APPENDIX 70
Memorandum from the World Summit on the
Information Society
"What are the consequences of increasing
numbers of open-access journals, Should the Government support
such a trend and, if so, how ?"
Our evidence addresses the point that the government
of the United Kingdom should support the trend towards open access
to scientific information, by reasons of existing recent international
commitments that have been undersigned by the United Kingdom.
Our evidence focuses on the recommendations
that have been adopted in December 2003, at the World Summit On
the Information Society (WSIS) (http://www.itu.int/wsis), the
negotiation process and subsequent suggestions to implement said
recommendations.
Yet another very recent international commitment
that might be of interest to consider is the Final Communiqué
of the Meeting of the OECD Committee for Scientific and Technological
Policy (CSTP) at Ministerial Level ( Paris, 29-30 January 2004).
Although we had an informal meeting at OECD recently concerning
this matter, we will not comment on this commitment in this written
evidence, for two reasons. First, because of lack of time, and
second because we were not officially involved in the OECD process.
However, we will be glad to answer questions concerning this topic
during oral evidence.
We assume that the reader is already conversant
with the concept of Open Access journals and Open Archives, so
there is no need of a lengthy presentation of the topic. For the
historical circumstances that lead us to the current situation,
an interesting article to consult is In Oldenburg's Long Shadow:
Librarians, Research Scientists, Publishers, and the Control of
Scientific Publishing by Jean-Claude Guédon.
There is, however, one important point that
we have to stress beforehand: Journals or archives that comply
fully with our definition of Open Access only if their websites
can be conveniently and freely copied and mirrored. The reason
for this point of view will be better understood later on. For
the sake of brevity, Open Access journals will be abbreviated
as Open Journals, whereas journals where access to content is
restricted to paying readers will be abbreviated as restricted
access journals or Restricted Journals.
The name "WSIS Civil Society Working Group
on Scientific Information" will be abbreviated as WG-SI.
1. PRESENTATION
OF THE
WSIS FROM A
LEGAL STANDPOINT
The World Summit On the Information Society
( WSIS ) is a summit of the United Nations. The two main reference
resolutions are the ITU Resolution 73, 1998 and the UN General
Assembly Resolution 56/18390th plenary meeting, 21 December
2001. The summit is being organised by the International Telecommunication
Union (ITU). The ITU, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland is
an international organisation within the United Nations System
where governments and the private sector coordinate global telecoms
networks and services. The International Telecommunication Union
is unique among international organisations in that it was founded
on the principle of co-operation between governments and the private
sector. The WSIS is the first UN summit, where the Civil Society
does officially participate. In this regard, it is a historic
event.
The goal of the first phase of the WSIS has
been to prepare two documents: a Declaration of Principles (exhibit
C) and a Plan of Action (exhibit D). In a way, the WSIS amounts
to a special plenary session of the UN general assembly. The only
WSIS participants that may vote are governments. Civil Society
NGOs are non-voting participants, they have the diplomatic status
of observers. The Civil Society is officially involved in the
preparation of these two key documents. At the end of PrepCom2,
some parts of the observers' contribution to the Declaration of
Principles and the Plan of Action have been included in the then
current Draft Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action. Therefore,
a few NGOs contributions have been included at that stage in documents
under negotiation. Later on, it was still possible for NGOs to
discuss and convince some state delegations to bring to the floor
new language or revision, and try to convince other state delegations
either to support or not to veto them.
In addition to five regional preparatory conferences,
the preparation of the Draft Declaration of Principles and Draft
Action Plan was achieved during several preparatory conferences
called "PrepCom".
PrepCom-1 Geneva (Switzerland), 1-5
July 2002
PrepCom-2 Geneva (Switzerland), 17-28
February 2003
Intersessional Meeting Paris (France)
15-18 July 2003
PrepCom3 Geneva (Switzerland), 15-26
September 2003
PrepCom3-A: Resumed Session 10-14
November 2003
PrepCom 3BSecond Resumed Session
56 & 9 December 2003
It can be therefore noticed that the negotiation
phase was quite long, and therefore adopted texts are not the
product of a summary process.
The WSIS itself is held in two meetings:
Geneva (Switzerland), 10-12 December
2003, where Declaration of Principles ( exhibit C ) and Plan of
Action ( exhibit D) were adopted.
Tunis (Tunisia), 16-18 November 2005,
where progress that has been made will be assessed and a further
plan of action will be adopted.
WSIS recommendations, and the word is clear,
cannot be enforced. However, they have a strong moral and political
weight and negotiations on their content are very intense. If
the WSIS recommendations were of no value, why there should be
such an intense diplomatic fight around them?
In fact, it would be quite difficult for any
government who undersigned the WSIS texts to take decisions that
go against the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of Action.
The degree of practical "enforceability" depends on
the topic. For example, in the matter of Internet governance,
if any recommendation can be approved on this topic, it is highly
likely that it would be applied. In the matter of the Digital
Solidarity Fund, a much lower level of compliance is expected.
