** Apologies for Cross-Posting **
Below is a synoptic translation of an important French
Press=20
release about forthcoming OA developments in France. I would
add=20
only that CNRS is mistaken in its worry that CNRS
researchers=20
would resist a self-archiving mandate: Multiple author
surveys --=20
international and multisciplinary -- as well as repeated=20
experience with actual mandates have shown that there will
be=20
very high rates of compliance.
http://eprints.
ecs.soton.ac.uk/11006/
http://www
.eprints.org/signup/fulllist.php
Second, legal issues are mooted if the mandate is an
immediate *deposit*
mandate, but the author has the option to set access to as
Open Access or
Closed Access: 94% of journals already endorse setting
access immediately
to Open Access. For the remaining 6%, the HAL repository
software
should implement the semi-automatic EMAIL EPRINT that has
already been
implemented in tje GNU Eprints and DSpace repository
software. That will
tide over access during any embargo period (and embargoes
will fade away
once everything is being systematically self-archived and
used).
http://eprints.
ecs.soton.ac.uk/12078/
https://secure.ecs.soton.ac.uk/notices/publ
icnotices.php?notice=3D902
----------------
The STI 'Professional Days' 2006 (4th edition)
conference on
"Archives institutionnelles et archives
ouvertes"
took place in Nancy from 19 - 21 June.
ht
tp://rpist.inist.fr/article.php3?id_article=3D29
All the major French research organizations were
represented: CNRS,
INSERM, INRIA, INRA, INERIS, IRD, and ADEME are to sign
a Joint Draft
Agreement (already finalised), defining a coordinated
approach, at
the national level, for open-access self-archiving of
French research
output. Also to sign the agreement are the conference
of university
presidents (CPU), the conference of Grandes Ecoles
(France's Elite
Universities), and the Pasteur Institute.
This marks an important advance in the implementation
of a French
national policy for open access institutional archives
(OA/IA). There
is also a protocol of agreement about metadata to
enrich the articles
and some assistance to depositers on legal matters.
Elsewhere, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development
(OECD) has also recommended that making results open
access
in open archives should be made a condition of R&D
funding, and so hav=
e
NIH and FRPAA in the US and RCUK in the UK.
In France there is first to be a 'statement' as a
prelude to a
'directive'. The difference is important. NIH and
CERN have different
deposit rates, reflecting the difference between a
request and a
requirement.
NIH, with only a request, has a deposit rate of, 4%,
whereas CERN, wit=
h
a requirement, is approaching 100%. OA cannot achieve
its objectives
unless deposit rates approach 100%.
A laisser-faire policy, only requesting self-archiving,
generates a
deposit rate of a few percent. Systematic activism from
librarians and
information professionals (informing, encouraging,
helping with
deposits) raises the rate to about 12%. Adding a
'carrot and stick'
component (e.g., making the deposit rate one of the
criteria in annual
evaluation) might raise rates to 20% but not much more.
By contrast,
organizations that have a contractual obligation to
deposit (such as
CEMAGREF, since 1992, and INERIS) have deposit rates
near 100%,
fulfilling their contract to have open institutional
archives which
reflect the full research output of their
organizations.
The Joint Draft Agreement is being formulated at a time
when France
is considering many other questions about legal
aspects, voluntary vs.
obligatory deposit, and the purpose of knowledge
repositories. For fea=
r
that restive researchers might resent the imposition of
administrative
rules, the question is mostly evaded (especially by the
CNRS), but
there is evidence of progress: at the Nancy conference,
INSERM (Nation=
al
Institute of Health and Medical Research), announced
that it plans to
make self-archiving in its open-access archive
compulsory within the
next few years -- but this progress is far too slow.
A sense of legal uncertainty is one of the factors
holding back
deposit rates. Paradoxically, it is information
professionals (librari=
ans
and documentalists) -- not researchers or management --
who have been
pressing for a clear legal framework on open access
archiving from the
directorate of the CNRS.
There is a French call for proposals (drawing on a
total source of
only 1 million euros) for studies on the creation and
support of new
Open Access Journals. In contrast, in the UK, the JISC
(Joint
Information Systems Committee) is spending
approximately 115 million
euros, much of it devoted to studies on the creation
and support of th=
e
infrastructure for open access archives in British
universities and
research institutions. According to some of the
participants at the
Nancy conference, France's new National Agency of
Research (ANR) refe=
rs
in its contracts to requirement (or is it a request')
linking its
research funding to the provision of 'Open Access' to
the results.
Groupement Francais de l'Industrie de l'Information
25 rue Claude Tillier 75012 Paris.
France Tel : 33 1 43 72 96 52
Fax : 33 1 43 72 56 04
http://www.gfii.asso.fr
M=E9l
gfii AT gfii.asso.fr
Kiosque IST - INIST <http://kiosqueist.com>
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