[Taxacom] FW: DEVELOPING WORLD TO RECEIVE ACCESS TO CRITICAL GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH: an alternative

Tue Nov 7 03:54:28 CST 2006

For a slightly different perspective, I stumbled across an interesting  
essay by Christine Hine that asks some interesting questions about the  
irresistible move to Open Access. For the link and some related  
material, see  
http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2006/11/politics-and-practice-of- 
accessibility.html

Regards

Rod

On 7 Nov 2006, at 09:43, Donat Agosti wrote:

> Here is an alternative to the OARE initiative launched by UNEP and  
> YALE. If
> the particle physics community is able to get together, we ought be  
> able to
> do so as well. Our institutions have their own inhouse journals, some  
> of
> which being already open access and thus we have the seeds as well.
>
>
>
> As Sandy Knapp put¡¯s it so nicely, we systematists are a megascience as
> well. We have most likely over 6,000 scientists working on charting the
> world, we have magnificient institutions similar to the large  
> colliderts (eg
> herbaria and nat his museums) all increasingly becoming a seamless  
> working
> place.
>
>
>
> Why not launch our own conference?
>
>
>
> Donat
>
>
>
> http://www.interactions.org/cms/?pid=1024673
>
> PR16.06E
>
> 03.11.2006
>
> Open Access publishing in physics gains momentum
>
> Geneva, 3 November 2006. The first meeting of European particle physics
> funding agencies took place today at CERN[1][1] to establish a  
> consortium
> for Open Access publishing in particle physics, SCOAP3[2][2]. This is  
> the
> first time an entire scientific field is exploring the conversion of  
> its
> reader-paid journals into an author-paid Open Access format.
>
> Open Access is a policy that could revolutionize the academic  
> publishing
> world and have a great impact on research. By changing the traditional  
> model
> of financing publications through reader subscriptions, the  
> publications
> will be free to readers and financed by funding agencies via  
> laboratories
> and the authors. This new concept in publishing will broaden  
> opportunities
> for researchers and funding agencies in achieving greater benefit from
> unrestricted distribution of the results of their publicly funded  
> research.
>
> ¡°DESY fully supports open access publishing in particle physics and we  
> would
> like to see it realized within a short time scale. It is of great  
> importance
> that we are actively and constructively involved in these ongoing
> discussions aiming to establish a sponsoring consortium,¡± stated  
> Rolf-Dieter
> Heuer, Research Director at Germany¡¯s DESY laboratory. His remarks were
> echoed by Francois le Diberder, from the French national institute for
> particle and nuclear physics (CNRS/IN2P3): ¡°CNRS, and IN2P3, fully  
> support
> the SCOAP initiative and will proactively participate in its inception  
> and
> operation¡±. The delegate from Italy¡¯s national institute for nuclear  
> physics
> (INFN) Graziano Fortuna, said, ¡°INFN fully supports the move to an Open
> Access system for high energy physics publications.¡± Expressions of  
> support
> came from other delegates, including those of German funding agencies,
> notably the Max Planck Society, Greece, Portugal, the Netherlands,  
> Norway,
> Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The European Committee for Future
> Accelerators (ECFA) also offered support. Both national and  
> international
> library consortia were enthusiastic about the initiative.
>
> ¡°There is a wind of change blowing and with it the possibility to  
> experiment
> with new models ¨C in this CERN is perceived as the pioneer of a new
> publishing paradigm and the SCOAP initiative as a pilot project for  
> future
> developments in scientific publishing,¡± said P¨¥teris Zilgalvis of the
> European Commission.
>
> Publishers also are aligning with the opportunities offered by Open  
> Access:
> journals published by American Institute of Physics, American Physical
> Society, Elsevier and Springer have already started to offer authors  
> the
> possibility to make their articles freely available to readers. Shortly
> before the meeting, the publishing consortium of the European Physical
> Journal lowered the price tag for such an Open Access option and  
> announced
> an author-friendly approach to copyright. At the same time the  
> publishers of
> the Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP) stated they are ready to  
> embrace a
> sponsorship policy in which they would allow unrestricted access to  
> their
> articles. On the cost of this policy JHEP states: ¡°we have managed to  
> prove
> that the costs can be reduced whilst at the same time ensuring the  
> highest
> rigour in peer review¡°.
>
> Today the first steps have been taken in developing an effective  
> strategy to
> provide funding to Open Access publishing in high energy physics. An  
> interim
> working party comprising physicists, librarians and legal experts from
> across Europe has been formed with the mandate to lay the foundations  
> for
> SCOAP3 within the next few months.
>
> Fred Friend, Honorary Director of Scholarly Communication, University
> College London, stated, ¡°Today, the lead has come from funding  
> agencies. It
> is important to have a united front to achieve the ultimate goals of  
> Open
> Access and change the High Energy Physics publishing landscape for  
> ever¡±.
>
>
>   _____
>
> [1][1] CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the  
> world's
> leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in  
> Geneva.
> At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech
> Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy,
> Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden,  
> Switzerland
> and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation,  
> the
> United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO  
> have
> Observer status.
>
> [1][2] SCOAP3, Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in  
> Particle
> Physics.
>
>
>
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>
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