The Open Society Institute (OSI), a private operating and grantmaking foundation, has agreed a grant to develop an online Open Access (OA) source book called Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook (OASIS). The new online resource will provide practical steps towards implementing OA for research output.
OASIS seeks to provide all that one needs to know about OA - its concept, principles, benefits, approaches and means to achieving it. It will provide comprehensive links to resources already established on particular aspects of OA. It will be constantly up-dated to take account of the fast-moving changes and information appearing every day. OASIS will not duplicate current available resources but link them to form an OA supermarket, thereby allowing individuals to mix and match elements as required by their own constituencies. It will provide periodic online tutoring on specific aspects of OA, and also act as a back-up for OA workshops and training courses.
The sourcebook will be in modular format, and will be accessible online, as print-on-demand, and on CD/DVD for ready distribution to low bandwidth users. The resource is projected as an invaluable free-of-cost tool for developing countries wishing to benefit from the OA movement.
The OASIS website is slated for launch at the forthcoming ELPUB2008 conference, 'Open Scholarship: Authority, Community and Sustainability in the Age of Web 2.0', to be held in Toronto in June, 2008. The project will be coordinated by two leading OA advocates, Leslie Chan of the University of Toronto and Alma Swan of Key Perspectives, via a contract between the OSI and the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development (EPT). A number of partners with specific expertise will support the project, as will an advisory board of individuals with OA knowledge and commitment.
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