At any rate, any government that enacts laws, or any entity (institution,
business, NGO) that takes measures, along the lines of the WSIS
recommendations shall be very hard to blame, and on the contrary
shall receive praises from the world assembly of nations, and
from the world civil society.
We had no time to explore this legal point,
but we tend to believe that UN recommendations have a "de
lege ferenda" value, which means that they must be officially
considered and discussed, in the preparation process of national
laws and executive orders.
Two points must be stressed: first recommendations
are adopted only after reaching the consensus of all 176 states,
second, there are adopted while taking into account global considerations.
Access to Scientific Information is not the sole topic of the
WSIS and this is quite appropriate indeed, because this topic
is considered within the framework of worldwide societal, cultural,
technological and economical development, and not just within
the narrower framework of the scientific community as it has been
mostly the case until now.
2. PRESENTATION
OF WSIS PARAGRAPHS
OF INTEREST
The paragraphs that have been adopted by the
assembly of nations and that are related in general, to knowledge
sharing and access to scientific information and more specifically
to scientific publishing are the following:
DECLARATION of PRINCIPLES
A. Our Common Vision of the Information Society
7. We recognise that science has a central
role in the development of the Information Society. Many of the
building blocks of the Information Society are the result of scientific
and technical advances made possible by the sharing of research
results.
8. We recognise that education, knowledge,
information and communication are at the core of human progress,
endeavour and well-being. Further, Information and Communication
Technologies (ICTs) have an immense impact on virtually all aspects
of our lives. The rapid progress of these technologies opens completely
new opportunities to attain higher levels of development. The
capacity of these technologies to reduce many traditional obstacles,
especially those of time and distance, for the first time in history
makes it possible to use the potential of these technologies for
the benefit of millions of people in all corners of the world.
10. We are also fully aware that the benefits
of the information technology revolution are today unevenly distributed
between the developed and developing countries and within societies.
We are fully committed to turning this digital divide into a digital
opportunity for all, particularly for those who risk being left
behind and being further marginalised.
B. An Information Society for All: Key Principles
3) Access to information and knowledge
1.24. The ability for all to access and
contribute information, ideas and knowledge is essential in an
inclusive Information Society.
2.
3.25 The sharing and strengthening of global
knowledge for development can be enhanced by removing barriers
to equitable access to information for economic, social, political,
health, cultural, educational, and scientific activities and by
facilitating access to public domain information, including by
universal design and the use of assistive technologies.
4.
5.26 A rich public domain is an essential
element for the growth of the Information Society, creating multiple
benefits such as an educated public, new jobs, innovation, business
opportunities, and the advancement of sciences. Information in
the public domain should be easily accessible to support the Information
Society, and protected from misappropriation. Public institutions
such as libraries and archives, museums, cultural collections
and other community-based access points should be strengthened
so as to promote the preservation of documentary records and free
and equitable access to information.
6.
7.28 We strive to promote universal access
with equal opportunities for all to scientific knowledge and the
creation and dissemination of scientific and technical information,
including open access initiatives for scientific publishing.
8.
9.4) Capacity building
32. Content creators, publishers, and producers,
as well as teachers, trainers, archivists, librarians and learners,
should play an active role in promoting the Information Society,
particularly in the Least Developed Countries.
6) Enabling environment
42. Intellectual Property protection is
important to encourage innovation and creativity in the Information
Society; similarly, the wide dissemination, diffusion, and sharing
of knowledge is important to encourage innovation and creativity.
Facilitating meaningful participation by all in intellectual property
issues and knowledge sharing through full awareness and capacity
building is a fundamental part of an inclusive Information Society.
44. Standardisation is one of the essential
building blocks of the Information Society. There should be particular
emphasis on the development and adoption of international standards.
The development and use of open, interoperable, non-discriminatory
and demand-driven standards that take into account needs of users
and consumers is a basic element for the development and greater
diffusion of ICTs and more affordable access to them, particularly
in developing countries. International standards aim to create
an environment where consumers can access services worldwide regardless
of underlying technology.
8) Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic
diversity and local content
53. The creation, dissemination and preservation
of content in diverse languages and formats must be accorded high
priority in building an inclusive Information Society, paying
particular attention to the diversity of supply of creative work
and due recognition of the rights of authors and artists. It is
essential to promote the production of and accessibility to all
contenteducational, scientific, cultural or recreationalin
diverse languages and formats. The development of local content
suited to domestic or regional needs will encourage social and
economic development and will stimulate participation of all stakeholders,
including people living in rural, remote and marginal areas.
C. Towards an Information Society for All
Based on Shared Knowledge
10. 65. We commit ourselves to strengthening
co-operation to seek common responses to the challenges and to
the implementation of the Plan of Action, which will realise the
vision of an inclusive Information Society based on the Key Principles
incorporated in this Declaration.
11.
12. 66. We further commit ourselves
to evaluate and follow-up progress in bridging the digital divide,
taking into account different levels of development, so as to
reach internationally agreed development goals, including those
contained in the Millennium Declaration, and to assess the effectiveness
of investment and international co-operation efforts in building
the Information Society.
13.
