[WSIS CS-Plenary] RE: [SWISS CS-Plenary] ITU and open access recommendations of WSIS

[Atanu Garai]

Few observations:
At a general level, UN organisations should actively promote the access of
its content, especially for the developing and least developed nations by
appropriate financial and access mechanisms. This policy can be translated
in a variety of ways, including making pdfs freely available online,
adhering to preferred pricing mechanism (ICIMOD follows this route) for its
print publication, making low cost reprints in target countries (UNRISD is
bringing out cheaper co-published paperbacks in India), providing free pdfs
to signed-up institutions, to name a few.

by and large the issues related to open content should deal with - policies
of UN agencies on open content and its uniformity across the UN system,
national government policies, methodologies (access mechanism and financing)
and institutional capacity building.

--
atanu

-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org]On
Behalf Of Zielinski, Christopher
Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2005 9:23 PM
To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Subject: RE: [WSIS CS-Plenary] ITU and open access recommendations of
WSIS


Parminder,

Hi. To pick up on two points in your message:

>>detailed research is in order to find out

>>*how much money gets generated by sale of these documents,
>>*to what extend this collection really supports the kind of support
activities mentioned by you
>>*to what extend pricing online access just blocks outreach of these
documents, even in developing countries
>>*and how effective are the distribution mechanisms for these documents
in print form in developing countries (this point is especially
important - do those who need them able to get them, or do these docs
just get send to some mailing lists)>>

You are welcome to carry out the research! Most of the information is
readily available in public documents. However, all sorts of independent
and governing body scrutiny committees regularly examine the statistics
and debate the targeting of the information. The money gathered usually
is recycled into publications and salaries through one mechanism or
another - each organization does this differently, and it would be quite
complex (though interesting) to make comparisons. How effective all of
this is (your bullet 4), is certainly open to question and, believe me,
the question is asked quite frequently. Your third bullet is, for me,
the one which hasn't much been studied to date. It would be good to have
an answer.

>>The WSIS-Geneva POA speaks not only of open access to journals but
also to books and open archives for scientific information. There is a
shortcoming in this point of POA that it does not specifically mention
'useful development information' - which should have been there.>>

I agree. There is a definitional issue here. I think we agree that there
should be "universal access" to what I have been calling "essential
information" in all formats of publication. The Unesco definition of
universal access embodies this concept: "equitable and affordable access
by all citizens to information infrastructure (notably to the Internet)
and to information and knowledge essential to collective and individual
human development"
(http://www.unesco.nl/images/recommendation_promotion_and_use_of_multili
ngualism.pdf). This is what the POA should assert.

Regarding "open access" and journals - the definition used by the
Budapest OA Initiative covers "scientific and scholarly research texts
that authors give to publishers and readers without asking for any kind
of royalty or payment... [p]rimarily, this category
encompasses...peer-reviewed journal articles, but it also includes any
unreviewed preprints that [scholars] might wish to put online for
comment or to alert colleagues to important research findings... It does
not include books from which their authors would prefer to generate
revenue. It does not include any non-scholarly writings, such as novels
or news." (http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#literature)

Best,

Chris

Chris Zielinski (in private capacity)
STP, Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research
RPC/EIP, World Health Organization
Avenue Appia, CH1211, Geneva, Switzerland
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