Open Access Week is the perfect excuse to talk about a favorite topic of mine—making Smithsonian research more open! A couple years ago, I wrote a post about a Tableau dashboard released by Smithsonian Libraries and Archives that explores the Open Access status of publications from Smithsonian-affiliated authors. Since then, we have taken things a step further, using the same source data to enhance Smithsonian Research Online directly by including links to open access versions of Smithsonian journal articles thanks to Unpaywall’s API. This means we have added over 8,000 links to journal articles anyone can read regardless of affiliation.
Tag: open access
In celebration of this year’s annual Open Access Week, the Smithsonian Research Online team will be releasing a new dashboard on our statistics page that includes data about the openness more »
The Smithsonian will soon develop procedures for complying with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s directive on public access to federally funded research. That means that most papers authored by Smithsonian staff and affiliates will be made available to the public at no charge, some after an embargo period. There are several methods being developed by other federal agencies to meet this requirement and the Smithsonian has kept abreast of these policies. But aside from the White House mandate, it is clear that Smithsonian authors are increasingly making their scholarship freely available via publishing with an open access (OA) publisher. On average, there are about 350* OA papers published each year by Smithsonian scientists. This represents nearly 15% of research output.
Join us for a Wikipedia Loves Libraries Editathon at the Smithsonian American Art and Portrait Gallery Library, focusing on American Artists at the World’s Columbian Exposition. This event will include new editor training, an afternoon Editathon, and an evening happy hour. No experience necessary–technical or subject!
As noted elsewhere in this blog, the publication record of Smithsonian scholars includes a growing portion of open access (OA) articles. During 2012, nearly 14% of scientific papers authored by Smithsonian scientists were published in OA journals. This is up from 7% in 2008 and it is expected to grow.
What if you could search the research output of hundreds of institutions in one place, gaining access to some of the most important research being done on any number of fields of interest?
The open access (OA) movement has a lot of moving parts. For example it has led some research funding agencies to mandate that research publications resulting from grants should be made publicly available. A recent memo from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy requires federal science agencies to prepare a policy for making the published results of scientific research available to the public. The Smithsonian Institution is now working to formalize its policy.