The sixth annual Open Access Week was recently held, and BioMed Central organised a number of events around the world to spread the word. A study published in BMC Medicine at the start of the Open Access Week showed how open access (OA) publishing is becoming increasingly prevalent. The article reportedly received plenty of coverage, including a piece in UK newspaper The Guardian, which explained how the rise of OA is faster than anyone had previously realised. BMC Medicine hosted a Twitter chat at the end of the week to discuss some of the themes in the paper, as well as some of the wider issues surrounding OA publishing, and the authors of the study contributed to what was seen as a very engaging discussion.
Coinciding with Open Access Week, the Irish government announced plans to ensure that peer-reviewed journal articles and other research outputs resulting from publicly-funded research are made publically available. The mandate follows a similar proposal from the UK government earlier this year and is stated to demonstrate growing support for OA to research.
Apart from Open Access Week, the previous month saw the launch of Open Access Now, a website showcasing relevant, curated news about OA and scholarly publishing. Open Access Now will highlight work from the open web that is relevant and useful for those working in scholarly communications.
The Harvard Open Access Project, an initiative to foster OA within and beyond Harvard, published a guide outlining good practices for university OA policies. The guide is published under a CC-BY licence, and as a wiki it is designed to continually evolve.
Also last month, The Conversation, an independent source of analysis, commentary and news from the university and research sector based in Australia, provided an analysis of the growing movement by governments to make all publicly funded scientific research available to anyone.
