Forskarmöten om Open Access

Forskarmöten om Open Access Ett projekt finansierat av Kungl. bibliotekets utvecklingsprogram Openaccess.se. Slutrapport Projekttid: Jan 2008 Jan 2010 Projektdeltagare: Peter Linde BTH (projektledare) Maria Kinger och Lars Kullman - Chalmers Aina Svensson - Uppsala universitet Helena Stjernberg och Jörgen Eriksson - Lunds universitet Linda Sohlberg - Växjö universitet Thomas Lundén - Högskolan i Skövde Birgitta Stevinger - Göteborgs universitet Mats Brenner - Högskolan i Gävle (från delprojektet Open Access Mediapedagogiskt nätverk ) Projektmöten: 080128 i Karlskrona, 080423 i Göteborg, 080930 i Stockholm, 090216 i Lund och 091126 i Uppsala Bakgrund och syfte Forskarmöten om Open Access startades som en fortsättning på och vidareutveckling av det avslutade projektet Open Access utbildningspaket för forskare, som slutrapporterades 2007 till Kungl. biblioteket. 1 Det huvudsakliga syftet med de båda projekten har varit att öka forskares kännedom om Open Access och därmed bidra till ett ökat innehåll av fritt tillgängliga forskningspublikationer i öppna arkiv vid svenska lärosäten. Projektet Open Access utbildningspaket för forskare resulterade i ett webbaserat informationsmaterial, med syfte att samordna utbildningsinsatser och höja kompetensen om Open Access hos såväl undervisande personal som forskare och doktorander vid svenska lärosäten. Projektet Forskarmöten om Open Access innehåller i huvudsak tre delar: Arrangera seminarier om Open Access för forskare vid 6 olika svenska lärosäten från norr till söder. Uppdatera och säkra administrationen och fortlevnaden av webbinformationen på OAinformationssidorna (http://www.searchguide.se/oa/) samt att göra en parallellsajt på engelska. Att i projektet införliva ett urval av delprojekten i ansökningen Open Access Mediapedagogiskt nätverk. Seminarieserie Fem av de sex seminarierna har i skrivande stund genomförts vid svenska lärosäten från norr till söder. Det sjätte och avslutande seminariet kommer att anordnas vid Karlstads universitet den 18 februari 2010. 2 Samtliga seminarier har arrangerats som halvdagsseminarier för respektive högskolas forskare, doktorander och övriga anställda. De fem genomförda seminarierna har genomförts på följande platser och tider: Malmö högskola, 22 oktober 2008 Titel: Vetenskaplig publicering och Open Access - gör din forskning tillgänglig Program, presentationer och videofilmer: www.mah.se/oa08 1 http://www.kb.se/openaccess/projekt/avslutade/#utbildningspaket 2 Preliminärt program: http://www.kau.se/om-universitetet/aktuellt/kalendarium/4044 1

Mittuniversitetet, 20 november 2008 Titel: Publicera för framgång - Open Access och bibliometri Program, presentationer och videofilmer: http://www.bib.miun.se/publicera/openaccess/seminarium Seminariet genomfördes på plats i Sundsvall med videokonferens till deltagare i Härnösand och Östersund. Umeå universitet, 17 mars 2009 Titel: Open Access och vetenskaplig publicering, seminarium Program och presentationer: http://www.ub.umu.se/infosok/e-publicering/oa.htm Högskolan i Kalmar och Växjö universitet, 28 april 2009 Titel: Rätten till din forskning II Hur kombinera upphovsrätt, synlighet och kvalitet Program, presentationer och videofilmer: http://www.bi.hik.se/oa.htm Göteborgs universitet och Chalmers tekniska högskola, 5 November 2009 Titel: Open Access Open Science, synlighet tillgänglighet impact - citering Program och presentationer: http://www.ub.gu.se/konferenser/2009/oa/ Ingående beskrivningar och erfarenheter av projektet har diskuterats i två artiklar och en posterpresentation och därför hänvisas de som söker dylik information i denna slutrapport till dessa (Se referenslista). Open Access information I projektet OA utbildningspaket för forskare byggde vi en informationsplattform baserad på bloggverktyget WordPress Open Access Information (http://www.searchguide.se/oa/). Engelska översättningar av informationstexterna i denna resurs har genom det nya projektet lagts in på en nygjord engelsk parallellsajt (http://www.searchguide.se/oa/eng/). Sedan Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook - OASIS (http://www.openoasis.org/) började sin verksamhet förra året ser vi dock ingen anledning att driva den engelska versionen av Open Access Information vidare. Uppdateringen av den har avslutats. Vi hänvisar istället till OASIS. Sajtens tidigare gränssnittet har helt och hållet omarbetats för att öka tillgängligheten. Texterna har delvis uppdaterats. 2008 tillfördes läromedel om Sherpa/Romeo liksom en powerpoint presentation om DOAJ. Ett antal kortare intervjuer med NCSC-deltagare om OA-frågor, från vårens konferens 2008 i Lund har lagts ut på sajten liksom på Youtube.com (http://www.youtube.com/oascience). Sajten Open Access Information har blivit flitigt använd och i projektet ingick att starta en diskussion om hur den eventuellt ska kunna drivas kontinuerligt efter det att projektet är slut. Vad det gäller den svenska delen av sajten ser vi följande alternativ: 1) Införliva Open Access Information i en informationssajt om OA för forskare som en del i EU projektet Open Aire (http://www.openaire.eu/) där KB deltar. Innehållet överförs till KBprojektet som under ett antal år har möjlighet att vidareutveckla det. Det är dock oklart i dagsläget hur pass relevant detta är för projektet Open Aire. 2) Open Access Information sajten blir en undersajt på KBs webbplats. SUHF, VR och andra forskningsråd borde också finnas med som intressenter i ett dylikt alternativ. 