14. 67. We are firmly convinced that
we are collectively entering a new era of enormous potential,
that of the Information Society and expanded human communication.
In this emerging society, information and knowledge can be produced,
exchanged, shared and communicated through all the networks of
the world. All individuals can soon, if we take the necessary
actions, together build a new Information Society based on shared
knowledge and founded on global solidarity and a better mutual
understanding between peoples and nations. We trust that these
measures will open the way to the future development of a true
knowledge society.
PLAN of ACTION
C. Action Lines
C1. The role of governments and all stakeholders
in the promotion of ICTs for development
8. The effective participation of governments
and all stakeholders is vital in developing the Information Society
requiring co-operation and partnerships among all of them.
a) Development of national e-strategies,
including the necessary human capacity building, should be encouraged
by all countries by 2005, taking into account different national
circumstances.
b) Initiate at the national level a structured
dialogue involving all relevant stakeholders, including through
public/private partnerships, in devising e-strategies for the
Information Society and for the exchange of best practices.
d) Each country is encouraged to establish
at least one functioning Public/Private Partnership (PPP) or Multi-Sector
Partnership (MSP), by 2005 as a showcase for future action.
e) Identify mechanisms, at the national,
regional and international levels, for the initiation and promotion
of partnerships among stakeholders of the Information Society.
C3. Access to information and knowledge
10. ICTs allow people, anywhere in the world,
to access information and knowledge almost instantaneously. Individuals,
organisations and communities should benefit from access to knowledge
and information.
h) Support the creation and development of
a digital public library and archive services, adapted to the
Information Society, including reviewing national library strategies
and legislation, developing a global understanding of the need
for "hybrid libraries", and fostering worldwide co-operation
between libraries.
i) Encourage initiatives to facilitate access,
including free and affordable access to open access journals and
books, and open archives for scientific information
C4. Capacity building
Everyone should have the necessary skills to
benefit fully from the Information Society. Therefore capacity
building and ICT literacy are essential. ICTs can contribute to
achieving universal education worldwide, through delivery of education
and training of teachers, and offering improved conditions for
lifelong learning, encompassing people that are outside the formal
education process, and improving professional skills.
m) Promote international and regional cooperation
in the field of capacity building, including country programmes
developed by the United Nations and its Specialised Agencies
n) Launch pilot projects to design new forms
of ICT-based networking, linking education, training and research
institutions between and among developed and developing countries
and countries with economies in transition.
C6. Enabling environment
13. To maximise the social, economic and
environmental benefits of the Information Society, governments
need to create a trustworthy, transparent and non-discriminatory
legal, regulatory and policy environment. Actions include:
h) Develop a framework for the secure storage
and archival of documents and other electronic records of information.
p) Governments, in co-operation with other
stakeholders, should promote the development and use of open,
interoperable, non-discriminatory and demand-driven standards.
C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects
of life
14. ICT applications can support sustainable
development, in the fields of public administration, business,
education and training, health, employment, environment, agriculture
and science within the framework of national e-strategies. This
would include actions within the following sectors:
18. E-health
b) Facilitate access to the world's medical
knowledge and locally relevant content resources for strengthening
public health research and prevention programmes and promoting
women's and men's health.
22. E-science
b) Promote electronic publishing, differential
pricing and open access initiatives to make scientific information
affordable and accessible in all countries on an equitable basis.
c) Promote the use of peer-to-peer technology
to share scientific knowledge and pre-prints and reprints written
by scientific authors who have waived their right to payment.
d) Promote the long-term systematic and efficient
collection, dissemination and preservation of essential scientific
digital data, for example, population and meteorological data
in all countries.
e) Promote principles and metadata standards
to facilitate co-operation and effective use of collected scientific
information and data as appropriate to conduct scientific research.
C8. Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic
diversity and local content
23. Cultural and linguistic diversity, while
stimulating respect for cultural identity, traditions and religions,
is essential to the development of an Information Society based
on the dialogue among cultures and regional and international
cooperation. It is an important factor for sustainable development.
b) Develop national policies and laws to
ensure that libraries, archives, museums and other cultural institutions
can play their full role of contentincluding traditional
knowledgeproviders in the Information Society, more particularly
by providing continued access to recorded information.
c) Support efforts to develop and use ICTs
for the preservation of natural and, cultural heritage, keeping
it accessible as a living part of today's culture. This includes
developing systems for ensuring continued access to archived digital
information and multimedia content in digital repositories, and
support archives, cultural collections and libraries as the memory
of humankind.
d) Develop and implement policies that preserve,
affirm, respect and promote diversity of cultural expression and
indigenous knowledge and traditions through the creation of varied
information content and the use of different methods, including
the digitisation of the educational, scientific and cultural heritage.
e) Support local content development, translation
and adaptation, digital archives, and diverse forms of digital
and traditional media by local authorities. These activities can
also strengthen local and indigenous communities.
C11. International and regional co-operation
26. International co-operation among all
stakeholders is vital in implementation of this plan of action
and needs to be strengthened with a view to promoting universal
access and bridging the digital divide, inter alia, by provision
of means of implementation.
