Open Access | Electronic Frontier Foundation

"The open access movement is a long-standing campaign to make scholarly works both freely available and reusable. One of its fundamental premises is that the progress of knowledge and culture happens when scholarly works of all kinds are widely shared, rather than hidden in ivory towers built with paywalls and buttressed by harsh legal regimes. That is why open access has two primary goals: Making research available online to the public, free of cost. This could be through an online repository hosted by a university, agency, or private entity; or through an open access journal. Making sure research is reusable by publishing it under an open licensing scheme. This allows for works not only to be read, but also to be analyzed and built upon for downstream innovation and the pursuit of knowledge ...   White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Memorandum ... The White House released a memorandum (PDF) on February 22, 2013, in support of a more robust policy for public access to research, making the results of billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded research freely available online. The memorandum gives government agencies six months to detail plans to ensure the public can read and analyze both research and data, without charge. The embargo period for the OSTP policy, however, is recommended at twelve months, and the policy does not mention reuse rights ... Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) ... The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) takes a strong public access policy and, unlike the White House memorandum, sets it in law. Introduced by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representatives Mike Doyle (D-PA), Kevin Yoder (R-KS), and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the bill would require any government agency with an extramural research budget of above $100 million to ensure that the research it funds is placed in a public repository within six months of publication.  The bill does not have any open licensing requirements, but it does require agencies to examine "whether such research papers should include a royalty-free copyright license that is available to the public and that permits the reuse of those research papers, on the condition that attribution is given." Such a license would allow for complete reuse of published research, including in downstream research or computational meta-analysis.  FASTR is a strong, important step towards access to new, innovative, publicly funded research.Contact your lawmakers and tell them to support FASTR ... California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act (AB 609) ...  The California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act (AB 609) gives the public access to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of research funded in whole or in part by California residents. Many universities and research institutions use state funding to conduct important studies, but too often these institutions can't afford access to the state of the art.  Introduced by Assembly Member Brian Nestande and coauthored by Assembly Members Beth Gaines, Brian Maienschein, and Kristin Olsen, the California Taxpayer Access bill ensures that recipients of state funding submit electronic copies of their peer-reviewed research into an open access repository within twelve months of publication.  Like both federal initiatives, this bill isn't perfect. The bill was amended to change the embargo period—or the time delay between publication and public access—from six months to twelve months. While immediate availability would have been ideal, and the bill doesn't mention reuse at all.  Nonetheless, with California's budget and education crises in mind, this bill is well worth supporting. It recently passed through the State Assembly and is heading to the Senate next. If you are in California, contact your lawmakers and tell them to support public access to taxpayer-funded research."