Tag: open access

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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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Heliocentrism, not Geocentrism, in Scholarly Communication

We tend a bit CUNY-centric over here at the Open Access @ CUNY blog.  We at CUNY certainly stand to benefit from prevalent (or, better yet, universal) open access to scholarly publications, but we can’t forget that we’re advocating open access for the benefit of all, not just those at CUNY.

Here is an excellent reminder of why everyone needs access to scholarly literature. Not just faculty, not just students, not just doctors, not just high-level researchers.  From Jack Andraka, the high school student who developed a fantastically accurate, quick, and inexpensive method detecting pancreatic cancer:

I was 14 and didn’t drive and it seemed impossible to go to a University and request access to journals.

Some adults have told me I should have done that but, as a 14 year old, it was intimidating. It was also hard to get my parents to drive me to a University library since they didn’t really believe in my project and were trying to convince me to change projects! So there are a lot of barriers for kids to learn more and educate themselves. Open access would help people like me who may not drive or have access to a University library.

In our conversations about open access, we must remember that CUNY revolves around scholarly communication, not the other way around.

Follow the light.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copernican_heliocentrism_diagram-2.jpg
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True for University of California, true for CUNY

Michael Eisen (UC Berkeley professor and Public Library of Science co-founder) makes clear, strong comments about access to faculty scholarship in “UC Research Should Be Free.”  Read it and replace every instance of “University of California” with “CUNY”: just as maddening, just as true.

Don’t have time to read the whole article?  Start with this:

That the public does not have unlimited access to the intellectual output of academic scholars and scientists is one of the greatest-ever failures of vision and leadership from the men and women who run our research universities — all the more so at a publicly funded institution like the University of California.

And then think a bit about this:

No single action would accelerate this process more than a clear endorsement from university leaders that free public access to the works people produce is not just a good— it is a priority. The university should take the lead by making such a declaration and openly altering the criteria for hiring, tenure and promotion to emphasize the value and importance of public access and ultimately require it.

Here at CUNY, we all need to act.  Read.  Discuss with your departments.  Discuss with your administrators.  Discuss with your campus’s faculty governance bodies.  Discuss at University Faculty Senate.  Vote.

Some of us are doing this already.  Here are some of the open access resolutions already passed by CUNY faculty:

Departmental policies are important and meaningful, and I very much hope more departments will pass them soon.  But, ultimately, departmental policies are not enough for university-wide change.

No, some of us is not enough.  Everyone at CUNY needs to be tackling this problem.

Yes, that means you.