Peter Suber just released the May 2008 SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Peter's feature article this month is "What we don't know about open access: research questions in need of researchers".
Also worth highlighting: the absolutely amazing progress towards open access reflected in Peter's Roundup Section. There are 10 items reporting open access mandate news, all very good news and including 5 new university open access policies, by the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET), Stirling University, Southampton University, Queen Margaret University, Sweden's University College of Borås, with more in the works. Wow!
Details:
The Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET) adopted its long-awaited OA mandate.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/05/ircset-adopts-oa-mandate.html
The new OA mandate at the NIH took effect for the majority of NIH grantees.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/day-worth-celebrating.html
The UK Medical Research Council revised its OA mandate. When the MRC pays for a gold OA article, then it will demand the removal of key permission barriers, not merely the removal of price barriers.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/revision-to-oa-mandate-at-mrc.html
The European Commission recommended OA for publicly-funded research in its April 10 report on tech transfer.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/ec-recommends-oa-for-publicly-funded.html
Stirling University adopted an OA mandate (on March 5, announced April 9), the first university-wide mandate in the UK the second (after Harvard's) to be adopted by faculty rather than administrators.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/stirling-u-adopts-oa-mandate.html
The University of Southampton adopted a university-wide OA mandate (announced April 4). Its School of Electronics and Computer Science has had a departmental mandate since 2001.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/university-wide-oa-mandate-at.html
Scotland's Queen Margaret University adopted an OA mandate (on February 19).
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/05/queen-margaret-university-adopts-oa.html
Sweden's University College of Borås adopted an OA policy encouraging faculty to deposit their journal articles in the institutional repository.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/oa-policy-at-sweden-university-college.html
The European University Association (EUA) released an updated version of its OA recommendations. The EUA calls on universities to mandate OA to their research output and to support OA mandates for publicly-funded research. The EUA has 791 institutional members in 46 countries.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/eua-updates-its-oa-recommendations.html
The Open University is considering an "immediate deposit / optional access" OA mandate.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/richard-poynder-interviews-bill.html
