Neil claims that The Australian is about the only Australian daily with a science/nature section on their website (q.v. Pamela). Coincidentally a local contact suggested I approach the Australian about running the Science Blogging Conference(s) in their ‘Higher Education’ section, so I thought I’d better check them out (rather than simply read headlines in my RSS—which is great —as I normally do).
Thus I came across an article on Open Access, and suddenly got all excited about important scientific controversies being picked up in the mainstream media.
Alas, The Australian concentrates on what is really only an insignificant part of Open Access (self-archiving to assist with research assessment exercise), taking side-swipes at academics’ predilection for scantily-clad women (as if journos aren’t the biggest perves of all) and University in- (and out-) fighting.
The message of Open Access, and its importance to ordinary people, gets lost in the noise. I guess that’s what sells newspapers.
Fortunately Heather Alethea has a nice weblog entry on Open Access, with links to information and a competition, and suggestions on what to do for Open Access Day. To her list I’d add
- Write to your local or national newspaper and explain, in words of one syllable, why you think Open Access is important and newsworthy.
Any more?
So, there’s going to be a number of live webcasts on Open Access day.
Hhhmm. Now who can we think of here at NN that’s a strong/active supporter of OA, into streaming audio/video of events (live where possible) who may have suggested this ahead of the official announcement of OA day???
One of the things I plan to do when I grow up (or in 2009, whichever comes first) is write a bunch of stuff/pitches/articles for various publications, and open access is on my list of things to write about, but I haven’t thought of a good outlet for it yet. It seems (based on conversations I’ve had with other scientists) to be something scientists themselves need to learn and understand more about before shoving into a mainstream newspaper. Maybe. Discuss!
Something in today’s Times Higher about Australia possibly leading the way in OA with “reforms aimed at unlocking public information and content, including the results of publicly funded research”.
Stevan Harnad said the development was significant: “Australia looks poised now to be the one that sets all the dominoes falling worldwide”.
@Eva – Do you think scientists want to read more about Open Access? There is so much written about it already, I fear.
I think there isn’t a lot of consensus on when something is considered available or accessible. Somewhere online people were comparing institutional repositories with general ones, and there is a lot of difference between countries on what is the norm in opening up publications. Is it good enough to throw it in an institutional repository where nobody might look (but it’s open!) or does it have to be in a big indexed space? If you compare what is going on in the US vs (I think) Germany, it might be totally different in that aspect, and if scientists themselves are not entirely on the same page, it might be hard to discuss it more generally.
In general the intent of institutional repositories is to allow access and they are “big indexed spaces” – that is what the OAI protocol is designed to facilitate. Services like Oaister and OpenDOAR search across a wide range of repositories.