PREACHING AND PRACTISE
It is both extremely timely and extremely welcome and helpful that university presidents and provosts are supporting both the FRPAA and President Obama's OSTP initiative for mandating Open Access (OA).
This is a historic concerted effort on the part of all sectors that are dedicated to maximizing the progress and benefits of scientific and scholarly research for the entire planet.
But is it churlish of me to muse that if only university presidents and provosts were as quick to adopt an OA mandate for their own home institution as they are to sign open letters in support of their government’s adopting such an OA mandate, progress toward OA would be all the fleeter!
[Only 2.5 of the 26 [sic] signatory institutions have mandates of their own: Harvard, MIT, and Stanford Ed. Harvard's provost Steve Hyman, the host of this letter of support --
http://www.provost.harvard.edu/reports/FRPAA_Open_Letter.pdf -- is of course one (indeed the first) of the 2.5. But what about the other 23.5...?]
See also: “Putting Principled Support Into Practice: What Provosts Need to Mandate” (2006!)
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/117-guid.html
Stevan Harnad
On 2010-05-03, at 11:27 AM, Jennifer McLennan wrote:
> ALLIANCE FOR TAXPAYER ACCESS
> http://www.taxpayeraccess.org
>
> Media Advisory
> May 3, 2010
>
> For more information, contact:
> Jennifer McLennan
> jennifer [at] arl [dot] org
> (202) 296-2296 ext. 121
>
> MAJOR RESEARCH INSTITUTION LEADERS SUPPORT LEGISLATION TO ENSURE PUBLIC ACCESS TO PUBLICLY FUNDED RESEARCH
>
> Washington, DC – The provosts and presidents of 27 major private and public research institutions have voiced their support for the Federal Research Public Access Act in an “Open Letter to the Higher Education Community,” released Friday by the Harvard University Provost. The Act, first introduced in the Senate last year, was introduced in the House of Representatives on April 15. The letter signals expanded support for public access to publicly funded research among the largest research institutions in the U.S.
>
> The letter reads, in part:
>
> “As scholars and university administrators, we are acutely aware that the present system of scholarly communication does not always serve the best interests of our institutions or the general public. Scholarly publishers, academic libraries, university leaders, and scholars themselves must engage in an ongoing dialogue about the means of scholarly production and distribution. This dialogue must acknowledge both our competing interests and our common goals. The passage of FRPAA will be an important step in catalyzing that dialogue, but it is not the last one that we will need to take.
>
> “FRPAA is good for education and good for research. It is good for the American public, and it promotes broad, democratic access to knowledge. While it challenges the academy and scholarly publishers to think and act creatively, it need not threaten nor undermine a successful balance of our interests. If passed, we will work with researchers, publishers, and federal agencies to ensure its successful implementation. We endorse FRPAA’s aims and urge the academic community, individually and collectively, to voice support for its passage.”
>
> “The fact that such an august group of leaders has used the words ‘mission critical’ gets to the heart of how important this legislation is to higher education,” added Alliance spokesperson and SPARC executive director Heather Joseph. “We’re pleased to see the breadth of support for this bill continue to grow at a steady pace.”
> “The Open Letter to the Higher Education Community” is available at http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/docs/FRPAA-open-letter-2010.php.
>
> The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) was introduced April 15 in the House of Representatives (H.R.5037) by Rep. Doyle (R-PA) and a bi-partisan host of co-sponsors, and mirrors the Senate version (S.1373) introduced in June 2009 by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John Cornyn (R-TX). The bill proposes to require those eleven federal agencies with extramural research budgets of $100 million or more to implement policies that deliver timely, free, online access to the published results of the research they fund. The Act would build upon the success of the first U.S. requirement for public access to publicly funded research (through the National Institutes of Health) and would require that the results of taxpayer-funded research be made available no later than six months after publication in a journal.
>
> The House introduction of the Act follows closely on the heels of a recent expression of interest in public access policies from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which issued a request for public comment on mechanisms that would leverage federal investments in scientific research and increase access to information that promises to stimulate scientific and technological innovation and competitiveness.
>
> For more information about the Federal Research Public Access Act and the broad array of communities that support its passage, visit http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa.
>
> ###
>
> The Alliance for Taxpayer Access is a coalition of advocacy, academic, research, and publishing organizations that supports open public access to the results of federally funded research. The Alliance was formed in 2004 to urge that peer-reviewed articles stemming from taxpayer-funded research become fully accessible and available online at no extra cost to the American public. Details on the ATA may be found at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org.
>
>
> -------------------------------------
> Jennifer McLennan
> Director of Programs & Operations
> SPARC
> jennifer_at_arl.org
> (202) 296-2296 x121
> Fax: (202) 872-0884
> *******************************
> SPARC 2010 Digital Repositories Meeting
> November 8 & 9 - Baltimore, MD
> http://www.arl.org/sparc/media/09-0223.shtml
> *******************************
> Open Access Week 2010
> October 18 - 24. Everywhere.
> http://www.openaccessweek.org
> *******************************
> http://www.arl.org/sparc
Received on Mon May 03 2010 - 17:29:10 BST