Today is the first day of Open Access Week. We’re joining SPARC and dozens of other organizations all week to discuss the importance of open access.
Open access is the practice of making research and other materials freely available online, ideally under licenses that allow anyone to share and adapt them. By removing barriers like subscription fees or institutional connections, open access publishing lets more people participate in science and culture.
There are events and workshops on open access taking place all over the world this week. Find out what’s going on in your area and get involved!
Check back all week for new #OAWeek content from EFF. We’ll update this list with links to new posts:
It’s Not Too Late. Let’s Pass an Open Access Law This Year.
When the public pays for research, the public should have free access to that research. You shouldn’t have to buy expensive journal subscriptions or academic database access in order to read research that was paid for with federal funding.
What Do Trade Agreements Do for Open Access—And What Don't They Do?
The provisions that America’s closed trade agreements lock into law would, if anything, place barriers in the way of open access initiatives, by enshrining tough protections for digital locks on content, criminally penalizing those who offer access to scholarly works without authority, and prohibiting TPP countries from requiring access to the source code of digital products.
Over Two Years Later, Diego Gomez’s Ongoing Case Shows the Need for Global Reforms
Colombian Master’s graduate Diego Gomez faces four to eight years in prison and crippling monetary fines just for sharing a colleague’s thesis with other scientists over the Internet. Diego’s case reminds us: open access must become the default in academic publishing, and we need global reforms to get there.
Patent Trolls Undermine Open Access
As the open access movement continues to grow and mature, we hope to see open access allies on campus begin to take on their institutions’ patenting policies. University patenting and licensing policies directly affect how researchers’ outputs will be used in the field.
