The SCOAP3 Consortium aims to shift the entire field of High Energy Physics to open access publishing, by re-directing subscription funds. So far, over half the necessary commitments have been received, and SCOAP3 is growing fast!
Thanks to Peter Brantley for blogging some notes on the February 29 meeting on the SCOAP3 Consortium at Berkeley.
SCOAP3 builds on the tradition of sharing of preprints that is part of the culture of high energy physics research, first through paper, then through the arXiv server. In HEP, journals are needed for officialdom; but arXiv is what researchers read.
While SCOAP3 is a global consortium requiring everyone to commit to succeed, it is actually much simpler than other existing HEP collaborations, according to CERN's Salvatore Mele. For example, the LCH Atlas Detector serves involves 40 funding agencies and over 1,000 contracts!
SCOAP3 is a great model for a stable, planned transition of an entire field to OA publishing. If your institution is involved in High Energy Physics research - please sign on!
This post is part of the Transitioning to Open Access Series.
Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News.
