Open Access News

Last July, Norway's Ministry of Education and Research (Kunnskapsdepartemente or KD) asked the Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions (Universitets- og høgskolerådet or UHR) for advice on how to provide OA for the nation's research output.  In September the UHR launched an OA working group to develop recommendations, and the working group issued its report January 30, 2009.  (Thanks to Karen Marie Øvern.)

Because the report is a PDF, I can't link to a machine translation.  But here's the one sentence announcement in Google's English:

A working group established by the research committee UHRs on assignment from the [Ministry of Education and Research] submitted its report and suggest that the ministry give priority efforts for the development and use of the institutional archives.

Here's a slightly longer blurb from the working group home page in Google's English:

UHR sent 30 January 2009 a report to the Ministry of Education in response to your call for advice in relation to stimulate more open access to research results....UHR believes that access to scientific results is an important research policy issues. A positive attitude Open Access Initiative Ministry of Education will be of great significance for the development of institutions. Ministry of Education should support free access in policy formulation and in the follow-up of universities and colleges. Ministry of Education should encourage institutions to develop strategies and policies that contribute to open access to scientific publications in their strategies for research.

Comments

• Can any of our Norwegian readers provide details on the UHR recommendations?  For example, is it recommending university-level OA mandates?  A nation-wide OA mandate for publicly-funded research, directing deposits into IRs?  Something else?  If you can help with a summary or translation, please drop me a line or post directly to SOAF.
• See our past posts (1, 2) on the KD request for advice from the UHR on providing OA to the nation's research output.

Update (later on 2/17/09).  While Google Translate doesn't digest PDFs, it will accept cut/pasted text.  Charles Bailey has identified the recommendations from the report and cut/pasted the text into Google Translate.  (Thanks, Charles.)  Here's some of the output:

[p. 20] Ministry of Education should encourage institutions to develop strategies and policies that contribute to open access to research....

Ministry of Education should give priority to the development and use of institutional archives. Such commitment does not rule out publishing in Open Access journals. ...

[p. 25] Norwegian Ministry of Education should encourage institutions to strengthen the employees' awareness of their rights so that they may better retain the right to disclosure of personal archives, [disciplinary repositories] or institutional archives.

The working group distinguishes between the filing and disclosure. The working group believes there are grounds to make demands on the submission of scientific papers in the institution's archives. Institutions should assess whether they want to incorporate such requirements in their policies....

Sherpa / Romeo should be encouraged to expand to include the Norwegian and Nordic journals that Norwegian researchers publish in. It can be done by NORA, in cooperation the other Nordic countries....

[p. 31] [T]he working group recommends that the compulsory submission implemented only when the infrastructure and support system is in place.

The working group supports the establishment of the Norwegian Science Index.  A linking to full text via a research system will represent a valuable addition to the service, either the full text made available in an open archive, or through a license agreement with limited access to external, or both so that the user can select.

NORA should be continued for 2009. Further national function that NORA has generated should be assessed and viewed in the light

[p. 37] Ministry of Education should consider measures to finance the publishing in Open Access journals to provide more knowledge and experience to this business model. Payment for publication should not be charged to the individual researcher or research. A system of payment for publication must be based on the automatic release of funds to avoid these potential problems....

PS:  If we can trust this machine translation, I'd say that UHR is recommending an OA mandate, with deposit in institutional repositories, to be implemented when the repositories are in place. 

Update (2/18/09).  Stian Håklev has done a human translation of the new OA policy at the Norwegian Research Council, blogged here on February 5, and the new OA recommendation from the UHR to the KD, blogged above.  (Thanks, Stian!) 

First, from the NRC policy:

...When the NRC mandates that researchers self-archive copyright-protected materials in institutional archives, the NRC must ensure that such archiving does not contradict the legal rights to this material by the author and the publisher....

Second, from the UHR recommendation to the KD:

...The long-term goal should be that all scientific articles that result from publicly financed research should be publicly available, unless there is a strong reason for limiting access. The short-term goal should be that 50% of all published scientific articles are openly accessible within 2015....

KD should prioritize supporting the further development and use of institutional archives. This does not preclude publishing in OA-journals....

The [OA] work group separates between the submission itself, and the public dissemination of the published articles. The group believes that the institutions can demand submission of scientific publications because of the need for oversight, testability, and institutional memory. The submission of a published article will not automatically lead to it being made accessible, that requires permission from the researchers. [PS:  The group is recommending what I call the dual-deposit release strategy or what Stevan Harnad calls the immediate deposit / optional access strategy.]  The group believes it to be probable that most people who are asked to do so, will give their permission, given that they have been well-informed, the question of rights has been taken care of, and the infrastructure is in place....

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