Open Access News

So, what is Canada’s vision for a 21st-century global system for disseminating and communicating research data? Above all, our goal must be to maximize the impact of research for societies everywhere, not just the developed world. People in developing nations must be able to access and contribute to the vitality of the global research information and communications system. An open-access philosophy is critical to the system’s success: if research findings and knowledge are to be built upon and used by other scientists, then this knowledge must be widely available on the web, not just stored in published journals that are often expensive and not universally available.

From a Canadian perspective, a 21st century research communications system would share certain attributes. It would: [1] take full advantage of the enormous potential of new information and communication technologies; [2] be capable of handling an unprecedented flow of information in a wide variety of formats; [3] bring Canadian research knowledge to the world and bring the world’s research knowledge to Canada; [4] be accessible by all Canadians, in all sectors, ensuring that public investment in scientific research leads to wealth creation and improvements in social and cultural well-being. With this type of system a researcher could access, from any corner of the globe, the full texts of relevant journal articles; a comprehensive set of monographs and theses; research data sets that underlie published outcomes; research reports and non-peer-reviewed research materials from both academia and government; and the electronic tools necessary to manage this volume of material. Creating a system with these attributes is no longer just a question of developing appropriate technologies; for the most part these already exist. Rather, it’s a matter of building, integrating and improving the technical infrastructure, operational standards, research support systems, regulations and institutional roles and responsibilities. It’s also a matter of nurturing a culture of open access and sharing, beyond what researchers have ever embraced. Canada is fortunate to have a number of key building blocks in place to facilitate the development of such a system. These include a network of institutional repositories at 26 university research libraries....Building an effective global information system consists both of this infrastructure and perhaps more importantly a culture of open access and sharing. This is harder to build than the nuts and bolts of the system because it requires a new mindset among researchers, administrators, governments and in some cases companies – everyone involved in the creation and dissemination of knowledge....However, filling archives, though necessary, will not be able to change the mindset of people in the research enterprise. We have to find ways to motivate researchers in all countries to preserve and exchange their research data, to publish their findings in open access journals and to deposit their published articles in institutional repositories....Institutions, too, need to know that their investments in expanding and improving the quality of their data archives and open-access repositories are recognized as measurable scientific outputs. Some of these issues will be broached at the World Information Summit taking place this month in Turin, Italy. Canada has to articulate a vision to meet the challenges outlined above. Unless we act, the unprecedented volume of research information will become too difficult to manage, and highly valuable research data will be lost, along with the public investment in our future.