D. Digital Solidarity Agenda
27. The Digital Solidarity Agenda aims at
putting in place the conditions for mobilising human, financial
and technological resources for inclusion of all men and women
in the emerging Information Society. Close national, regional
and international co-operation among all stakeholders in the implementation
of this Agenda is vital. To overcome the digital divide, we need
to use more efficiently existing approaches and mechanisms and
fully explore new ones, in order to provide financing for the
development of infrastructure, equipment, capacity building and
content, which are essential for participation in the Information
Society.
D2. Mobilising resources
b) Developed countries should make concrete
efforts to fulfil their international commitments to financing
development including the Monterrey Consensus, in which developed
countries that have not done so are urged to make concrete efforts
towards the target of 0.7% of gross national product (GNP) as
ODA to developing countries and 0.15 to 0.20% of GNP of developed
countries to least-developed countries.
E) Follow-up and evaluation
28. A realistic international performance
evaluation and benchmarking (both qualitative and quantitative),
through comparable statistical indicators and research results,
should be developed to follow up the implementation of the objectives,
goals and targets in the Plan of Action, taking into account different
national circumstances.
a) In co-operation with each country concerned,
develop and launch a composite ICT Development (Digital Opportunity)
Index. It could be published annually, or every two years, in
an ICT Development Report. The index could show the statistics
while the report would present analytical work on policies and
their implementation, depending on national circumstances, including
gender analysis.
b) Appropriate indicators and benchmarking,
including community connectivity indicators, should clarify the
magnitude of the digital divide, in both its domestic and international
dimensions, and keep it under regular assessment, and tracking
global progress in the use of ICTs to achieve internationally
agreed development goals, including those of the Millennium Declaration.
c) International and regional organisations
should assess and report regularly on universal accessibility
of nations to ICTs, with the aim of creating equitable opportunities
for the growth of ICT sectors of developing countries.
e) Develop and launch a website on best practices
and success stories, based on a compilation of contributions from
all stakeholders, in a concise, accessible and compelling format,
following the internationally recognised web accessibility standards.
The website could be periodically updated and turned into a permanent
experience-sharing exercise.
F) Towards WSIS phase 2 (Tunis)
29. Recalling General Assembly Resolution
56/183 and taking into account the outcome of the Geneva phase
of the WSIS, a preparatory meeting will be held in the first half
of 2004 to review those issues of the Information Society which
should form the focus of the Tunis phase of the WSIS and to agree
on the structure of the preparatory process for the second phase.
In line with the decision of this Summit concerning its Tunis
phase, the second phase of the WSIS should consider, inter
alia:
a) Elaboration of final appropriate documents
based on the outcome of the Geneva phase of the WSIS with a view
to consolidating the process of building a global Information
Society, and reducing the Digital Divide and transforming it into
digital opportunities.
3. COMMENTARIES
ON SELECTED
WSIS PARAGRAPHS
Commentaries are needed to better appreciate
the meaning of the texts, their extent as well as their legal
and political consequences within the context of Open Access.
DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES
A. Our Common Vision of the Information Society
7. This paragraph is based on a language
promoted by ICSU (International Council for Science) ((http://www.icsu.org)
in section C3, it was heavily modified and shortened by the US
delegation, while being put in the first section A. The "sharing
of research results" is underlined, which is quite fitting
with the Open Access philosophy.
8. It is recognised that the rapid progress
of these technologies opens completely new opportunities to attain
higher levels of development. Open Access may be identified as
one of those new opportunities.
10. The term win/win proposition has been
present for a long time in the various drafts, but has been removed,
possibly being too colloquial, and replace by the term "digital
opportunity for all". Open Access may be be identified as
a win/win proposition because it creates immediate benefits to
transition countries, while providing long term savings to industrialised
nations.
B. An Information Society for All: Key Principles
3) Access to information and knowledge
15.
16. 26 This importance of the public
domain is recognised, and this implies that national regulations
should not hinder its growth. The role of libraries and archives
is underlined.
17.
18. 28. This is a key paragraph for
Open Access. The term "strive" is a strong term that
replaced "encourage" upon proposition of the Iranian
delegation, after negotiation with the United States. The words
"including open access initiatives for scientific publishing"
are the results of the joint efforts of the WG-SI and the Croatian
delegation that brought this language to the floor. Tense negotiations
were conducted with the United States and the European delegations
to the effect of agreeing on a precise language that they would
not veto. China and India were consulted also on the precise language.
4) Capacity building
32. The whole civil society, including the
WG-SI, lobbied so that the language "copyright holders"
will be removed in favor of recognising the active role of content
creators that are, unfortunately, often obliged to yield or sell
their copyrights under questionable or inequitable circumstances
to publishers that are then using and abusing those rights (often
well beyond the true intent of creators) that were primarily conceived
for the protection of authors. Indeed the fact that scientific
authors are passively donating their copyrights to restricted
journals, without the possibility to negotiate the terms of copyright
transfer (in particular the duration of copyright transfer) is
illustrating the fact they do not play an active role. This is
raising serious questions about the fairness and legal validity
of such copyright transfer "agreements". We would recommend
that in order that scientific content creators to retain an active
role, the duration of copyright transfer related to donated scientific
content shall not exceed five years, upon which the copyright
is returned to the author, which is then free to give his/her
work to the public domain as originally intended.