3) Open Access Information sajten samordnas med Epublicering.se. På så sätt erhålls en gemensam plattform för samarbete och kunskapsdelning. Hur en sådan samordning skulle kunna se ut bör utredas, ev. inom ramen för ett projekt ev. initierat av det nya OpenAccess.se. I väntan på att något av dessa alternativ förverkligas läggs i den omedelbara framtiden inget nytt material till den gamla webbplatsen som dock hålls öppen för användning och uppdateras vid behov. Vi undersöker möjligheterna att de lärosäten som deltagit i projektet fortsätter driva tjänsten gemensamt om inget av de tidigare beskrivna alternativen realiseras. Om inget av dessa realiseras och en lösning med tillräckligt många deltagare för gemensam drift inte kan genomföras läggs sajten ner årsskiftet 2010/2011. 2

Open Access - Mediapedagogiskt nätverk Från den ursprungliga projektansökan Open Access Mediapedagogiskt nätverk har endast en del införlivats och genomförts inom projektet Forskarmöten om Open Access, dvs. idén om att producera filmer för informationsspridning om Open Access. Två videofilmer som på ett pedagogiskt sätt presenterar Open Access har producerats i samarbete med Annika Koldenius, Digitala Medier vid Göteborgs Universitet. Filmerna Open Access vad är det och Open Access parallellpublicering är enkelt! finns tillgängliga från Open Access Information och YouTube.com, samt från DelaLika kanal vid UR access: http://uraccess.navicast.net/(klicka på DelaLika) och OER-webbplats Digiref.se: http://www.digiref.se/(sök t ex "open access). Den ursprungliga planen på 3 filmer á 3 minuter övergavs under projektets gång eftersom kostnaderna blev för höga. Studien om tillgänglighet till OA-resurser i samarbete med TPB har lagts ner. Referenser Linde, P, Stjernberg H, Svensson A. Open Access at Swedish Universities and University Colleges: From Headwind to Tailwind? ScieCom Info Vol. 5, no.4 2009 (http://www.sciecom.org/ojs/index.php/sciecominfo/article/view/1813) (bilaga 1.) Linde, P. Swedish Researchers meet Open Access - Project Progress Report. ScieCom Info Vol. 5, no.2 2009 (http://www.sciecom.org/ojs/index.php/sciecominfo/article/view/1626) (bilaga 2.) Linde, P; Svensson A. Creating OA Information for Researchers. Poster at 12th International Conference on Electronic Publishing. Open Scholarship: Authority, Communcity and Sustainability in the Age of Web 2.0. Toronto 25-27 June 2008 Edited by leslie Chan and Susana Mornati, Toronto 2008, pp. 390-400. ISBN: 978-0-7727-6315-0. Karlskrona 100126 Peter Linde För projektet 3

Bilaga 1. Open Access at Swedish Universities/University Colleges: From Headwind to Tailwind? Introduction The great majority of researchers have relatively little knowledge of the advantages of Open Access and are still not sufficiently engaged in the possibilities of making their research more visible and accessible. The research libraries have, therefore, during the last few years as far as resources have admitted, in different ways and to different extents, worked to increase researchers awareness of Open Access. In this article we, who have participated in two projects with the purpose of increasing researchers knowledge and familiarity of Open Access, want to share some reflections and thoughts about our work to reach and inform researchers. Now when the projects are almost over some issues remain which there are reasons to think about. Have our information efforts within the projects had any effect? How can the research libraries continue to work with the spreading of information and increase researchers awareness of Open Access? Which are the conditions today to get the message across compared to previous years? In which direction does the Open Access wind blow at Swedish universities and university colleges? Background To strengthen and coordinate the education efforts of the research libraries on Open Access two projects, financed by the program OpenAccess.se of the National Library of Sweden, have been carried out from the year 2007 to 2009. The principal purpose of the two projects has been to raise the competence of librarians and instructing staff and to give support to information work to increase researchers knowledge of Open Access. Those who have participated in the projects are librarians at seven Swedish universities and university colleges. 3 The result from the first project Open Access Education Package for Researchers is available in the form of the Web site Open Access Information. 4 Here texts, PowerPoint presentations and flyers about different aspects of Open Access have been collected and made available for downloading and local adaptation. 5 With this education material as a base for further competence development we launched the project Researcher Meetings on Open Access. The purpose was to provide support to library staff at some Swedish universities and university colleges to plan and carry out seminars directed to the researchers and doctoral candidates at the local university or university college. 