's an English-language summary of the bill by Gerd Hansen, an OA advocate, doctoral candidate at the Max-Planck-Institute for Intellectual Property Law in Munich, and the author or at least the inspiration for the new bill. From his email: The provision that is currently being discussed is based on the wording I have proposed in an article on "Access to scientific information" published in GRUR Int. 2005, 378, p. 17 (until this very moment only in German). The Bundesrat now asked for a provision (p. 7) that would support OA in particular by giving authors the right to make their articles available online, even if they have granted exclusive rights to the publisher, if the following requirements are met: --only after expiration of 6-months since first publication --research predominantly based on public (tax payer) money --only publications in periodicals --non-commercial purpose of post-print-publication --author is obliged to use his final version of the article The bill permits author-initiated OA to publicly-funded research in Germany, though without mandating it. A mandate would be stronger, of course. But even many mandates (proposed or adopted) make vague or counterproductive exceptions for cases in which authors transfer copyright to publishers and publishers dislike the funder's OA policy. The German bill elegantly resolves doubts about permission and makes publisher dissent irrelevant. Moreover, Germany already has something of a mandate. The OA policy of Germany's DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), the country's primary public funding agency, tells grantees that they should deposit their DFG-funded research in OA repositories. The German OA bill is unusual for seeking to facilitate OA by amending copyright law, a strategy tried in the US with the Sabo Bill (June 2003) and since abandoned. In a country more likely to amend copyright law in the wrong direction than the right direction, like the US, this is a very difficult and uncertain strategy. But where it can succeed, it can be direct, effective, and durable. Is Germany such a country? We'll soon see. ............. * National OA policies emerging in four other countries. Four other countries either adopted or began considering national OA policies --all in May. Together with the German OA bill these are signs of growing momentum not only toward OA, but toward national commitments to OA. The Australian Research Council is considering a national OA policy. In his May 26 submission, Arthur Sale recommended that the ARC mandate OA for ARC-funded research. His proposal would mandate deposit of a postprint immediately upon acceptance for publication and immediate OA for the metadata. For the full-text article he recommends "delayed access, restricted access or closed access...depending on [the author's] agreement with the relevant journal." http://eprints.comp.utas.edu.au:81/archive/00000277/ http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_21_fosblogarchive.html#1148735817... On May 23, the Finnish Council of University Rectors launched a national OA initiative "(1) to give aid to universities and research institutes in setting up institutional repositories; (2) to inform researchers about how open access is a part of the research process; and (3) to provide an easy-to-use platform for the open access journals of Finnish learned societies." At the same time, the Council decided to sign the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge. http://www.minedu.fi/julkaisut/tiede/2005/tr16/tr16.pdf http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_21_fosblogarchive.html#1148388726... On May 11, Sweden has launched a national OA initiative "to promote maximum accessibility and visibility of works produced by researchers, teachers and students at Swedish universities and university colleges." The new initiative will promote both OA repositories and OA journals in Sweden. http://www.kb.se/openaccess/english/english_intro.htm http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_14_fosblogarchive.html#1148058740... The Academy of Science of South Africa wrote a report in March (apparently not released until May) recommending both green and gold OA. See especially Recommendation 6, which would use public funds to pay processing fees at OA journals, launch a network of OA repositories, and harvest the repositories --everything essential except mandated deposits in the repositories. http://blues.sabinet.co.za/images/ejour/assaf/assaf_strategic_research_publi... http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#1147200372... Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] From  SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #98 [http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/06-02-06.htm]     http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#1147200372... [A] * Institutional OA policies adopted in two countries. On May 15, India's National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Rourkela adopted an OA mandate.  According to the policy summary in ROARMAP, "All research papers by faculty and students, MTech (Research) and Ph. D. thesis is to be self-archived in Dspace@nitr or it should be submitted to the librarian for archiving, so that others interested may benefit by referring to these documents. The Administration may use this archive for assessment of faculty performance when needed."  NIT's is the sixth worldwide university-level OA mandate and the first from India. For the other five, see the institutions with asterisks by their names in ROARMAP. India's National Institute of Technology http://www.nitrkl.ac.in/ http://www.nitrkl.ac.in/ http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#1147526930... http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#1147526930... ROARMAP http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/ http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/   -----   Congratulations to the Director of NIT-R and Mr Muthu Madhan, Librarian, NIT-R, for their bold vision. But when will the rest of India's higher educational institutions and research laboratories set up institutional archives and mandate OA for all their research publications? After all, most of India's researchers - be they faculty or students in universities or scientists in laboratories - are supported by public funds. It is only fair that publicly-funded research is made freely available to other researchers and students of science.   