6) Enabling environment
42. It is recognised that Intellectual Property
protection (a ill suited term that covers dissimilar issues such
as patents and copyrights) is important to encourage knowledge
sharing and not to restrict it.
44. The development of open, interoperable,
non-discriminatory standards is promoted. In particular, in the
case of Scientific Publishing, the development of a proprietary
and expensive Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system CrossRef
(http://www.crossref.org) by an alliance of commercial publishers,
discriminates against Open Access publishers that cannot interoperate
with such a system, for all practical purposes, for financial
reasons.
8) Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic
diversity and local content
53. The creation of local scientific content
is encouraged. Many transition countries are often subsidising
through their national academies, restricted scientific journals
that are little known and have little impact. Open Access is an
attractive paradigm to develop local scientific content production
and publishing. In fact, this is one of the reasons of the key
support of some transition countries at the WSIS in favour of
Open Access. However poor connection and low bandwidth is an obstacle
in order to access to those local Open Access servers. A practical
condition is that mirrors of those Open Journals be installed
in high bandwidth servers in industrialized countries so that
those journals become easily available.
CI. Towards an Information Society for All
Based on Shared Knowledge
21. 66. An interesting aspect of the
summit is that progress will be evaluated. Nations that are going
to be slow to implement the WSIS recommendations will face the
judgement of fellow nations with an official venue, where of course
the civil society will make it best to showcase those who are
compliant as well as those who are reluctant. Non compliant nations
might therefore pay a heavy political price, while a compliant
nation, like Norway, is reaping international prestige and influence.
22.
23. 67. It is underlined that the information
is a society based on shared knowledge, well in tune with the
Open Access paradigm and in conflict with the business model of
restricted journals.
PLAN OF ACTION
CI. Action Lines
C1. The role of governments and all stakeholders
in the promotion of ICTs for development
8. It is underlined that governments should
take effective actions. It also suggests that other stakeholders
such as civil society groups should contact members of national
parliaments, and government in order to invite them to take effective
actions. Within this framework, the WG-SI is planning to make
every effort so that parliamentary inquiries are conducted in
various countries. The current inquiry is a good surprise that
spares us the effort to initiate a parliamentary inquiry in the
United Kingdom.
a) Legal actions as other practical measures
in favour of Open Access are therefore expected to be part of
each national e-strategy by 2005.
b) It is interesting to note that a structured
dialogue involving all relevant stakeholders, is recommended at
each national level.
d) An Open Access initiative can be built
as a Multi-Sector Partnership (MSP) by 2005. In fact, in the United
Kingdom, this partnership may include a business entity, since
a commercial Open Access publisher (http://www.biomedcentral.com)
is located in the Kingdom.
e) At the international level, the United
Kingdom may participate to program providing financial support
to Open Access Journals, as well as international Open Archives
projects.
C3. Access to information and knowledge
10.
h) The language of this paragraph was successfully
promoted by the International Federation of Library Associations
and Institutions (IFLA) (http://www.ifla.org) whose lobbying has
been very active and efficient at the WSIS. The Open Access paradigm
is very well suited to the development of digital public libraries,
in contrast to the restricted access paradigm which creates countless
practical and legal problems.
i) This paragraph is a key paragraph in explicit
support to Open Access and was the occasion of an intense lobbying
by the WG-SI and many diplomatic fights. The initial text of this
paragraph has been written by the WG-SI and has been included
in the governments' draft at the end of PrepCom2. The text came
under discussion during PrepCom3. The current text is fruit of
the joint efforts by the Kenyan and Croatian delegations at PrepCom3B.
The word "free and affordable access" may seem redundant
at first glance, but it was added at the request of the representative
from Sudan (at PrepCom3, during an ad hoc government working
group where Dr. Francis Muguet was kindly allowed to assist.).
It may be explained from the perspective of an access from a developing
country, where the cost of communication and not just the free
access to the server must be taken into account. The WG-SI also
included books because accounts of scientific research are also
reported in books. Support to the open archive initiative (http://www.openarchives.org)
is also explicitly mentioned. Open archives constitute a crucial
component of the Open Access movement, along with Open Access
journals.
C4. Capacity building
m) It implies that national bodies are invited
to finance Open Access Initiatives through the help of UNITAR
for example.
n) An innovative Open Access initiative can
certainly be construed as a pilot project involving news of forms
of ICT-based networking, between and among developed and developing
countries. For example, our proposal (see below) of a preprints
server that would allow encrypted preprints, as well as a peer-to-peer
service could both qualify as pilot projects.
C6. Enabling environment
13.
h) this seems quite in tune with the Open
Archive Initiative.
p) this reaffirms what has been written in
paragraph 44 of the Declaration of Principles.
C7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects
of life
14. Open Access Initiatives may also be
considered as ICT applications within the framework of national
e-strategies.