6 From the autumn of 2008 to the autumn of 2009 5 seminars with researchers as the target group have, therefore, been carried out at Malmö University, Mid Sweden University, Umeå University, the University of Kalmar in collaboration with Växjö University and at the University of Gothenburg. The remaining sixth seminar will be carried out in February 2010 at Karlstad University after the end of the project period. Via the project we have been able to offer financial support to, for example, invited lecturers but also support to the planning of programs and choice of lecturer. An important goal has been to make the seminars locally adapted and if possible engage local researchers as lecturers. 3 Blekinge Institute of Technology, Chalmers University of Technology, University of Gothenburg, Lund University, University of Skövde, Uppsala University and Växjö University. 4 Open Access Information, in Swedish: http://www.searchguide.se/oa/ and in English: http://www.searchguide.se/oa/eng/ 5 During 2009 the site had about 200 unique visitors per week from the whole world. 6 More detailed information from the projects is given in the article Swedish Researchers Meet Open Access Project Progress Report by Peter Linde in Sciecom Info 2(2009). 4

Apprehensions about starting seminars To build up an information site on Open Access is certainly something that demands a great deal of work, as it requires coordination and commitment from various participants and continuous updating, but it is hardly technically or practically problematic. However, we ran into quite a bit of insecurity when we tried to encourage and engage research libraries in to arrange local seminars for researchers. It turned out that there were quite a few apprehensions among the library staff. Several universities and university colleges declined the offer after some consideration. It usually depended on a fear of involving and inviting visiting lecturers to then, possibly, be facing the fact that no researchers would register or came to the seminar. Generally, there were bad experiences from similar previous seminars where none or only a few researchers had participated and there was a fear of repetition. Another reason was that people did not consider that they had time and resources for initiating and carrying out a seminar as there is not always enough staff who work with Open Access and digital archives in the libraries. In one case there were instead wishes for a seminar being arranged to raise the competence on Open Access within the proper library organization. We were unfortunately not able to accept this as the main purpose with the project is to have researchers and doctoral candidates as the target group. Seminars of success In spite of our apprehensions the first seminar arranged in the autumn of 2008 at Malmö University was both well-attended and appreciated with a majority of researchers and doctoral candidates in the audience, which made the subsequent seminar planning easier. This trend has then been maintained for the other seminars. Researchers and doctoral candidates have shown a great interest and participated in all seminars to a far larger extent than what we, from the beginning, had dared hope for. Most likely the success with the first seminar contributed to it being easier to interest new universities and university colleges in arranging seminars. Something that facilitated matters was also the ready program suggestion which could be used as a basis and inspiration for subsequent seminars. Size-wise the seminars have attracted 70-90 participants with a predominant share of researchers and doctoral candidates. All seminar programs have contained basic information on Open Access but have also discussed how citation and bibliometric analyses are affected by Open Access. At each seminar there has been one or several presentations of the researchers own experiences of Open Access publishing. Furthermore, there have been presentations on how to locally handle, for example, parallel publishing by means of the publishing system of the local university or university college. Links to the seminars which have been carried out together with programs, presentations and in some cases video recordings are available at the respective local web site of the university/university college: Malmö University: http://www.mah.se/oa08 Mid Sweden University: http://www.bib.miun.se/publicera/openaccess/seminarium Umeå University: http://www.ub.umu.se/infosok/e-publicering/oa.htm University of Kalmar, Växjö University: http://www.bi.hik.se/oa.htm University of Gothenburg: http://www.ub.gu.se/info/konferenser/2009/oa/ What was particularly successful? The reasons for the success with the seminars might be various. The most important is, of course, to offer a well-composed program with presentations and subjects that are of immediate interest from a researcher perspective. The program for the seminar at Malmö University was put together by the publishing group at the university college which consists of representatives from both researchers and teachers and also librarians. This contributed to both good quality and good attendance at the seminar. A good idea has been to engage one or several researchers as lecturers from the local university/university college. This provides an interesting angle of approach to one s own experiences 5

