** Apologies for Cross-Posting **

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 12:25:32 +0100
From: Alma Swan <a.swan -- TALK21.COM>
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM -- LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: The ROARMAP database of Open Access policies

UCL's Open Access mandate was adopted in October 2008, but only announced in
June 2009. It would be helpful if all universities that adopt mandatory
policies on Open Access would register them immediately upon adoption in the
ROARMAP database (http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/).

Being able to see the details of existing policies helps other institutions
that are developing their own and means that new policies are included in
summary data like this chart
(http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090603/full/news.2009.538/box/1.html ) at
the soonest possible moment.

Alma Swan
Key Perspectives Ltd
Truro, UK

On 03/06/2009 13:28, "Stevan Harnad" <amsciforum -- GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> The United Kingdom continues to lead the world in Open Access:
>
> University College London (UCL) <http://www.ucl.ac.uk/>  has just adopted the
> UK's 22nd (and the world's 84th
> <http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/fullinfo.php?inst=University%2
> 0College%20London%20%28UCL%29> ) mandate to make all of its research output
> Open Access (by depositing it in UCL's Institutional Repository, UCL Eprints
> <http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/> ). 
>
> With its 13 funder mandates and 9 institutional/departmental mandates
> <http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/>  so far, the UK still has
> the planet's highest proportion of Open Access Mandates. 
>
> But the world is catching up (see Figure
> <http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Temp/alma-mand1.png> )!
>
> Dr. Alma Swan of Key Perspectives <http://www.keyperspectives.co.uk/>  and
> University of Southampton, has just documented how mandates
> <http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/>  to provide Open Access to
> research output have almost doubled globally in the year that has elapsed
> since Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted the world¹s
> 44th Open Access mandate
> <http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/fullinfo.php?inst=Harvard%20Un
> iversity%3A%20Faculty%20of%20Arts%20and%20Sciences>  in May 2008.
>
> The world's first Open Access mandate
> <http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/fullinfo.php?inst=University%2
> 0of%20Southampton%3A%20School%20of%20Electronics%20and%20Computer%20Science>
>  was adopted in 2002 by the University of Southampton's School of Electronics
> and Computer Science (ECS). Southampton had previously designed, in 2000
> <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october00/10inbrief.html#HARNAD> , the first free,
> Open Source software for creating Open Access Institutional
> Repositories, Eprints <http://www.eprints.org/> , now used the world over
> <http://roar.eprints.org/?action=home&q=&country=&version=eprints2&type=&order
> =name&submit=Filter> .
>
> In 2004 the UK Parliamentary Select Committee on Science and Technology (as
> urged by evidence <http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Temp/UKSTC.htm>
>  provided by Southampton University and Loughborough University) recommended
> <http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/39903
> .htm>  ³that all UK higher education institutions establish institutional
> repositories on which their published output can be stored and from which it
> can be read, free of charge, online [and] that Research Councils and other
> Government funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of all
> of their articles in this way.² Research Councils UK
> <http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/outputs/access/default.htm>  went on in
> 2006-2008  to make a clean sweep, with all seven councils mandating Open
> Access in 2006-2008.
>
> But Alma Swan's analysis shows that the UK is at last going to lose its lead,
> as the global growth spurt of mandates we had all been awaiting appears to
> have begun.
>
> The globalization of Open Access mandates is of course something that all UK
> universities heartily welcome as a win/win outcome, optimal and inevitable for
> research and researchers worldwide. Open access is essentially reciprocal. The
> only way every university on the planet can gain open access to the research
> output of every other university on the planet is by each providing open
> access to its own research output: "Self-archive unto others as you would have
> them self-archive unto you
> <http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&num=100&q=%28%22self-archive+unto
> +others%22++OR++%22golden+rule%22%29+%22open+access%22+harnad&btnG=Search&aq=f
> &oq=&aqi=> .²
>