18. E-health
b) The only way to truly facilitate access
to the world's medical knowledge that is contained in scientific
journals is that all medical journals should be open access. It
is an urgent health matter, an international emergency. It is
not exaggerated to state that people are currently dying because
of the lack of open access that prevents many medical practitioners
from accessing to updated or specialized medical knowledge.
22. E-science
b) This is yet another paragraph where Open
Access is explicitly supported. WG-SI has been very active in
promoting Open Access in this paragraph. ICSU has been active
in promoting "differential pricing", that may apply
both to the price being paid by readers, within the Restricted
Access paradigm, as well as publication charges paid by authors
within the Open Access paradigm.
c) This content of this paragraph is the
text exactly as it has been written by the WG-SI during PrepCom2.
It has been accepted in the governments' draft and was never modified
ever since. It has been a very pleasant surprise to notice that
the innovative of use of peer-to-peer technology has been encouraged,
while in some misinformed circles the word P2P has been assimilated
to piracy. The recent legal decisions in high courts in the United
States and in Holland has clarified the distinction between the
technology and the content that is channelled through this new
ICT technology. The P2P technology in fact alleviates the bandwidth
demand to servers, because the download burden is shared between
users. A P2P between scientists may constitute a third component
of the Open Access movement, along with Journals and Archives,
that would allow also the sharing of informal documents (lecture
notes, conference presentations, etc) either within restricted
groups (group P2P) or worldwide.
d) Within scientific digital data, we also
inclined to include also databases such genomic databases.
e) This language of this paragraph has been
successfully promoted by IFLA.
C8. Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic
diversity and local content
23.
b) Again the crucial role of libraries, archives
is underlined. It must be stressed that the local "traditional
or indigenous knowledge" of such a country like Great Britain
includes naturally Science which is a vibrant part of the local
knowledge, even before the days of Isaac Newton.
D. Digital Solidarity Agenda
27. It is clear that action in favour of
Open Access can be accounted within the framework of a national
contribution to The Digital Solidarity Agenda.
D2. Mobilising resources
b) Developed countries are going to have
to make concrete efforts to fulfil their international commitments
to financing development. Efforts that could be made in favour
of Open Access can be included in the fulfilment of international
commitments. In fact, developed countries governments are quite
desperate to find development schemes that would be the most effective,
while spending as little as possible. In this context, Open Access
appears almost like miraculous, because any financing action that
could be undergone is expected not only to have a practical impact
in developing countries but also to benefit to developed countries,
up to the point of generating significant long term savings in
those developed countries. Open Access financing can be achieved
both in the name of a national scientific effort, but also in
the name of international solidarity, therefore being able to
draw financial resources and political support from different
allocated budgets and ministries.
E. Follow-up and evaluation
28. An interesting aspect of the WSIS is
that evaluation of the concrete efforts is going to be achieve.
The WG-SI would make every effort so that the effective implementation
of Open Access to scientific information would be realistically
evaluated, building a strong international pressure towards its
implementation.
a) The WG-SI would make every effort so that
Open Access compliance is included in the composite ICT Development
(Digital Opportunity) Index and analysed the ICT Development Report.
b) Open Access compliance should be evaluated
in terms of an element to bridge the digital divide, in both its
domestic and international dimensions.
c) International and regional organizations
should assess and report regularly on the progress of Open Access.
e) The WG-SI is going to make every effort
so that effective and successful efforts in favour of Open Access
will be reported in the WSIS website on best practices and success
stories,
F. Towards WSIS phase 2 (Tunis)
29.
a) In Tunis, efforts in favour of Open Access
are going to be officially evaluated before the assembly of the
world nations, resulting in a strong political pressure towards
effective steps before 2005.
4. THE ISSUES
WITHIN THE
FRAMEWORK OF
THE WSIS
The issues at the WSIS, were discussed both
from the perspective of developing and transition countries as
well as from the standpoint of industrialised nations.
4.A Issues from the standpoint of developing
countries :
4.A.1 Access to scientific information located
in industrialized countries.
As we raised awareness, during the WSIS negotiations,
Open Access is a prerequiste to sustainable development. Without
a decent access to scientific knowledge, any able scientist and
engineer is almost forced to flee to a country where such a decent
access exists, therefore creating a brain drain which is an insufferable
damage to nascent academic bodies that are the basis of a high
quality education system. The brain drain also affects the pool
of technologists that constitutes the reservoir of high tech entrepreneurs.
In many developing countries, the Internet connection
bandwidth is low and the cost (often depending on the amount of
data being transfered) is very high. Therefore, a practical way,
without waiting that network facilities are upgraded, is to install
local mirrors of resources located in industrialised countries.
One must note that Australia (not a poor country) is maintaining
a proxy server (a transparent mirror) at the national level to
save transoceanic bandwidth. Therefore the development of scientific
resources that can be easily mirrored (or proxied) is urgently
needed. In difficult conditions that are not so uncommon, the
copy of the resources on digital media such as CDs offer an attractive
solution. CDs are very cheap to produce and to send by regular
mail, and can be distributed efficiently even in remote areas.
