Open Access to Scientific Information - POST Note - UK Parliament

A new report from the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology: “...The Open Access (OA) movement seeks to make scientific (and other scholarly) publications freely available online. A drive for greater transparency and more effective exploitation of public funds has also led to demand for OA to publicly-funded research data, to support research and innovation... Expanding access to scientific publications and data could deliver widespread social and economic benefits. There are several ways of achieving this. In March 2011 the Minister for Universities and Science held a round table discussion to explore the issues. At this meeting the government committed to supporting efforts to expand access to both research publications and data as part of its wider ‘Transparency Agenda’. Overview: (1) Open Access (OA) to scientific publications could provide more effective dissemination of research and thus increase its impact. (2) The costs and benefits of different models of providing OA to publications need to be considered if a comprehensive shift to OA is to be financially sustainable. (3) OA to research data could enable others to validate findings and re-use data to advance knowledge and promote innovation. (4) Sharing data openly requires effective data management and archiving. It also presents challenges relating to protecting intellectual property and privacy. Expanding access to scientific information requires researchers, librarians, higher education institutions, funding agencies and publishers, to continue to work together...”