The recently concluded Berlin 9 Open Access Conference at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute was reportedly attended by 260 high-level researchers, fund providers and open access (OA) advocates. Impact, not ideology, was the watchword at the conference, it has been observed.
The attendees focused on the benefits of putting research - in the humanities and social sciences as well as in the sciences - quickly and freely into the hands of scholars, students, innovators and the general public.
Cameron Neylon, a senior scientist at Britain's Science and Technology Facilities Council, spoke at a session on how OA can create new opportunities for business as well as for scholarship. Harold E. Varmus, director of the National Cancer Institute, argued the case for redesigning the system of scholarly publishing and rewards.
The need to rethink the scholarly reward system came up time and again at the meeting. Other speakers called on researchers to be stronger advocates for change. Michael Carroll, director of the programme on information justice and intellectual property at American University's law school, told the audience he got involved in OA because 'I want copyright law to do its job in society, and I don't think it's doing its job.' Researchers need to take responsibility for making sure their publishing contracts permit OA, he said. Mark Liberman, director of the Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania, said it was time to talk frankly about costs and business models.
Unlike many discussions of OA, which have focused on the sciences, the Berlin 9 meeting made the humanities and social sciences squarely part of the agenda. The National Endowment for the Humanities contributed some financial support to the meeting.
One session picked up the theme of open education and how OA can contribute to it. Laura Czerniewicz, director of the University of Cape Town's OpenUCT program, spoke about how difficult it is for many South African students to get textbooks and other resources they need to pursue education.
OA publisher InTech sponsored the meeting, which was organised by the Hughes Institute; the Association of Research Libraries; the Marine Biological Laboratory, in Woods Hole, Mass.; the Planck Institute; and the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, or Sparc, which promotes OA. The Institute of Museum and Library Services as well as the NEH also provided support.
Search for more Conferences
To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.
