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