of Open Access publishing. Something that also works well and which is strategically important is to invite external lecturers from other universities/university colleges or research institutes. This shows that Open Access is not merely a local concern but in the highest degree something which is discussed at other university colleges both nationally and internationally. As an example it may be mentioned that Erik Svensson, Professor in Zooecology at Lund University, participated in the seminar which was arranged in Kalmar where he talked about his experiences as editor of the Open Access journal PLoS One. 7 At the seminar in Gothenburg two internationally invited lecturers participated, i.e. Dr. Salvatore Mele from CERN who talked about the SCOAP 3 project 8 and Dr. Virginia Barbour, Chief Editor of PLoS Medicine, Public Library of Science. 9 Another successful move was to begin all seminars with a general survey of Open Access where concepts and definitions are explained and where you, at the same time, explain possible misunderstandings. This gave extra emphasis to the presentation as we at several seminars had Inge- Bert Täljedal, researcher in medicine, previous Vice-Chancellor at Umeå University and chairman of the Steering Group for OpenAccess.se, as the opening speaker under the title Why Open Access Can be Said to be the Ideal Form for Scientific Publishing. In a pedagogical manner he conveyed basic knowledge of Open Access at the same time as he, from a researcher perspective, could explain the advantages of increased visibility and access to research results. The method of mixing things global, national and local in the programs, that is, to present Open Access both as a global concern and as a local and individual concern, worked well. In a global perspective more people can take part of the research as long as they have access to an internet connection via computer. The global spreading of results is like rings on water both for those who take part of the information and for those who have authored the publications. Locally, for the university college or university, you get a clearer profile of your research by making the material more visible. On the individual level the researcher may get more citations of her/his publications as these are made accessible and do not require a subscription to a journal in order to read the article or conference paper. It is therefore important to tie together Open Access publishing with issues which concern the evaluation of publishing and citation analyses. At the seminars these aspects have been illustrated by invited lecturers with competence in bibliometrics. Finally, we can note that a decisive reason for our seminars being well-attended is, naturally, hard work and commitment from library staff locally who have spent much time on marketing their seminars. Recommendations for new seminars Some comprehensive recommendations based on our experiences from realized seminars before the planning of new seminars on Open Access for researchers: Anchor the seminar locally: Plan a seminar in collaboration with researchers or other employees at the university/university college in order to jointly plan a program following the wishes of the researchers. Choose your point of time: Plan the seminar, if possible, in connection with a policy decision for Open Access or in connection with the launching of new services in the local publishing system. External lecturers to be helped along: Engage one or several external lecturers with experience of Open Access publishing, alternatively researchers with experience of academic leadership. Engage lecturers locally: Engage one or several lecturers from the local university/university college to talk about her/his own experiences of Open Access. Open Access and bibliometrics: Combine presentations on Open Access with bibliometrics and research assessment. Cooperate with other universities/university colleges: Facilitate and inspire the work by planning or coordinating seminars together with colleagues at another research library. 7 http://www.plosone.org 8 http://scoap3.org/ 9 http://www.plosmedicine.org 6

In which direction is the Open Access wind blowing at Swedish universities/university colleges? So what is then the situation for the research libraries concerning the information work which is carried out there today? Do we believe that it has become easier to inform researchers about Open Access? Well, certainly we can note that there has been a change and that it has become easier to interest researchers in the subject. Today Open Access is a relatively well-known concept for researchers and doctoral candidates and, therefore, raises interest and attracts an audience to seminars to a larger extent than what it did just a few years ago. The reason for this is probably that Open Access is mentioned in more contexts, in connection with publishing or in the scientific debate and thus not merely by the libraries. The fact that there are, furthermore, increasingly more requirements from grant donors for research results to be made freely accessible also contributes to giving the subject more emphasis when presenting it and