An interview with Lars Fischer, the person who drafted the German
petition, can be read here:
http://poynder.blogspot.com/2009/11/german-petition-takes-open-access.html
Richard Poynder
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum
[mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG]
On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: 13 November 2009 10:46
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: Open Access: Petition to the German Parliament
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 - 20:43:27 GMT