Hyperlinked version of this posting:
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/221-guid.html
Peter Suber's OA News reports that Emory University student Brian
Pitts has blogged a student resolution (modelled on the University of
Florida student resolution) in support of the Federal research Public
Access Act (FRPAA) Green OA mandate.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_03_18_fosblogarchive.html#117425105655876843
http://efc.blogsome.com/2007/03/17/resolution-in-support-of-the-federal-research-public-access-act-of-2006/
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/fullinfo.php?inst=Federal%20Research%20Public%20Access%20Act%20%28FRPAA%29
Below is a letter to Brian and other students suggesting that they can
help OA even more by also lobbying in support of a Green OA Mandate at
their own university, rather than just waiting for the passage of the
FRPAA mandate:
Dear Brian:
Student support for FRPAA is a terrific idea. Could I make a few
suggestions?
(1) The FRPAA is basically a Green OA Self-Archiving Mandate. That
means it requires researchers funded by the agencies to make their
articles OA by depositing them in their Institutional Repository (IR).
(Here are some of the IRs of Georgia and Florida universities.)
(2) Charity (and OA!) begins at home.
(3) 132 university provosts have signed in support of FRPAA (not
Emory or U. Fla. yet!)
(4) Universities need not wait for FRPAA to be adopted in order to
adopt a Green OA mandate of their own.
(5) Students could be even more effective if they lobbied their
own universities not only to (i) support FRPAA but to (ii) mandate
Green OA for their own university.
(6) Your case for OA will be the strongest if you cite all the
reasons OA is so important: (i) peer to peer access, so researchers
can use, apply, and build upon one another's research findings, for
the benefit of the tax-payers who funded the research; (ii) student
access, so the next generation of researchers and users can be trained
on current research findings; (iii) developing world access, so poorer
countries can access and build on US research findings; (iv) public
access, so tax-payers can access the research findings they have paid
for.
("Green OA", by the way, means making research freely accessible
by depositing it in an OA repository; "Gold OA" means publishing it in
an OA journal. Green OA needs to come before Gold OA, and that is what
the FRPAA Green OA mandate is for.)
Best wishes,
Stevan Harnad
Received on Sat Mar 24 2007 - 22:29:21 GMT