also makes researchers, doctoral candidates and other staff interested in having knowledge about the development within the area. The details on how Open Access publishing works are, however, not equally well known, and therefore this type of seminars works as informative and elucidatory in matters concerning, for example, parallel publishing, copyright and increased visibility. New information work will definitely be needed for a long time to come at our Swedish universities/university colleges due to the position that the Swedish Research Council recently adopted in regard to Open Access as there is now a requirement that research funded by the Council needs to be freely accessible within 6 months after publishing. The requirement applies to researchers who receive grants via the Research Council s calls for proposals from the turn of the year 2010. 10 Even if not all researchers are directly affected by the decision, the Open Access policy adopted by the Swedish Research Council raises many issues which the libraries may help to answer via direct contacts or via seminars. Information campaigns are now needed on how to find Open Access journals, how to find hybrid journals; what it means, costs, and how you pay for Open Access publishing. How does it work to parallel publish in the local open archives and how can the researcher get help and support in doing this? Here are many new questions from the researchers that the libraries can help to answer. The expansion of the local publishing databases and the development of SwePub, a new national search service for Swedish research publications, is also something that has contributed to raising the awareness and willingness among researchers when it comes to contributing their publications. A majority of Swedish universities/university colleges have decisions today concerning compulsory bibliographic registration of research publications. Furthermore, the Swedish Research Council has shown an interest in using SwePub as a basis for national distribution of funds, which further increases the motivation to register one s publications. As researchers get used to entering information about their publications in the local databases this contributes to the conditions for also adding full texts. With the right support from the libraries this does not involve any greater effort from individual researchers. It is obvious that we have now entered a new phase when it comes to the work with Open Access. We have gone from what to how. From missionizing on what the Open Access initiative means we have reached a phase when we above all must concentrate on how to describe how you practically go about Open Access publishing. And here the libraries continue to play an important role. It is now a matter of not losing speed and instead making use of the occasion, to create contacts and cooperation with the researchers. The Open Access wind is growing. When we stick a finger into the wind it feels like a weak but still a clear tailwind. It is now a matter of intensifying the activities and of being prepared to hoist the spinnaker. Peter Linde Blekinge Institute of Technology Aina Svensson Uppsala University Helena Stjernberg Lund University/Ferring Pharmaceuticals A/S 10 The Swedish Research Council s web page. http://www.vr.se/ 7

Bilaga 2. Research Meetings on Open Access Project Progress Report Abstract Under ett och ett halvt år har representanter från 8 svenska lärosäten samarbetat i projektet Forskarmöten om Open Access, finansierat av programmet OpenAccess.se. Projektet ska vara genomfört senast vid utgången av 2009 och har som uppgift att via halvdussinet seminarier sprida kunskap om Open Access till svenska forskare. Detta görs också på webben via den informationssajt (http://www.searchguide.se/oa/) som utvecklas och administreras inom projektet. Den 5e november avslutas seminarieserien i Göteborg med en större satsning där vi lyfter blicken och försöker bjuda på några internationella utblickar. Föreläsare från CERN och PLoS är inbjudna och vi hoppas att detta seminarie tillsammans med projektets andra aktiviteter bidragit till en ökad medvetenhet bland svenska forskare om möjligheterna att göra sina resultat fritt tillgängliga för alla. The project Research Meetings on Open Access was initiated, with funding from the program OpenAccess.se, as a continuation of the successful project Open Access Education Package for Researchers (2007) i which, on its part, had its origin in one of the SVEP project work packages (2005) ii where the idea was to offer information about Open Access and local publishing alternatives foremost to librarians. Since then the idea of Open Access has gained a greater footing within the library world while the situation has been worse in regard to the document suppliers the researchers. Thence the title and the continued focus on researchers in the current project. Research Meetings on OA was initiated by a kick-off meeting in Karlskrona during the spring 2008. In substance the project contains three parts which will have been carried out no later than at the close of 2009: Organize 6 seminars on OA for researchers at 6 different Swedish universities/university colleges from north to south. Update and secure the administration