Scholarly Communication: Issues and Actions

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) announces Open Access Policy

kayv@wsu.edu (Kay Vyhnanek) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:46:01 GMT

In conjunction with its Open Access Week 2009 (October 19-23) activities, NCAR, a Federally funded Research and Development Center, announced the implementation of an Open Access Policy that requires its researchers to deposit the written record of their research into their aptly-named OpenSky repository. Details of the announcement can be found here.

FRPAA stalled in Senate

kayv@wsu.edu (Kay Vyhnanek) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:55:07 GMT

TheScientist.com reports that the Federal Research PublicAccess Act has stalled in the Senate waiting resolution of the debate over health care reform. Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), interviewed for the report, indicated that the House of Representatives is actively considering a companion bill. Access to the report may require (free) registration.

FRPAA gains support of chief academic and research officers

kayv@wsu.edu (Kay Vyhnanek) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:17:20 GMT

In a letter released today (10-1-2009) 18 chief academic and research officers from 14 research universities declared their support for the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) of 2009 being considered by the US Senate (see the progress of the bill as noted by govtrack.us). The universities represented are all members of the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA). The letter was issued in response to a call to action by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Research Coalition and the Alliance for Taxpayer Access to higher education institutions to support the bill.

SPARC notes early results of university-funding of author publishing fees

kayv@wsu.edu (Kay Vyhnanek) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:46:28 GMT

SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Research Coalition), in a press release dated 9/24/2009, pointed to the experiences of two major universities (University of Calgary and the University of California) in providing funding to support open access publishing. A review of the experiences is provided at SPARC Member Spotlight: Testing the waters with open-access funds (University of California at Berkeley and the University of Calgary).

Presidents of 57 Colleges support FRPAA!

kayv@wsu.edu (Kay Vyhnanek) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:18:01 GMT

In an open letter released late yesterday, presidents of 57 liberal arts colleges around the US committed support to the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) of 2009. FRPAA would extend the mandate currently in place at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to many other grant funding agencies of the US government. FRPAA has garnered a great deal of support as indicated by the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, see announcement.

Open access journals get major endorsement from five major US universities

kayv@wsu.edu (Kay Vyhnanek) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:48:41 GMT

Both the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Education reported this week that five major US universities (MIT, Cornell, Darmouth, Harvard and the University of California) have announced their Compact for Open Access Equity. Each of these universities have committed financial support for their researchers to publish in open access journals. The hope is that more universities will follow in their stead.

NIH Mandate Annual Review Ended

scales@wsu.edu (Jane Scales) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:58:10 GMT

On March 11, 2009, President Obama signed the 2009 Consolidated Appropriations bill that eliminated the annual review process for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy, thereby making the policy permanent. Since the passage of the mandate late in 2007, monthly deposits to PubMed Central database has increased to over 3,000 manuscripts per month. Section 217 of the Consolidated Appropriations bill includes the following text: The Director of the National Institutes of Health ("NIH") shall require in the current fiscal year and thereafter that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law. Read more from the SPARC or view the text of the bill.

New Information on Fair Use for Educational Use of Copyrighted Materials

kayv@wsu.edu (Kay Vyhnanek) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:35:19 GMT

The Center for Social Media has created the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education, an informative report that "identifies five principles that represent the media literacy education communitys current consensus about acceptable practices for the fair use of copyrighted materials. . . " Information provided in the report helps to dispel some of the common myths about fair use. The Website includes a video clip overview of the document. Worth the read for any teacher/professor wanting to gain a better understanding of fair use of copyrighted materials for educational purposes.

Open Access Day Celebration!!

kayv@wsu.edu (Kay Vyhnanek) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:17:06 GMT

Please join the WSU Libraries in celebrating the first-ever Open Access Day! Activities include a brown-bag lunch discussion session with Frank Dugan, editor of North American Fungi an open access journal. Discussion will center on open access journals and general open access issues. Then at 4pm and 7pm, the Libraries will join the global discussion Webcast featuring a Nobel laureate and the founding editor of PLoS Computational Biology, again discussing open access issues. Please join us in Terrell 103 for each of these activities.

Harvard Law Faculty Follow Faculty Of Arts And Sciences With Implementation Of Open Access Policy

kayv@wsu.edu (Kay Vyhnanek) — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:15:50 GMT

The Harvard Law School Faculty has voted unanimously to establish an Open Access policy
to make each faculty members scholarly articles openly available through the Web. The
action marks the first law school to implement such a policy. Following the Harvard
Faculty of Arts and Sciences announcement earlier this Spring, many university faculties
have begun to investigate establishing similar policies. John Palfrey, Executive Director of
Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and head of the Harvard Law Library, announced the archiving mandate earlier this week.