[Foundation-l] OSTP Request for Comment on Open Access to Federally Funded Research

[phoebe ayers]

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 10:11 AM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Possibly of interest to Wikimedians: the U.S. Office of Science and
> Technology Policy is requesting public comment on making federally
> funded scientific research open access. The deadline is Jan. 7.
>
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
> From: "Charles W. Bailey, Jr." <cwbailey at digital-scholarship.com>
> To: sts-l at ala.org
> Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2009 10:50:30 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
> Subject: [STS-L] OSTP Request for Comment on Open Access to Federally
> Funded Research
>
> The Office of Science and Technology Policy is requesting
> input regarding enhanced access to federally funded science
> and technology research results, including the possibility
> of open access to them. Comments can be e-mailed to
> publicaccess at ostp.gov. The deadline for comments is January
> 7, 2010.
>
> Here's an excerpt from the announcement
> (http://bit.ly/5J1ZAp):
>
> Input is welcome on any aspect of expanding public access to
> peer reviewed publications arising from federal research.
> Questions that individuals may wish to address include, but
> are not limited to, the following (please respond to
> questions individually):
>
> 1. How do authors, primary and secondary publishers,
> libraries, universities, and the federal government
> contribute to the development and dissemination of peer
> reviewed papers arising from federal funds now, and how
> might this change under a public access policy?
>....

Note: Comments on the OSTP open access policy close today -- the
comment period was extended to January 21st. People in the US may wish
to sneak in a last-minute comment today. Sorry for the late notice --
I meant to send a reminder sooner! Here's the text of the email I sent
to OSTP. Thanks to Esther Hoorn of WM-NL & Melissa Hagemann of the
advisory board for helping with ideas.

-----
I support expanding open access policies for federally funded research
across all funding agencies, following the NIH model. As an academic
science and engineering librarian, I see first-hand the benefits of
having broad access to current research for students and researchers
alike. As a public university, our budget has been deeply impacted by
the current recession, which means that our library has to reduce our
purchases of expensive scientific journals. This unfortunately impacts
student education -- students who are attending a university funded
with public tax dollars, who need access to research that is also
funded by public monies in order to stay up-to-date in their field,
cannot get access to that same research because of the high prices
charged by commercial scientific publishers. Open access means that
more information would be available regardless of economic situation
through the medium that people use the most to do research -- the Web.

I am also a contributor to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation
projects. Wikipedia is currently the fifth largest website and the
largest single reference work in the world, accessed by millions of
people every day to get information about all topics, including
current scientific and technical issues. Wikipedia's mission is to
provide technically accurate, up-to-date information that is
well-referenced so all readers can also find out more about the topics
they are interested in. However, many Wikipedia contributors and
readers do not have access to the expensive and exclusive university
libraries that are currently required to access most technical and
scientific information. Instead, they rely on the resources currently
available on the Web. Requiring that the results of federally funded
research be made available online means that a vast world of
up-to-date, reliable and important information would become available
for use by Wikipedia and other projects that seek to make technical
knowledge accessible to the public. As John Willinsky writes in the
journal "First Monday" (itself open access), increasing the
availability of open access research citations would increase the
quality and educational value of Wikipedia (First Monday, v. 12(3), 5
March 2007).

All federal open access policies should require the following to make
them of most use to scientists, students, researchers and internet
users:
* Public access should be a requirement across all funding agencies,
and agency policies should be coordinated to make them compatible with
one another.
* All articles that result from federal funding should be made freely
accessible within no more than six months of publication (ideally
less), and housed in widely publicized archives that ensure permanent
public search and retrieval. These archives should be coordinated with
currently available databases of federally-funded information as well,
such as DOE's Information Bridge.
* Articles should be posted in a standard, non-proprietary digital
format, such as XML, in addition to pdf or other common formats; both
pre- and post- prints should be allowed for deposit. Continued project
funding should depend on compliance with these requirements. And all
articles should allow full use rights, to make the work more
accessible through a variety of innovative uses.

Thank you for accepting comments on this very important issue, which
impacts the lives of students, researchers, and librarians worldwide.

Phoebe Ayers