and the continued existence of the Web information on the OA information pages (http://www.searchguide.se/oa/) and create a parallel site in English. Incorporation into the project of a selection of the partial projects of the application entitled Open Access A Media-Pedagogic Network. The Seminar Part At the publishing of this article, 4 seminars have been carried out. The two first ones were carried out at Malmö University, October 22, and at the Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, November 20, 2008. Both seminars were well-attended with a majority of researchers in the audience. This is how Jessica Lindholm, one of the organizers, reports from the Malmö seminar: Full room (ca. 75 persons of whom 13 persons were from the library world, the rest were researchers & doctoral candidates), good discussions, our rector attended the whole time and was active It feels great, thanks for initiating the whole thing through Jörgen s call to us a long time ago!. Presentations and video clips from the seminar can be found at http://www.mah.se/oa08. The program, presentations and a video from the Sundsvall seminar are available at http://www.bib.miun.se/publicera/openaccess/seminarium. The third and fourth seminars were organized at Umeå University on March 17 and the University of Kalmar in collaboration with Växjö University on April 28 this year. Here, also, the aim and direction 8

has been to try to raise the level of awareness of local researchers regarding the ideas of the Open Access movement. The seminar programs have been a mix of basic information about Open Access; testimonies of researcher experiences of OA publishing; discussions about how to locally manage, for example, selfarchiving by means of the institute s own publishing system; how are bibliometrical measurements affected by Open Access and vice versa. The programs have varied but Open Access has always been the keynote. The Grand Finale The fifth seminar is under planning and will probably be organized at the university college of Dalarna in the autumn of 2009. For the concluding seminar in Gothenburg the preliminary date has been set to November 5. The Gothenburg seminar is planned as a major arrangement with 1 or 2 internationally known speakers. It is, in the first place, Birgitta Stevinger at the University of Gothenburg and Maria Kinger at Chalmers who will be organizing the seminar on premises at the University of Gothenburg. In the project group we have discussed a preliminary program which will reflect the contents of the seminars that have been carried out throughout the country during the year even if we at this point are trying to lift our gaze and offer some international prospects. The working theme is: Open Access Visibility and Impact. Our hopes are to get Jens Vigen, director of the CERN library, to give a presentation, and also to be able to invite a representative from the PLoS. Open Access Information In the project OA Education Package for Researchers we constructed an information platform based on the blog tool WordPress Open Access Information (http://www.searchguide.se/oa/). English translations of the information texts which form part of this resource have through the new project been put up at a newly made parallel site in English (http://www.searchguide.se/oa/eng/). We have decided to keep using the WordPress platform as it is free and easy to manage. The earlier interface has been entirely revised to increase accessibility. The texts on the sites have been updated. It is now up to each project member to go into WordPress and make changes when need arises. Passwords have been distributed and the updating is now such a simple process that each and everyone can manage this. What remains is a discussion about how the site should be managed regarding continuous updating after the close of the project. This discussion will be held on a running basis during 2009 before a final decision will be made regarding how administration, updating and ownership matters should finally be managed. Teaching media on Sherpa/Romeo have been supplied lately. A PowerPoint presentation on DOAJ and Journal Info are now also available. A number of brief interviews with NCSC participants regarding OA matters, from the spring conference 2008 in Lund, have been put up on the site as well as on Youtube.com (http://www.youtube.com/oascience). A user poll was carried out in the autumn 2008. The result shows that the respondents throughout are fairly satisfied with the improvements that have been made in the interface. A statistics module was introduced on October 20, 2008. A look at the statistics barely 6 months later (April 16, 2009) shows that the Swedish Open Access Information site has had ca. 13,000 visits of which ca. 2,400 were unique visitors. Resources that are frequently visited are, among others, Goda exempel och länkar [Good examples and links], Vetenskaplig kommunikation en bakgrund [Scientific communication a background], Ladda ner PowerPoints [Download PowerPoints], Handledning Sherpa/RoMEO [Guidance Sherpa/RoMEO] but it seems, generally, as if most resources, such as texts, PowerPoint and PDF files, have been utilized to the same high degree. For the English site the numbers are somewhat