An interesting article from the Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) Project serving as an open access guide for authors in the academic environment interested in making their work more widely and openly accessible to readers and other scholars. The practical nature of this guide with number of approaches for academic faculty will be of interest to anyone pursuing wider accessibility for their scholarly works. Written by Kylie Pappalardo (with the assistance of Professor Brian Fitzgerald, Professor Anne Fitzgerald, Scott Kiel-Chisholm, Jenny Georgiades and Anthony Austin):

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00013935/

"Understanding Open Access in the Academic Environment: A Guide for Authors [by Kylie Pappalardo (with the assistance of Professor Brian Fitzgerald, Professor Anne Fitzgerald, Scott Kiel-Chisholm, Jenny Georgiades and Anthony Austin)] aims to provide practical guidance for academic authors interested in making their work more openly accessible to readers and other researchers. The guide provides authors with an overview of the concept of and rationale for open access to research outputs and how they may be involved in its implementation and with what
effect. In doing so it considers the central role of copyright law and publishing agreements in structuring an open access framework as well as the increasing involvement of funders and academic institutions.

The guide also explains different methods available to authors for making their outputs openly accessible, such as publishing in an open access journal or depositing work into an open access repository. Importantly, the guide addresses how open access goals can affect an author's relationship with their commercial publisher and provides guidance on how to negotiate a proper allocation of copyright interests between an author and publisher. A Copyright Toolkit is provided to further assist authors in managing their copyright."

Publishing consultant Joe Esposito has written a though-provoking and interesting article, Open Access 2.0, addressing scholarly publishing economics and the relationship to open access. Esposito's thoughts on open access and new publishing efforts are wrapped around economic theory and how it helps us to understand and predict the successes and failures of publishing.

The basis of Esposito’s argument is that the publishing economy’s limited resource is not access, but attention, and that the role of traditional publishing is to help readers decide what is worth their time reading. He then goes on to discuss this traditional role and the importance of the attention economy in the world of digital scholarship and publishing. His article is noteworthy for its successful focus on economic theory in addressing complex issues of scholarly communication, but more so for its understanding that academic publishing does not need to be viewed in simple open or closed terms. While he addresses the potential impact of some forms of open access (notably self-archiving) in simplistic and relatively biased terms - he accurately asserts that in the modern scholarly landscape, there is a need for a plurality of publishing markets for reaching a plurality of reader communities - including innovative open access efforts that can advance scholarship, promote effective models, and increase impact.

The NCSU Digital Repository is a growing collection of citations and full text scholarly works from NC State faculty members, graduate students, and research staff. It consists of three digital collections that highlight and archive the scholarly works of NC State researchers.

Scholarly Publications Repository: A growing collection of citations and full text of scholarly works by NC State faculty members, graduate students, and research staff.

Technical Report Series Collection: Technical report series published by NC State’s colleges, departments, institutes, and research centers.

Electronic Theses & Dissertations: NC State ETDs completed since 2002, with partial coverage for 1997-2002. Earlier theses & dissertations are available via the catalog.

If you would like to submit your works in these collections, or have any other questions, please visit the Submission page.

As of April 7, 2008, the NIH Public Access Policy requires investigators, or designees on their behalf, to submit NIH funded peer-reviewed manuscripts accepted for publication, to PubMed Central, a publicly accessible digital archive. The implementation of this policy is an important step forward in supporting open and broad dissemination of publicly funded scientific research.

This Policy applies to you if your peer-reviewed article is based on research that meets one or more of the following categories:

1. Directly funded in any part by an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008 (October 1, 2007- September 30, 2008) or beyond;
2. Directly funded in any part by a contract signed on or after April 7, 2008;
3. Directly funded in any part by the NIH Intramural Program;
4. If NIH pays your salary.

NCSU Libraries is collaborating with the Sponsored Programs and Regulatory Compliance Services to assist researchers at NC State understand and comply with this new NIH Public Access Policy.
This 2-page handout provides an overview of the policy and a 3-step process of ensuring compliance for NC State researchers.

More information for NC State researchers is available here: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/scc/nih.html

Background information on the NIH Public Access Policy, details of the submission process, and other FAQs are available from the NIH public access site: http://publicaccess.nih.gov

Movements for open archiving and dissemination of scholarly articles received a major boost when Harvard faculty voted to require deposit of all articles written by the Arts and Sciences faculty in Harvard’s own institutional repository. The faculty agreed to disseminate faculty research and scholarship more broadly by giving the University a worldwide, non-exclusive license to make each faculty member’s scholarly articles available and to exercise the copyright in the articles, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit. Authors retain copyright and are free to publish their work anywhere they like as long as the publisher will accept that copyright is subject to this prior license. The decision is a strong affirmation of the value of open access to academic research, both to the public and to the academy itself.

For more information and opinion on the decision by Harvard’s faculty see William Patry’s excellent summary along with commentary from Peter Suber’s Open Access Newsletter. The implementation of Harvard’s vote will be worth watching carefully for its impact on efforts to promote broader and more open dissemination of the scholarship of faculty and researchers.