On 13-Nov-09, at 4:18 AM, Talat Chaudhri wrote:
Presuming that all EU citizens can sign the petition,
there is the slight difficulty that those that cannot
read German, like me, will find it hard to know how to do
so. The English translation in the link provided by Prof
Hilf only provides translation of the text itself. I'd
appreciate guidance on where to click on the German web
site, from anyone who does read German. A small matter, I
know - but an important one!
Yes, citizens of other countries can sign, and fortunately Professor
Hilf has provided the instructions (apologies for not having included
it with his original posting):
How to vote (sorry, it is a little clumsy):
1. register: call the link
https://epetitionen.bundestag.de
and go for the second line 'registrieren' and register.
[and enter your Country at the line 'Land').
2. you get an email with your permanent Username (Benutzername)
which should be the word 'Nutzer' together with a 6-decimal
number.
3. you go back to the serverpage and login:
[enter the Username) and the emailed-to-you password.
4. you find the petition 'Wissenschaft und Forschung -
Kostenloser Erwerb wissenschaftlicher Publikationen'
by either scrolling to page two or three or by
using the 'detailed search' button. I typed in 'Kostenloser Erwerb'.
5. vote by clicking on the title and then in the fourth column
you can vote by clicking on 'Petition mitzeichnen'
[zeichnen means signing]
Thanks,
Talat
Stevan Harnad wrote:
** Apologies for Cross-Posting **
Professor Eberhard Hilf is inviting the
German and international
scholarly and scientific community to sign a
petition to mandate Open
Access in Germany.
http://www.zugang-zum-wissen.de/journal/archives/105-Open-Access-Petition-to
-the-German-Parliament.html
Professor Hilf writes:
A Petition to the German Parliament
(Deutscher Bundestag) for Open
Access of documents in science and research
has been launched by Lars
Fischer, see the English version of the
Petition:
http://www.zugang-zum-wissen.de/oa-petition-german-parliament.html
It can be signed online at Signing the
petition:
https://epetitionen.bundestag.de/index.php?action=petition;sa=details;petiti
on=7922
The large and renowned Science Organisations
in Germany and the
Coalition for Action "Copyright for Education
and Research" are
calling all persons, active in science and
academic education,
students and staff, librarians, scientists,
to sign the petition, SEE
[Press Release in German].
http://www.urheberrechtsbuendnis.de/pressemitteilung1209.html.en
Reference:
Statement of the Workgroup Open Access of the
Alliance of the German
Science Organisations (Allianz der
Wissenschaften): Open Access:
positions. processes, perspectives; (in
German): Open Access:
Positionen, Prozesse, Perspektiven;
Arbeitsgruppe Open Access in der
Allianz der deutschen
Wissenschaftsorganisationen.
http://www.allianz-initiative.de/fileadmin/openaccess.pdf
COMMENT BY STEVAN HARNAD:
Lars Fischer's statement is vague and thereby
poses some risk of
having no practical effect unless it is made
clear exactly what the
Bundestag is being asked to do, why, and how.
Fortunately, it can be stated very clearly
exactly what the petition
is for, and why, and if this clarification
can be coupled with the
text sufficiently prominently, the outcome
will be a coherent and
positive one:
WHAT IS OPEN ACCESS? Free online access to
all peer-reviewed research
articles (2.5 million annual articles
published in 25,000
peer-reviewed journals, in all fields of
science, social science and
humanities, worldwide).
WHY OPEN ACCESS? To ensure that research
findings are accessible to
all their potential users worldwide, so as to
maximize research
uptake, usage, applications, impact,
productivity and process, by
making it accessible to all its potential
users worldwide, and not
just to those whose institutional libraries
can afford a subscription
to the journal in which it happened to be
published.
HOW OPEN ACCESS? All universities and
research institutions, and all
funders of research, need to mandate that the
final, peer-reviewed
draft of all their research output must be
deposited in an Open Access
Repository (Institutional or, optionally,
Central) immediately upon
acceptance for publication, making it
immediately accessible online,
free for all:
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/
If these three points could be made, the
petition will be precise,
comprehensible, and focussed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------
Here is the petition:
Petition to the German Bundestag, the
National Parliament
Lars Fischer has created a petition to the
Deutscher Bundestag to
support Open Access as an amendment to the
pending legislation.
Signatures are now invited.
Petition
The German National Parliament (Deutscher
Bundestag) should decree
that scientific publications that result from
public funding, should
be openly accessible. Those institutions that
are autonomous should be
called upon by the Bundestag to set up and
enforce suitable
regulations and to install suitable technical
preconditions to ensure
that this is the case.
Comment
The Government supports research and
development -- according to the
German Ministery for Education and Research
in the amount of about 12
Billion Euro annually. The results of this
research are published, but
mostly in toll-access journals. It is not
acceptable that the taxpayer
should have to pay for research results for
whose creation he has
already paid.
Because of the large costs and the multitude
of scientific journals,
research results are accessible only in a few
libraries. Most citizens
are thus de facto excluded from access to
scientific results for which
they have paid.
To exclude citizens from science is not only
harmful, but unnecessary.
Other countries have already implemented what
is being proposed here.
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is
requiring that all
publications that it has funded should be
openly accessible within 12
months at a central server. The general
structure of the scientific
publication system is not affected by this
petition.
--
Dr Talat Chaudhri
------------------------------------------------------------
Research Officer
UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, Great Britain
Telephone: +44 (0)1225 385105 Fax: +44 (0)1225 386838
E-mail: t.chaudhri_at_ukoln.ac.uk Skype: talat.chaudhri
Web:
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/t.chaudhri/
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Received on Fri Nov 13 2009 - 10:50:28 GMT