lower. Ca. 8,000 visitors of which 1,500 unique visitors since October 20. Resources which are regularly used are The OAI-PMH Protocol and Search Services, Publishing in Open Archives, Introduction and Background to Open Access Journals and Good Examples and Links together with Download PowerPoints. About 200 unique visitors continuously per week has to be considered as okay given that we have not carried out any major marketing work. The fact that the project has achieved something that is really used, and not only by Swedes but by visitors from the whole world, is something that feels really good. Oasis! Initiated by, among others, Alma Swan, Key Perspectives and Leslie Chan there is now, at the University of Toronto in Canada, a project which to some extent resembles ours, with the attempt of building up an international information service about Open Access matters. We have contacted this sister project in Canada called OASIS via letters to Leslie Chan. In January 2009 he responded in 9

the following way to the question whether they had found any water yet: There is definitely water waiting to be unleashed! But as you noted, we have been working in the background mostly... The work with OASIS is in progress full steam. And it is an ambitious project based on non-profit work and donations. Presently they are working with the texts in the different sections. Leslie describes this work in the same letter: You will see the full list of content and topics that we intend to cover. The librarians section is more fully developed at the moment, followed by the researchers section. Clearly there are areas of overlap with your project and it would be great if we could share resources and cross-linking. As you will see the design of the site, we are trying to make the content more user specific, the assumption being that different communities have different motivation for engaging in OA and their involvement would also be different. If you go to our test site you will see what I mean: http://www.openoasis.org/test/. We will take contact again with Chan in order to follow up on the development and possibly see if we may offer anything within the framework of our project. Open Access A Media-Pedagogic Network During the course of the project it has proven difficult to live up to the goal of incorporating into the project of Research Meetings the partial project A Media-Pedagogic Network which formed part of the Open.Access.se application. Only the idea of producing 2 brief video films has been carried out. The films Open Access vad är det [Open Access what is it] and Open Access parallellpublicering är enkelt! [Open Access self-archiving is easy!] have been created in collaboration with Annika Koldenius, Digital Media at the University of Gothenburg. The original plan of 3 films at 3 minutes has been abandoned as the costs were too high. The two films are accessible from the Open Access Information site and from YouTube.com. and also from the DelaLika channel at UR access: http://uraccess.navicast.net/(click on DelaLika); the OER Web site Digiref.se: http://www.digiref.se/(search on, for example, "open access). The study of accessibility to OA resources in collaboration with TPB has been discontinued. The Drop and the Stone The awareness among researchers of open access increases daily but from knowing about the phenomenon to actively engaging is still a long step. With the seminar series and the information site we believe that we have improved the starting point for the researchers who want to give it a try and who want to invest in an open distribution of their research results. For Open Access to become a dominating publishing form it is required that, as number one, the researchers know about the idea and the possibility. It is here that our project has been useful and this is also the crucial point - constant dripping wears away the stone! Of course there also have to be guiding policy decisions from leaderships and authorities; tools that facilitate the actual publishing and national/international coordination of good forces. But this is something which we trustingly leave to other projects to deliver. What remains to be done in this project is to discuss suitable forms for continuous operation and updating of our information site for open access. This discussion will be brought up during the autumn 2009 which is also the period for the realization of the last seminar, which we hope will turn into a grand finale with internationally known lecturers and many visitors. Be seeing you then! Peter Linde Project participants Peter Linde BTH (project leader) Maria Kinger and Lars Kullman - Chalmers Aina Svensson - Uppsala University Helena Stjernberg and Jörgen Eriksson - Lund University Linda Sohlberg - Växjö University Thomas Lundén University of Skövde Birgitta Stevinger University of Gothenburg Mats Brenner University of Gävle 10

i Education Package on OA. http://www.kb.se/openaccess/nyheter/2007/utbildningspaket-om-oa/ ii SVEP - Samordning av den svenska högskolans elektroniska publicering [SVEP Coordination of the electronic publishing of the Swedish universities/university colleges]. Final report project 3,4 and 5. http://www.kb.se/dokument/bibliotek/projekt/svep_dp3_5_slutrapport.pdf 11