Here are some more excerpts from Peter Suber's SPARC Open Access Newsletter No.98:     Here are the top stories from May:      * German Parliament considers an OA bill.      * National OA policies emerging in four other countries.      * Institutional OA policies adopted in two countries.      * OA repositories pop up at institutions in three countries.      * Gunther Eysenbach confirms the OA impact advantage. [A] * German Parliament considers an OA bill. The Upper House of Germany's Parliament (Bundesrat) is considering a bill to permit author self-archiving of journal articles six months after publication regardless of the terms in a copyright transfer agreement the author might have signed. Here's an English-language summary of the bill by Gerd Hansen, an OA advocate, doctoral candidate at the Max-Planck-Institute for Intellectual Property Law in Munich, and the author or at least the inspiration for the new bill.  From his email: The provision that is currently being discussed is based on the wording I have proposed in an article on “Access to scientific information” published in GRUR Int. 2005, 378, p. 17 (until this very moment only in German).  The Bundesrat now asked for a provision (p. 7) that would support OA in particular by giving authors the right to make their articles available online, even if they have granted exclusive rights to the publisher, if the following requirements are met:    --only after expiration of 6-months since first publication    --research predominantly based on public (tax payer) money    --only publications in periodicals    --non-commercial purpose of post-print-publication    --author is obliged to use his final version of the article The bill permits author-initiated OA to publicly-funded research in Germany, though without mandating it. A mandate would be stronger, of course.  But even many mandates (proposed or adopted) make vague or counterproductive exceptions for cases in which authors transfer copyright to publishers and publishers dislike the funder's OA policy.  The German bill elegantly resolves doubts about permission and makes publisher dissent irrelevant.  Moreover, Germany already has something of a mandate.  The OA policy of Germany's DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), the country's primary public funding agency, tells grantees that they should deposit their DFG-funded research in OA repositories. The German OA bill is unusual for seeking to facilitate OA by amending copyright law, a strategy tried in the US with the Sabo Bill (June 2003) and since abandoned.  In a country more likely to amend copyright law in the wrong direction than the right direction, like the US, this is a very difficult and uncertain strategy.  But where it can succeed, it can be direct, effective, and durable.  Is Germany such a country?  We'll soon see. .............       * National OA policies emerging in four other countries. Four other countries either adopted or began considering national OA policies --all in May.  Together with the German OA bill these are signs of growing momentum not only toward OA, but toward national commitments to OA. The Australian Research Council is considering a national OA policy.  In his May 26 submission, Arthur Sale recommended that the ARC mandate OA for ARC-funded research.  His proposal would mandate deposit of a postprint immediately upon acceptance for publication and immediate OA for the metadata.  For the full-text article he recommends "delayed access, restricted access or closed access...depending on [the author's] agreement with the relevant journal." http://eprints.comp.utas.edu.au:81/archive/00000277/ http://eprints.comp.utas.edu.au:81/archive/00000277/ http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_21_fosblogarchive.html#1148735817... http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_21_fosblogarchive.html#1148735817... On May 23, the Finnish Council of University Rectors launched a national OA initiative "(1) to give aid to universities and research institutes in setting up institutional repositories; (2) to inform researchers about how open access is a part of the research process; and (3) to provide an easy-to-use platform for the open access journals of Finnish learned societies."  At the same time, the Council decided to sign the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge. http://www.minedu.fi/julkaisut/tiede/2005/tr16/tr16.pdf http://www.minedu.fi/julkaisut/tiede/2005/tr16/tr16.pdf http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_21_fosblogarchive.html#1148388726... http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_21_fosblogarchive.html#1148388726... On May 11, Sweden has launched a national OA initiative "to promote maximum accessibility and visibility of works produced by researchers, teachers and students at Swedish universities and university colleges."  The new initiative will promote both OA repositories and OA journals in Sweden. http://www.kb.se/openaccess/english/english_intro.htm http://www.kb.se/openaccess/english/english_intro.htm http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_14_fosblogarchive.html#1148058740... http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_14_fosblogarchive.html#1148058740... The Academy of Science of South Africa wrote a report in March (apparently not released until May) recommending both green and gold OA.  See especially Recommendation 6, which would use public funds to pay processing fees at OA journals, launch a network of OA repositories, and harvest the repositories --everything essential except mandated deposits in the repositories. http://blues.sabinet.co.za/images/ejour/assaf/assaf_strategic_research_publi... http://blues.sabinet.co.za/images/ejour/assaf/assaf_strategic_research_publi... http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#1147200372... http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_05_07_fosblogarchive.html#1147200372...   Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam]