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!

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;petition=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.

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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
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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@ukoln.ac.uk   Skype: talat.chaudhri
Web: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/t.chaudhri/
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