Open access (OA) to research will play a central role in research and scholarship for years to come, going by the response to the first International Open Access Week (October 19 – 23), SPARC has stated. The event was organised by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), the Public Library of Science, Students for Free Culture, eIFL, OASIS, Open Access Directory, JISC and SURF. Events took place on more than 300 higher education, research and other sites worldwide, purportedly illustrating the dramatic growth of the global network that has emerged in support of OA.
The week, designed to raise awareness of open access (OA), highlighted the research community’s deep commitment to the movement, according to SPARC. It also reflected the rapidly growing integration of OA into the core mission and operations of higher education and research institutions. It was a platform for key new reports on the economic and social impacts of OA to debut, and served as the impetus for research funders to announce fresh funds for OA publishing, SPARC further said.
Deep interest in OA was reportedly in evidence. Tens of thousands of individuals attended live events, logged onto web casts, shared videos, and participated in contests calling on stakeholders to express their support for OA through creative uses of digital resources. Key events from the week included the establishment of new access policies at agencies and research institutes; the adoption of campus-based OA policies; the release of extensive research on the economic and social impact of OA; the commitment of significant new funds to support OA publication; a groundswell of support by college and university students.
Promotional partners of the Open Access Week include SPARC Europe, SPARC Japan, Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (UK), SciELO-FAPESP-BIREME (Brazil), the Open Society Institute (New York & Budapest), SURF (the Netherlands), Open-access.net (Germany), the Public Knowledge Project (Canada), My Open Archive (Japan), DuraSpace (US) and IssueLabs (US).
Search for more such events and conferences in K-Store
Discuss this NEWS
