Skip to main content

Germany on the forefront of pushing open-access academic publishing










BERLIN—In a third-floor conference room here overlooking the famous Potsdamer Platz, once bisected by the Berlin Wall, the future of academic publishing is being negotiated. The backdrop is fitting, because if the librarians and academic leaders at the table get their way, another major divide will soon fall: the paywall that surrounds most research papers.
Over the past 2 years, more than 150 German libraries, universities, and research institutes have formed a united front trying to force academic publishers into a new way of doing business. Instead of buying subscriptions to specific journals, consortium members want to pay publishers an annual lump sum that covers publication costs of all papers whose first authors are at German institutions. Those papers would be freely available around the world; meanwhile, German institutions would receive access to all the publishers' online content.
Consortia of libraries and universities in the Netherlands, Finland, Austria, and the United Kingdom have all pushed for similar agreements, but have had to settle for less than they wanted. In the Netherlands, for example, Elsevier—the world's biggest academic publisher—has agreed to make only 30% of Dutch-authored papers freely available by 2018, and only after a significant increase in the annual sum libraries pay

Comments

  1. Anonymous9/15/2017

    Good Germany is taking leads, I hope other countries will follow suit

    ReplyDelete
  2. yeomanoberbeck3/04/2022

    Harrah's Atlantic City - Mapyro
    Find 울산광역 출장마사지 out what's popular at Harrah's Atlantic City in realtime and see activity. The map shows activity 영천 출장샵 with a grid layout. Harrah's Atlantic 수원 출장마사지 City Hotel & 구리 출장안마 Casino Atlantic 여주 출장샵 City.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ebola outbreak exposes lack of cooperation and solidarity among African nations

The first incidence of Ebola outbreak occurred in 1976 in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. The epidemic was less severe and thus, it was understandable the low response and fewer media coverage of the deadly virus then. However, the recent outbreak in West Africa proved to be more virulent and spreading like a wild fire. Concerns are raised in various quarters but actions seem to fall below the rhetoric coming from concerned institutions. While lives are lost daily to the virus in the affected areas, many countries’ response around the world were panic-driven at best and precautionary at the least. Travel bans were imposed and borders outrightly closed; an action that drew the ire of World Health Organisation (WHO) stating that such actions of border closing and travel bans are counterproductive. This same point was echoed by American president, Barrack Obama that imposing a travel ban could further aggravate the situation and plight of the affected countries. In...
Post a Comment
Read more

China getting serious with its science reputation, cracks down on fraudulent peer-review process

A massive peer-review fraud has triggered a tough response from the Chinese government. Officials last week announced that more than 400 researchers listed as authors on some 100 now-retracted papers will face disciplinary action because their misconduct has seriously damaged China’s scientific reputation. Some institutions have barred the scientists linked to the fraud from pursuing their research, at least temporarily. And they have imposed other penalties, including canceling promotions, honors, and grants. Government ministries have also announced new “zero tolerance” policies aimed at stamping out research fraud. "We should eradicate the problem from its roots," said He Defang, director of the Ministry of Science and Technology’s (MOST’s) regulatory division in Beijing. Although China has previously cracked down on scientific misconduct, a chronic problem. These penalties "are the harshest ever," says Chen Bikun, an information scientist at the Nanjing...
Post a Comment
Read more

Five Steps Trump Administration Has Taken So Far to Save US Economy Amid Pandemic

The mainstream media in the US has mainly questioned the Trump team's recent call to "trust" POTUS to restore the economy after the pandemic ends, yet few outlets have bothered to dissect what the administration has already done to prevent the economy from collapsing. The coronavirus pandemic has ruined Trump's perceived strong point in this year's presidential election, that POTUS greatly boosted the country's economy over the last four years. READ MORE
Post a Comment
Read more