Open Reading Frame

On FriendFeed, items move back up the temporal sequence when they get "likes" and comments, giving them extra chances to be noticed. In addition, a "like" or comment from one of your friends will bring an item into view even if posted by someone whose stream you don't follow. The emerging mores of the system include leaving a one-word comment, bump, to indicate that one feels a particular item is worthy of wider attention -- "bumping" the item up the queue, as it were.

That's what I'm doing with this post. Richard Poynder is trying to put together a list of institutions and funding bodies which have established funds to pay for Gold Open Access:

I am trying to establish how many research institutions and funders have created Gold Open Access (Gold OA) authors funds, and would be grateful for input from others.
I am aware that the Wellcome Trust announced a scheme for paying OA publication fees for its grantees in 2006. But what other funders have introduced such schemes?

So far as research institutions are concerned, Peter Suber kindly provided me with the following list of those he knows have created Gold OA funds:

University of Amsterdam
University of Calgary
University of California, Berkeley
Delft University of Technology
ETH Zurich
Griffith University
University of Helsinki
Institute of Social Studies (Netherlands)
Lund University
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
University of Nottingham
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Texas A&M University
Tilburg University
Wageningen University and Research Center
University of Wisconsin

However, I do not think this list is complete.

Richard also points out that it is probably useful to keep track of which Gold funds are complemented by a Green mandate, and makes the (imo excellent) suggestion of establishing a Gold Fund equivalent to ROARMAP, which tracks Green Mandates.

So -- *bump* -- please go read Richard's post, and help him out if you can.

Update: Peter Suber has created and pre-populated the Open Access Directory list of journal OA funds, so if you have information please add it there.

12 OA STATISTICS AND SOME CONCLUSIONS

(full text: http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/591-guid.html )

#1: The vast majority of current (peer-reviewed) journal articles are not OA (Open Access) (neither Green OA nor Gold OA ).

#2: The vast majority of journals are not Gold OA.

#3: The vast majority of journals are Green OA.

#4: The vast majority of citations are to the top minority of articles (the Pareto/Seglen 90/10 rule).

#5: The vast majority of journals (or journal articles) are not among the top minority of journals (or journal articles).

#6: The vast majority of the top journals are not Gold OA.

#7: The vast majority of the top journals are Green OA.

#8: The vast majority of article authors would comply willingly with a Green OA mandate from their institutions and/or funders.

#9: The vast majority of institutions and funders do not yet mandate Green OA.

#10: The vast majority of Gold OA journals are not paid-publication journals.

#11: The vast majority of the top Gold OA journals are paid-publication journals.

#12: The vast majority of institutions do not have the funds to subscribe to all the journals their users need.

CONCLUSION 1: The fact that the vast majority of Gold OA journals are not paid-publication journals is not relevant if we are concerned about providing OA to the articles in the top journals.

CONCLUSION 2: Green OA, mandated by institutions and funders, is the vastly underutilized means of providing OA.

IMPLICATION: It is far more productive (of OA) for universities and funders to mandate Green OA than to fund Gold OA.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

Comment number: 019583 Posted by: Stevan Harnad on June 17, 2009 04:10 PM from IP: 70.29.210.81