[Wikimedia-l] White House orders open access to federally sponsored research

[Daniel Mietchen]

The US and UK plans may be similar in how they affect Wikimedia
projects in that both make more research publications free to read,
but they differ in numerous details (e.g. on whether the publications
- and what versions thereof - should be freely available from the
publisher or from a repository)

In short, the White House directive means that about 19 US Federal
agencies will have to develop, within six months from today, policies
regarding read-access to publications about research they funded,
similar to the Public Access policy implemented by the National
Institutes of Health in 2008 (cf. http://publicaccess.nih.gov/ ). It
is not clear yet what this will mean in terms of reusability of
materials from such publications, as the document is rather silent on
licensing issues.

For further information on the directive, see the detailed comments by
Peter Suber, who puts it into the perspective of proposed similar US
legislation (which, if adopted, would have a more permanent effect),
introduced to Congress last week:
https://plus.google.com/109377556796183035206/posts/8hzviMJeVHJ .

Daniel

On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 11:47 PM, Richard Symonds
<richard.symonds at wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
> Looks like a US version of the UK's plan described at
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17921442, which Jimmy was rather
> involved in!
>
> Excellent news for the US if it goes ahead.
>
> Richard Symonds
> Wikimedia UK
> 0207 065 0992
>
> Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
> Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
> Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
> United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
> movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
> operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
>
> *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
> over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
>
>
> On 22 February 2013 22:33, James Salsman <jsalsman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This looks pretty substantial:
>>
>>
>> http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp_public_access_memo_2013.pdf
>>
>> "The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) hereby directs
>> each Federal agency with over $100 million in annual conduct of
>> research and development expenditures to develop a plan to support
>> increased public access to the results of research funded by the
>> Federal Government."
>>
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