... IssueLab is an open source archive of research produced by nonprofit organizations, university-based research centers, and foundations. We track research across thirty-four social issue areas. Research contributors categorize their works in up to three issue areas and further sub-categorize as needed.
Archiving is part one; part two is dissemination. Daily we get in touch with people (nonprofit professionals, researchers, policy professionals, academics, etc.) who have expressed interest in the work we collect. As well, we start new relationships with people interested in social policy, or the sector, or research, or all of the above. We maintain a number of communication channels including our website, RSS news feeds (one per issue area plus a comprehensive give-me-everything-you’ve got feed), e-newsletters, we Twitter, we have a Facebook fan page, we run a LinkedIn policy discussion group. We also have an Open Archives Initiative-compliant data provider set up at http://harvest.issuelab.org for data sharing. And we have data partners that carry titles from our archive that fit with their mission. ...
IssueLab is an open access archive; it would be ludicrous of us to create content and make it difficult or impossible for people to access and share it. We use a Creative Commons license because we want to share what we do. We follow Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) in our data collection practices for the same reason. We chose BY-SA because it makes it crystal clear what people can do with our content — share and/or remix — and we want people to do just that. ...
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.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