To give practical examples, MDPI had to send a CD in Russia to
implement a mirror of its Open Access journals in this country.
In Africa, many university campuses and libraries have just a
phone dial up connection, while having a decent 10/100 Ethernet
local area network. Sending CDs to those campuses and installing
local mirrors might constitute practical and immediate remedies
to the current dire situation.
It must be stressed that not all the web sites
of so called "Open Access Journals", that allow effective
free access, do not technically allow an easy mirroring, even
though their content is also stored in Open Archives. Progress
must be achieved in this regard.
With good intents, as advocated by ICSU, some
differential pricing initiatives have been undertaken to alleviate
the cost of access to the content of restricted journals located
in developing countries. First, those differential pricing initiatives
have always been undertaken within a rather rigid framework of
digital right management and authentication that the poorest developing
countries have not even the resources to manage. Furthermore non
academic personnel such as students, engineers, medical practitioners
are excluded from those deals. Second, those initiatives cannot
allow mirrors, efficient proxies and of course, copying on physical
media is absolutely out of question. Therefore, differential pricing
initiatives within a restricted access context, are technically
unable to bridge the digital divide and meet the WSIS challenge.
In this context, is not surprising that the
World Federation of Engineering Organisations, (WFEO) (http://www.unesco.org/fmoi/)
has voiced, during the speech of its representative at the WSIS,
an explicit support to Open Access.
4.A2 Access to and development of scientific
information sources in developing and transition countries.
Developing and transition countries are also
trying to develop their own scientific resources. They feel really
unfair that their own scientists must donate papers to media that
they cannot afford to buy. Local scientific journals, to which
local scientists may submit their papers are ignored in the industrialised
world as well as in other developing countries. China is an example
and recently Lu Yongxiang, president of the Chinese Academy of
Science undersigned the Berlin declaration (29 December 2003)
(exhibit B). We may give also the example of Croatia, whose delegation
has been so supportive during the WSIS. Croatian scientific journals
are subsidized by the Academy of Science, but even if the subscription
cost is low, very few libraries (even inside Europe) are subscribers.
Turning to the Open Access paradigm make senses. However, and
this specifically true for servers based in Africa, heavy access
to Open Access journals servers located in developing countries
may clog already saturated connections. Therefore, mirroring must
be implemented in high bandwidth computer centers in industrialized
countries, to allow fast and efficient access from industrialized
countries as well as from other developing countries.
It is also clear that an international funded
waiver program is necessary concerning publication charges, otherwise
yet another digital divide on the authors' side will be created.
It should allow any researcher in any country (even in supposedly
rich ones) but without enough official financial assistance to
be able to submit papers to affordable Open Access journals (500
euros publication charge). Such a program could be modeled as
an extension of a past waiver program from the Soros foundation
that was targeted only to specific countries.
4.A Issues from the standpoint of industrialized
countries:
In industrialized countries, in contrast to
developing countries, the awareness in favour of Open Access is
not as recent. In the Budapest Open Access Initiative (exhibit
D) (14 February 2002), a clear strategy was outlined that considers
both the Open Archives initiative and the Open Access Journal
movement:
To achieve open access to scholarly journal
literature, we recommend two complementary strategies:
I. Self-Archiving: First, scholars need
the tools and assistance to deposit their refereed journal articles
in open electronic archives, a practice commonly called, self-archiving.
When these archives conform to standards created by the Open Archives
Initiative, then search engines and other tools can treat the
separate archives as one. Users then need not know which archives
exist or where they are located in order to find and make use
of their contents.
II. Open-access Journals: Second, scholars
need the means to launch a new generation of journals committed
to open access, and to help existing journals that elect to make
the transition to open access.
This awareness was spurred by the spiral of
ever increasing subscription prices to restricted journals. With
commercial publishers, the current situation can be understood
as the result of an unfair market place. With a few learned societies,
this can be understood if those learned societies see their publications
as their main financial resource for maintaining an important
infrastructure, while adopting the policy that free diffusion
of knowledge is not their prime concern. We feel that learned
societies, if they wish to keep their privileged tax exempted
status (which amounts to indirect state grant) should abide by
a few ethical guidelines, which should include the adoption of
an Open Access policy, now recommended by the WSIS, and therefore
also implicitly recommended by the United Kingdom government.
It has been stressed many times that the current
situation is absurd, in macroeconomical terms, because the scientific
community is donating content to publishers that are then reselling
to the very same community, the very same donated content at a
very high price.
In moral terms, it has been underlined also
that the mission of the research agencies and philanthropic foundations
would be indeed incomplete, if they are funding research for the
benefit of the whole humanity, while not taking care that accounts
of funded research efforts are not freely available to the whole
humanity.
We are also underlining that Open Access would
also benefit economically to small and large businesses that may
access freely to scientific and technical information, and therefore,
adoption of an Open Access policy is expected to spur economical
growth and high tech employment.
