The Royal Society in London, the world’s oldest learned society, is going open access. If they can do it, why can’t the Canadian funding agencies such as SSHRC?
Post Tagged with: "open access"
Open Access and Public Health
The World Health Organization’s regular bulletin includes an interesting editorial on the link between open access and public health.
SSHRC Backtracks on Open Access
Disappointing news from Peter Suber’s excellent Open Access blog, where he reports that the SSHRC has slowed down its quest to adopt open access principles into its research approach. In October 2004, SSHRC decided to move toward an open access approach that would increase access to its (publicly) funded research. Following consultations, the funding agency has now stated that "the idea of open access to all research is widely accepted, but presents a number of implementation obstacles, and the community is by and large cautious. Rather than imposing mandatory requirements on researchers to publish via open access, Council chose to increase awareness of open access, pursue discussions with major stakeholders, and gradually incorporate open access provisions in research support programs."
Copyright Law and the Law
This week Slaw is hosting a theme week on copyright and asked me to kick things off with a guest post. I've cross-posted below but head on over to the site and join in the discussion.
While the timing of a new Canadian copyright reform bill remains a mystery, there is little doubt that lawyers will play an important role whenever the successor to Bill C-60 is unveiled. Whether as advocates, lobbyists, counsel, or independent experts, copyright reform invariably unleashes a torrent of conferences, workshops, papers, blog postings, and opinion pieces prominently featuring members of the legal profession.
Often missing from the process, however, is discussion about the impact of copyright law on the law. The bar's lack of participation in assessing copyright law's impact on the legal profession is unfortunate, since the legal perspective would add an important dimension to the debate. Indeed, it is no coincidence that arguably the most important Supreme Court of Canada copyright law in recent memory – CCH Canadian v. Law Society of Upper Canada – struck directly at the intersection between copyright and the law.
If the legal profession were to become engaged in the copyright reform process with itself as the client, what issues might it address? I'd like to cite four as a starting point and encourage Slawyers to add to the list. My four include:
CIHR Open to Open Access
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, one of the three main federal research funding agencies, has just announced that it plans to pursue a new open access policy for funded research. Notes the CIHR: "The aim is to establish a policy that will both help researchers gain access to the […]