Friday 30 April 2010

Please send us your OA stories as your contribution to OA week!


Open Access Week will hit the research communities worldwide from October 18th – 24th, 2010! Here is the OA Week web site that will tell you what is going to happen and what you can do to help.

To spread information to developing and emerging regions on the value of OA to research and economic development we need to make a lot of noise this week. We need to tell others how free access to research, or distribution of their own research through OA, has changed their work or their career for the better.

Here is a request: can you send EPT any stories you can share that show how OA has advanced your work. Has it lead to new contacts? Has it lead to new research partnerships and publications? Has it made you think about the importance of getting your research findings into the global community to help resolve global problems? Has it helped your own career? Has it put your organisation on the global map?

Please tell EPT about any developments that have been brought about by your knowledge or participation in Open Access. Send your stories (no more than 300 words please) to EPT. You can also add short experiences as a Comment to this Blog. We will collate the best stories and make them widely known so that others will be encouraged.

Write to us with your OA-stories and help the progress of research!

Tuesday 20 April 2010

FRPAA - another small step for mankind?

A letter of support for the FRPAA bill from the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development, April 20th 2010

"To whom it may concern:

The reintroduction of the Federal Research Public Access bill, that would ensure free, timely, online access to the published results of research funded by eleven U.S. federal agencies, is a very hopeful development for the vast majority of researchers working in the economically disadvantaged regions of the world. Research institutes operating in developing countries are greatly restricted by their inability to access current research.

Yet we now understand that the major global problems waiting to be addressed and solved through research – climate change and environmental protection; infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, avian and human influenza; agriculture and food science for example - all require international knowledge and collaboration. The free exchange of research findings is critical to resolving the many problems facing mankind.

The increasing awareness and adoption of ‘openness’ in the United States and elsewhere is a hugely promising stance. In research publishing, the Open Access movement is advancing strongly and the introduction of the NIH Public Access Policy mandate, together with those adopted by all UK research councils, the Wellcome Trust and over 200 other major research organisations, including Harvard and MIT (see ROARMAP for a full list) is testament to the natural practice that scientists follow in sharing their findings. This ‘openness’ is mirrored in a number of developing country initiatives (for example in India, the CSIR government agency is successfully running an Open Source Drug Discovery programme), since it not only has benefits for the progress of research, but also demonstrates the research strengths of organisations and has been shown to lead to real economic benefits for countries (see 'The economic implications of alternative publishing models') .

The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development is an international Trust, registered in the UK, that has been working for over a decade to support the free exchange of research findings, not only between developed and developing country researchers, but also by raising the visibility of unique research emanating from the regions where the problems are most keenly experienced. We therefore greatly welcome the reintroduction of the FRPAA bill and know that its adoption would vastly enhance research progress throughout the world.

Barbara Kirsop, Trustee/Secretary
On behalf of the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development
http://www.epublishingtrust.org.uk
Registered Charity Number 1059867"

Wednesday 14 April 2010

Good news for agriculture

The following announcement was made by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research:

"ICAR Journals in Open Access

ICAR has decided to allow open access to its research journals online for the benefit of students, researchers and farmers for free nationally and internationally. The journals namely, Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences and Indian Journal of Animal Sciences are published monthly by ICAR. The journals will be accessible from the ICAR website from March 2010 onwards.
The Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences

* Vol 80, No. 4 April 2010
* Vol 80, No. 3 March 2010

The Indian Journal of Animal Sciences

* Vol 80, No. 4 April 2010
* Vol 80, No. 3 March 2010

* News"