Dear all,
few months ago th EU proposed a public consultation on scientific information in the digital age.
Many Wikimedia chapters did reply to this survey, and results are available:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document_library/pdf_06/survey-on-scientific-information-digital-age_en.pdf
Let me quote just the first results:
Access to digital scientific information: scientific publications
Respondents were asked if there is no access problem to scientific publications in Europe: 84 % disagreed or disagreed strongly
with the statement. The high prices of journals/subscriptions (89 %) and limited library budgets (85 %) were signalled as the
most important barriers to accessing scientific publications. More than 1 000 respondents (90 %) supported the idea that
publications resulting from publicly funded research should, as a matter of principle, be in open access (OA) mode. An even
higher number of respondents (91 %) agreed or agreed strongly that OA increased access to and dissemination of scientific
publications. Self-archiving (‘green OA’) or a combination of self-archiving and OA publishing (‘gold OA’) were identified as
the preferred ways that public research policy should facilitate in order to increase the number and share of scientific publications
available in OA. Respondents were asked, in the case of self-archiving (‘green OA’), what the desirable embargo
period is (period of time during which publication is not yet open access): a six-month period was favoured by 56 % of
respondents (although 25 % disagree with this option).
Access to digital scientific information: research data
As for the question of access to research data, the vast majority of respondents (87 %) disagreed or disagreed strongly with
the statement that there is no access problem for research data in Europe. The barriers to access research data considered
very important or important by respondents were: lack of funding to develop and maintain the necessary infrastructures
(80 %); the insufficient credit given to researchers for making research data available (80 %); and insufficient national/regional
strategies/policies (79 %). There was strong support (90 % of responses) for research data that is publicly available and results
from public funding to be, as a matter of principle, available for reuse and free of charge on the Internet. Lower support (72 %
of responses) was given for data resulting from partly publicly and partly privately funded research.
Preservation of digital scientific information
Responding to the question asking whether preservation of scientific information is at present sufficiently addressed,
64 % of the respondents disagreed or disagreed strongly. The main barriers signalled in this area were: uncertainty as
to who is responsible for preserving scientific information (80 %); the quality and interoperability of repositories (78 %);
and the lack of a harmonised approach to legal deposit (69 %).
Regards,
Aubrey