[BOAI] CAUL Statement on Open Scholarship (October 1, 2010)

[Peter Suber]

[Forwarding from Council of Australian University Librarians.  --Peter
Suber.]


Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL)

*STATEMENT ON OPEN SCHOLARSHIP*
*
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*Context*

CAUL’s mission is to support its members in the achievement of their
objectives, especially the provision of access to, and training in the use
of, scholarly information; leadership in the management of information and
contribution to the university experience. In this context, Open Scholarship
is a core issue for CAUL.

Open Scholarship is an umbrella term used to describe developments such as
open access[1], open science and other “open” initiatives. It reflects the
increasingly open nature of access to information, research collaboration,
and the sharing and re-use of research data. The free flow of information
and ideas underpins excellence in scholarship. It also contributes to the
building of informed communities, reduces barriers to learning, facilitates
the elimination of social and economic disadvantage and fosters
international collaboration and understanding.

Advancing Open Scholarship is dependent on systems of publishing and
communication that enable the rapid and affordable dissemination of the
outcomes of research and scholarship, and on the preservation of the
scholarly record for future use. The support of Open Scholarship by CAUL
recognises that:

Digital communications offer opportunities for the development of more
efficient and effective systems for the dissemination of information
including academic publishing.


Research is increasingly conducted globally by collaborations facilitated by
grids of communications and computing power. Access to shared information
resources assists such endeavours.


Open access to the outcomes of scholarship enhances the profile of
universities and research programs, contributes to the further advancement
of knowledge, and highlights the contributions of research funders.


Maintaining the quality and authority of academic publishing; the integrity
of the scholarly record and the rights of creators is of critical importance
and integral to open scholarship.


*Goals*

CAUL and its members seek to facilitate Open Scholarship by:

Collaborating with researchers, research institutions and publishers to
raise awareness of the principles, practice and benefits of open access
publishing.


Working with researchers and others to enable appropriate open access to
both their published works and their primary research data.


Advocating and implementing policies to ensure fair use of copyrighted
information for educational and research purposes.


Cooperating with the Australian Government to improve access to scholarly
information through maximising the amount of information in the public
domain or otherwise available without economic restriction through open
access to publicly funded research findings and data.


Developing infrastructure components, including institutional repositories,
that will
facilitate open access to scholarly information


CAUL acknowledges declarations in support of open access from the OECD, the
World Summit on the Information Society, the International Federation of
Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), universities and university
groups, research funding organisations, and from many bodies dedicated to
the advancement of knowledge and the building of open democratic societies.

-- 1 October 2010


[1] Open Access may be achieved in a variety of ways including publication
in an open access journal or other open scholarly medium or deposit in an
open access repository but its availability must satisfy the definition of
open access in the Budapest Open Access Initiative 2002 (
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml ):

By 'open access' to this literature, we mean its free availability on the
public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute,
print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for
indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful
purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those
inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint
on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this
domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work
and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.


For an overview of Open Access see
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm
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