Tag: advocacy

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Does the White House OA directive make FASTR irrelevant?

If you’ve been following the national open access news, you probably noticed that the White House’s directive to federal agencies to implement open access policies was announced very shortly after the FASTR open access bill was introduced.  And you probably wondered about the relationship of the directive to FASTR. Does the directive make FASTR irrelevant? Does FASTR make the directive unnecessary? No, says open access expert Peter Suber: “The two approaches complement one another.”

Here are a few highlights from Suber’s excellent clarification of the relationship between the directive and FASTR:

  • “FASTR does not make the White House directive unnecessary. FASTR may never be adopted. And if it is adopted, it will be after some time for study, education, lobbying, amendment, negotiation, and debate. By contrast, the White House directive takes effect today.”
  • “Similarly, the White House directive does not make FASTR unnecessary. On the contrary, we need legislation to codify federal OA policies. The next president could rescind today’s White House directive, but could not rescind legislation.”
  • “Both ask a wide range of federal funding agencies to require OA for the results of the research they fund. But the new directive applies to more agencies. . . . FASTR applies to about 11 agencies and the directive to about 19. Among the agencies omitted by FASTR but covered by the directive are USAid and the Smithsonian Institution.”
  • “Both put a limit on permissible embargoes, but the directive allows longer embargoes. FASTR caps embargos at six months, and the directive caps them at 12 months.”
  • “FASTR is silent on data, but the White House directive requires OA for articles (Section 3) and OA for data (Section 4).”

On its own, the White House directive is fantastic.  Combined with FASTR, it can be much, much better.

So, no, they don’t make each other irrelevant.

And, yes, please keep doing everything you can do to increase FASTR’s chances of success.  The Alliance for Taxpayer Access explains how.

 

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Take our poster, please!

What are among the stickiest, most strangling tentacles in the world?  That’s right, the tentacles of profiteering journal publishers!  (Why am I saying such nasty things about them?  Well, because they charge huge fees for access to articles that researchers give them for free and other researchers peer review for free.  That’s right, they get articles, copyrights, and labor for free, and then they make a fortune charging the (often nonprofit) institutions that employ those researchers for access to those articles!)

For Brooklyn College’s Faculty Day Conference this week, a few colleagues and I made a poster illustrating just that predatory behavior and introducing open access as an alternative. But we didn’t make the poster for in-house use only!  No, we want to share the files with you.  Change them a little or a lot and use them for your educational campaigns about open access!

(The octopus image is adapted from http://www.flickr.com/photos/luca-beanone-barcellona/4776886666/ (CC-BY-NC))

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Today, not tomorrow: Sign the whitehouse.gov petition in support of open access!

Please consider signing the petition at whitehouse.gov in support of open access to taxpayer-funded research:  http://wh.gov/6TH

This isn’t just another petition about just another topic.  No, this offers the chance to change the conversation.  Why?  Because the White House makes a formal response to any “We the People” petition that reaches 25,000 signatures in 30 days.  (The petition closes on June 19, so there’s still some time, but, even so, don’t delay!)

There is the very slight nuisance of having to create an account on whitehouse.gov (basically, you give them your name and email address), but if you were ever going to put up with some nuisance in order to sign a petition, this just might be the petition to do it for!

Go! Sign! Share broadly! Soon!