David F. Strong and Peter B. Leach, National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data, National Research Council Canada, January 31, 2005. The final report of a government task force. Excerpt: 'The objectives of the National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data (NCASRD) are to recommend to Canada’s primary research funding agencies and organizations the actions necessary to maximize, through open access, the research and economic value, and public benefit of data gathered at public expense, as well as actions to preserve historically significant data as an historic record, and as a scientific and cultural asset for current and future research. The recommendations in this Report aim to generate workable solutions to the technological, institutional, cultural, legal, financial and behavioural barriers to such access....The NCASRD has been commissioned to recommend actions that only apply to digital data. We have excluded consultation on the issue of open access to research findings and published research results, even though the publication of results is often closely linked to open access to scientific research data. The issue of open and possible free access to research results and scientific papers is highly contentious but should become the focus of a dedicated national consultation in the near future....However, in the more restricted area of access to data [as opposed to literature], this discussion has reached sufficient intensity to warrant the signing of the International Declaration on Access to Research Data from Public Funding by most developed nations [including Canada], committing them to a more open data access regime....Our Vision of the research world in 2020: Canada is the centre of a global knowledge grid. It has become the desired nation with which to partner in research, because of its national system of open access to research data. Through this system and the collaborative culture it has generated, Canadian creativity and innovation are best in class worldwide. Open, but secure, access to powerful and globally assembled data has transformed scientific research. Researchers routinely analyze problems of previously unimaginable complexity in months, rather than decades, leading to revelations of knowledge and discovery that have enriched quality of life, transformed healthcare, improved social equality, provided greater security, broadened decision perspectives for social, environmental, and economic policy and advancement, and transformed the advancement of human knowledge....While Canada will not be alone in experiencing such a surge of innovation, the integrated strategy that we are recommending, and the early adoption of open access as a national priority, will guarantee Canada’s leadership position among research-intensive countries.' (Thanks to Richard Ackerman.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/16/2005 12:42:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
