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<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B> Cory Doctorow [mailto:noemail@noemail.org]
<BR><B>Posted At:</B> Thursday, June 22, 2006 2:40 AM<BR><B>Posted To:</B> Boing
Boing<BR><B>Conversation:</B> Royal Society to try open access science
publishing<BR><B>Subject:</B> Royal Society to try open access science
publishing<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
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<P class=ngpostlinks><A
href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/boingboing/iBag?m=2070">http://feeds.feedburner.com/boingboing/iBag?m=2070</A></P><STRONG>Cory
Doctorow</STRONG>: The UK Royal Society, the oldest "learned society" in the
world, will try publishing some of its journals under open access licensing.
That means that instead of being offered as expensive subscriptions -- that can
only be paid by a few first-world, monied research institutions -- the journals
will be released for free on the net, and scientist-contributors will pay
submission fees to cover the cost of peer-review. This model has proven
effective with other journals, particularly the all open-access journal <A
title=http://plos.org/ href="http://plos.org/">Public Library of Science</A>,
which is now the most widely-cited journal in several of the fields it covers.
<P>Last November, the Royal Society published a paper <A
title=http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/25/royal_society_rentse.html
href="http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/25/royal_society_rentse.html">decrying
open access publishing</A>, arguing that <EM>no one</EM> should do open access
because it would undermine the Society's market for its journals. This prompted
an outraged response from the Society's members, who sent an <A
title=http://www.boingboing.net/2005/12/13/royal_society_member.html
href="http://www.boingboing.net/2005/12/13/royal_society_member.html">open
letter to the organization</A> affirming that the Society's mission is the
furtherance of science, not the collection of subscription fees.
<BLOCKQUOTE>The open access movement has been helped by recent developments,
including the decision by the Wellcome Trust, one of the world's biggest
research granting bodies, that all articles produced through work it has
funded will have to be published on an open access basis from October.
<P>Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, said he was delighted the
society was making work freely available to all. "Maximum distribution of
research findings is essential to maximise their impact," Mr Walport said.
<P>Earlier this year a report by the European Commission called for research
paid for by member states to be made freely available. </P></BLOCKQUOTE><A
title=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ec82359e-00c1-11db-8078-0000779e2340.html
href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ec82359e-00c1-11db-8078-0000779e2340.html">Link</A>
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