In the Budapest Open Access Initiative (exhibit
D), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (30 June
2003) (exhibit A) and the position statement by the Wellcome Trust
in support of open access publishing (October 1,2003) various
philanthropic foundations and institutions have taken a position
in favour of Open Access.
The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge
in the Sciences and Humanities (22 Oct 2003) (exhibit B) constitutes
a step further, because it is a declaration that has been undersigned
by the majors French and German public research and funding agencies.
Greece also joined.
Within the very short time frame of this inquiry,
the CNRS (http://www.cnrs.fr) and INSERM (http://www.inserm.fr)
the two main French research agencies that undersigned the Berlin
Declaration did not had time to officially submit evidences to
this inquiry. However, it might be possible, during oral evidences,
to relate informally their positions and their motives.
We shall not deal further with those topics,
which we expect, will be dealt with, in considerable details in
other written evidences.
If the transition to the Open Access paradigm
is to be as fast as possible, the funding entities (research agencies,
philanthropic foundations) must be able to propose a compulsory
Open Access policy, which fund recipients must comply with.
Within the context of the WSIS, if industrialised
countries can make savings while supporting Open Access, this
is very good, but Open Access is still a recommended policy even
if it were the case that the implementation of Open Access would
result in extra costs in industrialised countries.
It appears quite certain that in the long run,
the implementation of Open Access journals and archives would
generate huge savings if subscriptions to costly restricted journals
can be canceled. The problem is that current restricted journals
are maintaining a huge digital archive of past scientific work,
therefore universities, libraries, public and private research
laboratories might fell compelled to maintain their subscription
to restricted journals only for this reason. An effective remedy
to this situation must be proposed. We propose that a legal statute
would affect past and existing copyright agreements concerning
donated scientific content, limiting the duration of the transfer
agreement to five years. We are not proposing to limit the duration
of the copyright protection itself, simply the copyright will
be turned back to the author, or its employer, while the article
should become automatically freely available in Open Archives.
The author will keep the full copyright protection concerning
non financial items such as quotes, excerpts, plagiarism, etc.
Of course, this measure must be extended to other countries to
be effective.
Concerning the policy that should be adopted
by funding entities, it is clear that because of shear inertia,
or because of fear of retribution from publishers, a compulsory
policy must be adopted.
Concerning the compulsory submission of preprints
to an archive, some serious and valid concerns by authors must
be taken into account. Some authors are eager to send open preprints
as they see preprints as ways to quickly protect their scientific
anteriority. On the contrary, some authors are afraid that some
errors that might be pointed by referees, be revealed worldwide,
or even rejection of manuscripts be known. This could prove embarrassing.
In other circumstances, some restricted publishers would not even
consider manuscripts whose content has been publicly revealed
under the motive of lack of novelty. To address those issues,
it is proposed (F Muguet), that it could be offered as an option
to authors to encrypt submitted preprints. The decryption keys
would be only publicly released by the authors for the preprint
version that is deemed acceptable to authors. If the manuscript
is rejected, no decryption key is ever released. Implementation
of such a policy does not offer much technical obstacles and an
encryption module is already available in the GNU EPrints software.
The fine prints of this optional encryption policy must be still
refined.
5. PROPOSITIONS
TOWARDS THE
IMPLEMENTATION OF
WSIS RESOLUTIONS BY
THE UNITED
KINGDOM GOVERNMENT
Succinctly we would recommend as legal national
actions that might undertaken by the United Kingdom parliament
or government, within the framework of the implementation of the
WSIS resolutions, the following items:
1. Limit the duration of past and future
agreements that concern copyright transfer to a publisher, in
the matter of donated scientific or educational content, to five
years.
2. Maintain the legal and tax status of
non-profit organisations only to learned societies and philanthropic
organisations that abide by an Open Access policy.
3. Participate to the WSIS digital solidarity
fund, and affect part of its financial resources to fund Open
Access and Open Archives initiatives worldwide, either as direct
support to those initiatives or by financing publication charge
waiver programs.
4. Participate in the follow up procedure
of the WSIS, while taking care that Open Access compliance is
monitored.
5. Enjoin state research agencies to enforce
Open Access policies (see below).
6. Provide support to a public Digital Object
Identifier system.
7. Participate to WSIS pilot projects and
to Multi-Sector Partnerships (MSP).
6. PROPOSITIONS
TOWARDS THE
IMPLEMENTATION OF
WSIS RESOLUTIONS BY
THE FUNDING
ENTITIES
Funding entities should:
1. Provide specific funding for publication
charges in affordable Open Access journals.
2. Provide funding or assistance to Open
Archives in proportion to their usage by funded scientists.
3. Enforce that funded scientists submit
their preprints in an Open Archive, either in an open format,
or in an encrypted format.
4. Enforce that funded scientists submit
their papers to Open Access journals if available in the related
domain, otherwise leave the final version of their preprints,
finalised with corrections, in an open format in an Open Archive.
5. Encourage funded scientists to use P2P
software in order to share scientific knowledge.
6. Become accredited at the WSIS, actively
participate to the WSIS process, to pilot projects and to Multi-Sector
Partnerships (MSP).
February 2004
|